Family Gatherings

This week is Works for Me Christmas Edition. Well, it seems I jumped the gun and posted my favorite Christmas tip, Four for Christmas, a few weeks ago. If you didn't see it, it is about what we buy our kids for Christmas.

This tip, though, is about how we handle family gatherings. When my husband and I first got married we tried to attend all the family Christmas gatherings. This included, one with my parents and siblings, one with my husbands parents and siblings and one his dad's family and one with his mom's family. A typical holiday went like this. Christmas Eve afternoon with my family including Christmas Eve service. After the service we went to his parents to have Christmas. Christmas morning, brunch at Grandma's with Tim's dad's family, Christmas afternoon dinner with Tim's mom's family.

I know some people thrive on the busyness and the people. I am not one of those people. By Christmas night, I was tired, grumpy and very annoyed. We said we would do it until we had kids.

Then Kellen was born. Somewhere along the line we started doing Christmas with his parents between brunch and dinner on Christmas day. My parents moved out of state so that also changed when we got together with them. We didn't cut anything out. We were still trying to do it all and trying to squeeze in Christmas morning with the kids before brunch. I don't think it changed until Nolan (our third) was born.

It is hard when you are newly married or new parents to figure out how you become your own family. When should you make new traditions and when should you stick with the old ones? We enjoy spending time with all the family, but felt like Christmas was getting out of control. It was becoming a blur. We would rush from house to house ripping off paper, giving hugs and loading the car. Something had to change.

It has been a gradual change. And we still don't have it all figured out yet. First, we decided that Christmas morning was all ours. We wanted to spend time with the kids. We want them to enjoy their gifts, to actually be able to play with them before we are jumping in the car. Sometime around Christmas or New Years we get together with our parents and siblings.

It is more complicated too because now we are four hours from Tim's family. We don't get to see everyone for Christmas anymore, but we do try to make sure we see them at other times. For example, we don't make it to brunch, we do stop into see Tim's grandma when we are in Ohio and we go to the family July 4th picnic too. We also get to spend more time with people when we do see them.

Planning Christmas is a little more complicated now. Every year about this time we break out calendars to start planning when we can all get together. This year my side will get together the first weekend in January. We will talk with Tim's family over Thanksgiving (they are coming down.) I am looking at the weekend before Christmas, since Christmas is on a Monday this year.
But we always know Christmas morning is for us and our kids.

I like spreading out the celebrations for a number of reasons. We get to spend more time with each part of the family. We get to enjoy and not feel rushed around. Celebrating some after the first of the year gives me more time to get it together, especially the homemade gifts! Also, we have gotten some great deals on Christmas presents by shopping after Christmas.

Family is important, but sanity is too! This is what works for us !