Christmas

One of our DDs lives a long distance away in a flat and there is not room for us to stay, so we only see them at Xmas if they come down here to stay with another DD, who has a big house.

Both the DDs locally have two sets of parents also nearby so they sometimes find it hard to cut themselves in several bits in order to get round all of them. I have said that I do not want them doing that. What tends to happen is that we go to one of the DD's in-laws for an Xmas meal - in fact I do not enjoy this as the atmosphere is tense because of a very difficult FIL there. However we often go along with it in order to make DD's life easier, as I know she would find it hard to think of us being on our own.

The other DD's local family is huge so we do not expect a visit from them - they have quite enough people to get round!

Am I totally abnormal in actually not allowing the grandkids in the house on Xmas Day?!

We like a nice quiet grownup time on the day itself, with all hell breaking loose with them coming on Boxing Day, and staying for no longer than four days (please God!).

The journey to us is at least an hour and twenty minutes and it would be a waste to spend time on a motorway on The Day. And I am more than happy for the other GPs to go to theirs for the day, which gets that bit out of the way. We have two Xmas days really.

Works for us.

We have all of them one year and none of them (apart from DS1) the next year. But every year we do Boxing Day lunch on 27th for who ever wants to come. Usually most of them. We have no expectations of who would like to come at Christmas but, luckily, they enjoy letting me do the work

When it's not our year we usually invite someone else so DS isn't just stuck with us as usual!

DD and family have Christmas at home on their own. Then they go to DD's outlaws at some point during the holidays so that the kids can see and play with all their cousins. There are no cousins on my side of the family yet.

The reasoning behind the stay-at-home approach is to minimise over-excitement. Such sensible parents.

The outlaws live relatively close. We live a long way away. Visits in summer are much more sensible.

If it wasn't for Minibags being still at home, I'd ignore Christmas just as I ignore all other such days.

For lots of families it can be a minefield with lots of careful treading,but reading these posts and thinking back to my own experience and those of friends ,it was the previous generation, our parents, who often made life difficult with their demands/expectations. We have spent 2 Christmas's in the last 12 or so with my D the others we have spent on our own with our S popping in for an hour during the morning to exchange presents with the GC,notably,not his partner!! and we just do our own thing for the rest of the day. No pressure,no expectations,no problem.

We mix it up a bit too. Its very hard to motivate DH away from home on Christmas day - he likes it to be just us which sometimes I find a bit lonely but that's what we are having this year. I am however having a nice pre Xmas lunch out with tegan and partner and whoever else Gransnet wise wants to join us.

Since DH died I have had one Christmas away, one in Australia with DD2 and one at my home in Scotland with the other DDs and families. This year I am going between the 2 UK DDs in England. Life has certainly changed. We always had Christmas at our house and the family were always happy to visit. It is understandable that now things have changed, they all want to 'do' Christmas at their own homes with their increasing families. How the tables have turned ...I feel like a fish out of water..

My grandson (8) has already informed me that they will be coming to us this year, so grandad will have to make one of his big jellies for teatime! Whether he has discussed this with his parents I don't know! We do tend to take it in turns, but they know if they want to spend Christmas on their own, or with others, we don't mind. Last year we went to them as they wanted to invite one of SiL's relatives who was not very well and was going to be on her own. She was of an age with me so we had things we could talk about which made her feel a bit more at ease, as she is not a person they have seen all that much of over the years. My son and his wife always seem to want to come to us on Boxing Day, but they too are free to make other arrangements if they want. I do worry about the weather at that time of the year - hate anyone coming out in snow.

Our DD lives 5 minutes away so we go to them ChristmAs Day and they come to us Boxing Day. Our DS and family are now abroad but when they were here they also lived quite close so we would go to,them for Christmas Day evening and they would come to us Boxing Day afternoon. It does make it easier if they are close by, but we never take it for granted, I always ask Dd if they want time in their own.

We are just so lucky that both sets of grandchildren live locally. It must be a nightmare trying to please everybody when journeys, especially long ones, have to be made.

Both families have Christmas morning to themselves. Some time in the afternoon they wander over to us for Christmas Dinner at about 3.00(ish)

I do the main course and they sort out starters and pudding between them.

I wouldn't like to have to travel or for them to have to travel far with children, so proximity really helps.

Once we had children we stayed at home and people could come to us. We often had both lots of ILs together- it made things much simpler. I had Christmases at home when I was a child- you don't want to be travelling around the country staying in other people's houses when a child.

Lona, I'm with you in this. If they want to call by they will - with no pressure. I'm quite happy to slob about cosily, watching/not watching Christmas c* on TV.

After my two grandchildren were born and we started to help out, my daughter decided that Christmas was 'pay back' time and we go for the day and are waited on hand and foot while we play with the children. We have a couple of glasses of wine and stay the night.

I have recently said to her that, when she wants to stop this, just give us some notice and we will book a holiday abroad. We have a lovely time but don't want her to feel that she must do it.

I've spent many Christmases working/on my own because I refuse to expect my family to either visit or invite me. I hate duty visits.
It doesn't bother me really, as it's just another day. I know they love me and they come when they can, by choice.