My husband and I have family throughout TX. For his parents, our son is the only grandchild. They are divorced and it seems that we have to abide by the custody agreement that my husband had to live with as a child. Every holiday involves driving ~8 hours (total driving time) and each of my in-laws will get their nose out of joint if we aren't with them at their pre-ordained time.

I get tired of meeting deadlines during what is supposed to be a break from the daily grind.

I know that it's wrong to lie about having plans just so you don't see family, but I am tired of living with their pettiness and I worry about what witnessing all the stress impresses on my son.

My husband is in agreement with me and we don't see any reason why we can't just have a Christmas as our little family of 3 (4 including the dog). But we just don't know how to say it to his family without the guilt trips.

Or is the guilt trip the only trip that's guaranteed during the Holidays?

I do not think that you are required to abide by the original child visitation agreement, assuming your husband is emancipated.

I agree with you about all of the travel and stress; and would opt to change it. Have you given any thought to have his parents come separately, perhaps one on Christmas Eve, and the other on Christmas Day? Explain to them that the stress is affecting the both of you; and then offer them some alternate solutions.

My plan is to not go anywhere at Christmas. I want to establish some traditions of my own with my daughter that can't be done when you're on the road every year. We'll visit my parents either the weekend before or after or they can come to my house. As a child, I spent just about every Christmas at my grandparent's home. Now that my grandparents are gone, it just isn't the same.

I would love to make that suggestion DQ, but both of them are still so stuck in staying where they are and us coming to them. If they were receptive to caring what the stress did to us, then my husband and I would try to talk to them.

The root problem is that they are ready to have feathers ruffled every year and both feel the need to express their dislike of each other annually.

(And is anyone ever really emancipated from their parents?)

Since they are his parents, and they are getting up there in age (late 70's and early 80's), my husband is the first to crumble. I was just hoping that someone out there had the perfect "Dear Abby" phrasing that I could use.

Just like WaldenSouth, we want to establish homefront traditions too.

Maybe I should just gift wrap you for their doorsteps to give them a poke in the a*#. That ought to jingle their bells.

Thanks for the understanding. I think that it would require a modicum from either of them to make any Holiday changes.

Must resist the urge to lie when all other methods fail.

Miss Chee, maybe you and your little family ought to start a new holiday tradition: go on vacation to a foreign place or an island resort.

Just like Waldensouth, my parents chose to stay home for Christmas. We visited relatives over the holidays. We had our Christmas, with Santa, at our home and that was the reason given. Santa came to "our" house.

We have been avoiding my family for years. They are LDS and we are not. When I was little they had the big family Christmas. My parents were never very comfortable with my Dad's family, they were always trying to get them to convert to their religion. Finally they said enough. We did our own thing, and if they wanted to come and see us on the holiday, they could, and they didnt.

Now, Christmas Eve, we go to my other grandmothers house on my Mom's side. We get a bunch of pizza and my cool Aunt and I drink Crown and Diet Coke. It's a lot of fun. Holidays should make you happy, not stress you out and make you unhappy---it's stressful enough without having to deal with family---do what you want to do and what makes you happy.

Ooo...that sounds too nice to even start fantasizing about. Going to Jamaica or the Virgin Islands to commune with Santa.

When my wife and got married we traveled 8 hrs (round trip to her parents) and 3 hours (round trip) to my parents. We spent a day or so at each place, as my work permitted. Once we had kids, we instituted a new rule. The rule was "We will still visit at whatever time we're invited, but we have to be home by our daughter's bed time. Santa Claus does not know where your live and our little girl will be crushed if she missed Santa."

I know that we used her to cut down on our travels, but it did begin establishing tradition. After 5 years, our families now respect that our 2 kids wake up at home. It really was a smooth transistion and in the end, I hope my kids have memories of home at Christmas, not memories of eating at a Cracker Barrel on exit 27 and counting license plates.

In the end, I believe your immediate responsibility is to yourself, husband, child, and of course dog. It is great if you can fit everything in, but Holidays are meant to be a time of reflection. My advice (without knowing all of your family dynamics) is to do everything possible to make Christmas a special day for your daughter and give her a legacy to pass on to her kids.

Out on a limb here......

Life is way too short to worry about pleasing everyone.
Sure you don't want to upset the apple cart, but Christmas is not just for them. It is for you and yours.

Christmas is on Sunday this year. Now this is just what I'd do.....


Why not call a month ahead, explain that you will not make the trip over the Christmas weekend. With visiting them and then visiting your parents, it makes for such a hectic time and you've decided to relax this year. This Christmas you are going to stay home. Offer them to come over or that tell them that you'll go up the weekend before. Then I'd do the same thing with my parents.

Yes, they may be disappointed, but if you stick to your guns they will probably get over it.

I agree with Granny. You are probably going to be "the bad guy" to them, but try not to let it bother you too much. YOU have to stick to your guns, otherwise, they will pull your strings anytime they can.

Maybe if they miss a Christmas from their grandchild, they will be more willing to move their butts and come visit.

I am sorry I don't remember if you said the age of the grandchild, but if he/she is a toddler or younger, it won't bother them as much as the grandparents.

My son is 5. What TNBanker says really resonates with me. So far I have only dreamt of what my son's reaction would be should he wake up in OUR home. We have always traveled more out of fear of what he might miss and I think that we have given him the wrong impressions of what Christmas is about (traveling, hotels, and clocking in/out). Now is the time for us to put our collective feet down on the matter since he is now at a point when he will really remember Christmas.

Besides, as long as we make the gesture for both of them to come visit us, since they hate each other so much we'll most likely have the Holiday to ourselves anyhow.

Aahh...I bask in the glory that is the grey area.

You've already gotten plenty of wise advice, which I agree with. The only thing I would add is that you are not responsible for the actions or reactions of his parents. Do what you need to do, and be honest with them about it. If they choose to react negatively or try to lay on a guilt trip, don't own it! Just make sure that they know that you will do what's best for your family, and if they want to whine about it, that's up to them - but it's not going to make you feel responsible for it. They may grumble for a while, but eventually they're going to have to deal with reality. They might actually try to find a way to work with you.

Good luck!

One other reason my family celebrated at home is that my parents led us to believe that Santa decorated our tree! We went to bed with an undecorated tree in the living room and woke up to a fully decorated tree with presents under it. My mother later said she had no idea why she put that added stress on herself! But it gave us many great memories.

As we got older, we were in the choir at church on Christmas Eve and Day. How could we do that if we weren't home?

Isn't it sad that the past X-Mas' have been so negative that I am worrying about this now?

We also used to travel to relatives for Christmas, then decided one year that we were staying home and celebrating Christmas at our house. Any family member who wanted to come was invited. We have had as many as 38, and as few as 11 come. But never has it been just the 4 of us, someone is always there.

FWIW, when we got engaged, we set up rules about holidays. We spend Thanksgiving with his family, Easter with mine, and we do Christmas BY OURSELVES. We do get a lot of pressure, predominately from his family, to bend that rule, since they live in town, but when we did so last year it was definitely more of a pain than it was worth, so we're going back to the basics this year. So, long answer to a short question, YES it is OK for you to set up a family tradition that is JUST FOR YOU and see them at other times. Granted, they're probably not going to love the idea, but if you and your husband are ok with that, then that's that!

I'm late to this particular clam-bake, sorry.

Once my wife's mother passed away, we began our own tradition of traveling over Christmas holidays to avoid all the family drama. What about my family, you ask?

Most of my siblings, and my mother, live 800 miles away from me. My mother will not come to visit (she's afraid of flying, driving over bridges and the ocean; I live at the seashore....) My brothers and sisters (with 1 exception) took it upon themselves to lecture me one Christmas that I was not 'gifting equally' among all my nieces and nephews, and they had tried to explain to their children why Uncle didn't want to give them as many gifts as he gave this one or that one. I thought for a moment (I needed the time to count to a large prime number), and said "I can fix this real simply. I don't send presents to anyone but Mom from now on."

You can relate Empress to the stress that over a holiday of having to drive from Austin to Houston, then back up to Dallas (for my Mother) can cause.

Hoo boy can I. Not a great time to be on the TX highways (why is it there is always some kind of slowdown in Austin???) At least going down to Corpus for Easter isn't a bad time to travel.

This year, I do have a good excuse for not going anywhere for Christmas - the Grasshopper will only be a few weeks old and it IS cold & flu season after all.... Now how to get out of Thanksgiving with the inlaws, that's the question.