I may have mentioned this once or twice (or approximately one hundred billion times, but who’s counting?), but I live 500 miles from my parents. This equates a painfully boring 8 hour car ride or a really expensive and inconvenient flight to a major city 2 hours away from my parents’ home. Which explains why we just returned home from our first trip back home since Christmas…..and yes, it’s the end of July. I swear I’m not a horrible daughter. I blame it on the insane speed of time these days which of course, makes me an old hag who complains about how everything moves too fast, blah blah blah. I accept it because I am SO that girl right now.
Now, I am fully aware that 500 miles is not an impossible distance and our hellish eight hour car ride through the most boring of all landscapes does not win me any sort of award. Plus, having Nate’s parents live underneath us might negate some of the extreme distance from our other set of parent. But living this far away from my family has definitely posed a few special challenges in our newlywed lives that would not occur if both of our parents lived in the same state as us (ahem– hint, hint, Mom). I’m quite certain that some of you readers encounter some of these same challenges and I’m writing today to get your feedback and advice, from one displaced newlywed to another.
For those of you who live far away from one set of parents: how to you manage holidays? What about regular trips back home? Do you plan those out in advance or just wait until you can’t stand it anymore?
For those of you who have my ideal set up, with both sets of parents in the same exact city as yours (lucky ducks!): what are some of the hidden challenges with this situation? I’m sure it’s hard to manage holidays for different reasons, if both sets want you to stop by in the same day. Do you feel pressured to spend a lot of time at each house? I can see how that might be less than perfect at times. I suppose no situation is perfect with this one and it definitely depends on the parents, too.
For me, I’ve relied heavily upon blogging (duh!), email, and the almighty cell phone plan to stay connected to my parents. It works for us beautifully but one long weekend with face-to-face contact always trumps a few long phone calls, for sure. And Mom’s homecooked meals win out over a heart felt email anyday.
Thanks for input, fellow travelers. And now, unpacking calls.
Twitter: @http://www.twitter.com/Laurel16
I live in texas, my family lives in California. Holidays are split between the families. Some times I go by myself, sometimes we go as a couple. We don’t have kids yet so we don’t have to worry about that…yet. Has your family traveled to visit you? It goes both ways! It takes some getting used to but it all works out.
Twitter: @honeysucklelife
We alternate Thanksgiving/Christmas with my family (they live 10 hours from us) and his family (they live 45 minutes from us). But now we’re moving to Central America so holidays are out for both families.
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Twitter: @EthidiumBromide
I consider myself to be in the perfect situation… 2 hours from my parents, 3 hours from my MIL, and our parents’ homes are 2 hours apart. An ideal little triangle — far enough way that nobody will randomly drop in just to visit without planning out a few weeks ahead of time, but close enough for weekend visits and we can hit up both houses in a weekend if need be.
My problem comes from my husband’s unwillingness to EVER be away from his family for a holiday. This is even WORSE this year when he LIVES IN HIS HOMETOWN (we are in a long-distance marriage for a few years), and he STILL will not give up holidays with the people he sees MULTIPLE TIMES PER WEEK. He only gets Thanksgiving Day off this year and not Friday/Sat/Sun, but he refuses to go to my parents’ house to celebrate Thanksgiving and my father’s 60th birthday because it would mean giving up his family Thanksgiving (note: the past 7 years we have been together, we have done Thanksgiving with his family and visited my family later in the weekend; he has never given it up before). But, since he refuses to compromise, I will be doing Thanksgiving with my family on account of my father’s birthday, and he will be doing it with his family. Even though we live apart. And could actually see each other and spend time together. Yes, I am bitter and angry and should have listened to my mother’s advice to not marry a momma’s boy!
My boyfriend and I are highschool sweethearts and have been together 8 years now. One of the things I dread the most every year is holiday time. Both of our families live in the same city. We however have moved cities for school and now live a couple hours away. Christmas is the worst though since because we no longer live in the same city (and cant come back that often) neither family is really willing to “give up” any moment of time they can spend with us. It sounds like a sweet and positive thing but here how the couple days end up breaking down for us. Due to work we can’t go home before Christmas Eve. So when we get into town Christmas Eve we are met with a big dinner at my parents place, afterwhich we have to make an aperance at his family’s friends place – as is tradition. Christmas lunch is back at my parents place followed by Christmas dinner with his family. Than there is boxing day (the day after Christmas), well that’s back to his side of the family and than we have to head back home and back to work. Needless to say that in the span of 3 days we are eating 4 HUGE meals (not including snacks, drinks, sweets and leftovers) and we end up leaving the city completely exausted and unsatisfied as we feel we’ve not spent enough time with anyone in particular, let alone time to enjoy the holiday with each other. Plus it’s always a fight with our families as to whose house we will stay at. So while I know no situation is perfect there are definielty times when I wish we could only make one family per holiday.
My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 years and holidays are definitely a challenge. We both come from divorced parents and all of them live nearby. So when it comes to holidays we have four different places to decide from. One Christmas we tried to go to all four, dividing them between Christmas eve and Christmas day. We were exhausted by the end and haven’t it done it that way since. So now we inevitably disappoint someone (usually more than one). Its hard but we’ve had to learn to compromise and ignore the sad faces. We always talk about looking forward to when we will have our own house and a family and everyone will just have to come to us.
My husband and I just moved to AZ from IL where we both grew up. The holidays for the most part hadn’t been an issue while we were dating, or since we’ve been married. Christmas Eve we usually spent with his family in the evening and mine on Christmas Day. That is the way both of our families have always celebrated so it worked out great for us. My husband only gets off Christmas Day, and he also works over the weekend. Needless to say he is usually working the holidays so when we lived in IL, I went to my family’s holidays solo. He would usually come meet up where ever I was after he got off work and made an appearance at his parent’s if they were doing something. This year will be a whole other story. Since we moved, bought a house, I got laid off and just started working again for a $20K less salary than before our money is tight. We hadn’t planned on flying back to Chicago this year since we just moved in April, and quite frankly one of the main reasons we moved was because of the crappy weather so neither of us really wanted to go back and visit in the winter. We were planning on going back next summer some time if we have the money. Well, that did not sit very well with the in-laws that we were not going to be home for the holidays (the MIL has already flown out to AZ for a week long visit). Since my husband managed to get vacation over Thanksgiving we told his parents they were welcome to come here for Thanksgiving for a few days. Some of my family have been talking about flying out for Christmas. Since we had a destination wedding in Mexico and everyone had a great time, we have also talked about doing a big family trip somewhere instead of celebrating the holidays as a big group and exchanging gifts. If both your families get along that could be a good option for you, and a way to go somewhere new.
We live less than a mile from DH’s family, and mine is about 20 minutes away. Luckily, our families seem to respect our boundaries and privacy! Unfortunately, though, both of our parents are divorced and since we’re so close we are expected at family holidays. We went to eight Christmases in three days this past year. Stressful!
We live 2979 kms from both our parents (which is a 4hr plane flight or 3 day drive). We have managed to compromise on christmas most years, Having said that every time we go home we seem to magically spend more time with his family, They even have the disrespect to not be where we ask them when we ask them. For example last time we were in a hurry to see everyone one last time before we got back on the plane and we said to them the night before that we would go and see his dad in hospital in the morning, then come home and say good bye, then we were going to my sisters to say goodbye to my family (abt 2hrs away) no one was home, we had to wait around for them for about an hour and to top it off one of his brothers even asked me why I wanted to go to Ballarat (where my sister lives). I ended up seeing my sister for the total of abt 1/2 an hr in a total of 1 week, and I was waiting around for them for an hour………. thankfully the next time we go home its all about me!! my sister has just become a first time mum and my grandmother turns 80 so we will be spending most of the time with my family, and if they complain then its bad luck!!!