Yet another way in which people baffle me.
I do not understand adults with families who go “home” for the holidays. I am absolutely excepting young adults and single adults here because I do understand that — but if you have a spouse and especially if you have children, why on earth do you spend time fighting over whose family you are going to spend Thanksgiving and/or Christmas with? I’m serious, can someone explain that to me? THIS is my home, THIS is my family, and as much as I love the family I grew up with they can bloody well come here if they want to spend the holidays together.
Is it different for people who live geographically close to their parents? Our parents are almost 3000 miles away and in three separate states so it would be RIDICULOUS to even try to see everyone. We’ve gone to Will’s parents’ home for Thanksgiving a few times but I really do prefer staying here and I can’t imagine feeling obligated to do otherwise.
Please un-confuse me.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:05 am
For Thanksgiving, Tom and I had pretty much settled into our own routine, but for Christmas, I insisted on going home to my parents’ house.
Mostly because my brother and sister were always going home (and my sister was still at home for the early years of our marriage, so I kind of wanted to be there for her) and it was FUN and RELAXING.
Now that we’re so far away, I doubt we will all be together for anything anymore, so I really treasure those memories.
Also, Tom can be kind of a humbug about the holidays, so, any allies I have in the services of holiday cheer are much needed.
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November 24th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Well, I don’t understand the whole family guilt trip thing, where people pressure their adult kids to come see them. But I must admit that I’m looking forward to spending the holidays with my family for the first time since I moved to the US.
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November 24th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Jess, I think you’re onto something. Perhaps I am not baffled by adult kids wanting to go “home” (I am definitely baffled by continuing to think of your parents’ house as home, though) but by their parents expecting it. My parents have always encouraged me to do whatever I please while making it clear that I am always welcome, and I always assumed that all parents are like that. But I was so wrong.
November 24th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I go back and forth on this from year to year. Some years, I just want to stay put and not travel. Others I just can’t wait to get out of town and be with family. My parents don’t live where I grew up so it is not going home as in a specific location but home in the sense of being with family. I guess no matter how old we get our parents are still our home. It’s hard for me to imagine that my baby will leave my home someday but I know that when the time comes for her to leave my home I hope that when she returns to visit she will always feel at home no matter where I live. On the other hand, I do hope that some day I have an actual house large enough to fit in lots of relatives for holidays so that everyone can come and make my house their home for that time.
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November 24th, 2008 at 10:48 am
In the three households that make up my immediate family, since Malina turned 2, we usually assume that Christmas will be spent at Gillian & Mike’s. Last year it ended up being at my place, but only because MGM were up in Oregon before Christmas & flew back into LAX on Christmas Eve, so it was easier for them to stay overnight here on the way home & not have to deal the work of Christmas. But unless MGM are away, we figure Christmas will be spent at the house with the child. Other holidays are more up-for-grabs, but we generally defer to MGM’s wishes, on the theory that happy kids make for happier holidays ;-).
November 24th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Pretty early on in our relationship, Rich & I settled into a pattern of spending Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine. And now my dad comes down to Thanksgiving with Rich’s family in Fresno, so we are able to see everyone in the immediate family on one of the major holidays. It’s so rare that everyone is able to get together, so I actually like it. And my family has come out to spend Christmas in LA, but our place is too small to actually be comfortable, and no one has the ready cash to be shelling out for a hotel. Hopefully, we will one day have a place big enough to have the family here. But until then, it’s not such a big deal to travel (especially since everyone is in extended-driving distance).
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November 24th, 2008 at 11:31 am
ok, I’ll re-type, as my last comment seems to have been eaten.
I don’t feel obliged to go anywhere. I like visiting our families for the holidays. We established a routine early on whereby we visit Rich’s family for Thanksgiving and my family for Christmas. Our families have come to LA for various holidays and functions, but our place is too small to be comfortable hosting many people. One day, I hope that we’ll have a big enough place to host a holiday, but until then I’m ok with traveling.
Of course, our families are in CA and AZ—extended driving distance—which makes the visiting much easier. If there was flying involved, I’m sure I’d be much less likely to visit every holiday.
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November 24th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I am chiming in as the voice of the parent. I hope my kids don’t feel pressured to come home for the holiday, but I am happy that they do. I am now a grandmother who has wonderful memories of holidays at her grandmother’s. All my cousins and my brother and I had so much fun together. And now, it is special to see my grandchildren play together and make a mess out of my house. I enjoy the cooking and baking and having my grown children and all my grandchildren together under one roof. I hope to be creating the same wonderful memories for them.
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November 24th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
For me personally, I tend to assume that I will go to my Mum’s or she will come to me for Christmas. (Yeah, I know I’m in your excepted group but I do have a pretty long-term partner, even though we’re not engaged or anything.) She’s my family and that’s it, really. I assume that in years to come, this tradition will continue. It’s a 2 and a half hour drive back to Manchester from here, and I know that in US terms that makes it just down the road, but it feels like a long way from my mum, sometimes.
That said, we do now have bunnies, and it’s getting more troublesome to take them with us. They are not outdoor bunnies so they can’t just go outside in the depths of winter, and the last time I took them home, Flora had a try of my mum’s wallpaper. (Thankfully she did not decide to try the lamp or TV cables.) Children, at least, tend not to pee on the carpets while you’re out.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I can understand it if your parents’ house is a communal gathering place. When my father’s parents were alive, we would always go there for the holidays, but also there would be my mother’s parents, aunts and uncles, and lots of cousins. So it wasn’t just my father going to his parents’ house (although it kind of was) it was more that everybody was going to be there.
Now most of those people are dead, so it really doesn’t matter. We actually have yet to settle into a satisfactory new arrangement, in part because my mother totally suffers from this syndrome you describe. She gets annoyed whenever my sister refers to her own house as “home.”
November 24th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
What is it about your posts that get me to write on and on and on? I have to say, it’s nice to have something to run and put on my blog this month [grin]. So, if you’re really interested in all I had to say about this topic, you can go read it there.
I will say though, that I’ve never thought of going to my parents for the holidays as going “home”. I’m going to my parents’ house. And I’m going because I want to, not because I’m pressured or feel obligated (although, I’m sure my mom would be upset if simply CHOSE to not go, luckily, I don’t see that happening). Actually, it’s only Christmas Eve that my mother would be upset about. We’ve missed spending other holidays with them and she’s fine with that.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
For me, Thanksgiving is inextricably bound up with Connecticut, cold weather, crunchy leaves and as much family as can cram into one house at one time (this year: 8 people plus babies, with more trickling in and out all weekend.) When I was a kid we all gathered at my great aunt’s house; now we all go to my mother’s. It’s tradition, that’s all. No further excuse needed or wanted. But no hard feelings for those who can’t/won’t come, either.
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November 24th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Hmm, it is a bit confuzzled in my head because we moved back to the Okanagan before we had Malcolm. So prior to that we were in the exempt group, and now we are a family-family but we are five minutes from my mom’s so of course we go there.
If we were still eight hours away? Would we bring Malcolm down or would everyone come to our house… hmmm… Well, I can say that all things being equal we would all be together. There are my two sisters, my bro-in-law, my parents, my jim and malcolm. We would all be together for Christmas pretty much no matter what.
When Jim’s parents were still alive my mom made a point of letting us know that she understood if Jim and I went there for the holidays. But I have always wanted to be at my parents’ place. And that home is my home. It is where I grew up. I can settle in there in the blink of an eye.
And to put it in perspective, my one sister has just spent upwards of $3000 to fly home from Papua New Guinea for Christmas. It is just something about how we are- we really want to be together.
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November 25th, 2008 at 6:44 am
We live within a two hour drive of all of our parents and don’t have any kids yet. All of our parents are divorced later in life (mine after 25 years of marriage, his after 35) so our childhood houses are both long gone, meaning that our home is definitely “home”. That said, since everyone is so close to us, we make an effort to see them all around the holidays. This year I have cousins from New York and BC visiting, so we’ll do Christmas Day dinner in Hamilton with my Dad and extended family. Fred’s Mom and sister and family are coming to our house for dinner on the 26th. We’ll fit my mom in closer to her birthday (the 21st) and Fred’s dad in sometime after Boxing Day.
I grew up travelling to visit family. My Mom, Dad and I would have our own Christmas on the morning then go off to family. My traditions include driving around Southwestern Ontario, so that’s what we’ve continued, but I’m always happy to go home when we’re done. :-)
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November 25th, 2008 at 9:23 am
[...] Annika wrote this post about “going home” for the holidays and that combined with moving reminded me of how my aunt Sue asked someone about some pictures of a house they were showing at a family gathering once – she asked, “Is that your home?” [...]
November 26th, 2008 at 6:43 am
For us, my family is about a five minute drive away, so it’d be kind of odd if we didn’t join them for holidays. We’ve tried to make it over to the UK for Christmas, but haven’t managed it since we got married (next year it WILL happen!). Ideally, we’d like to go every other year… it’s not an obligation thing, at all, though. I love his family and love spending Christmas there. And as a bonus, I get to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Specials on actual Christmas.
I was talking to my mom last night and something funny came up related to this. She was going over everyone who would be there and the people who wouldn’t and she said that an aunt and uncle were going up north to see their son and daughter-in-law that moved up there this year, so they wouldn’t be at dinner. I replied, “Well, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, anyway,” as they’re Seventh-Day Adventists (I think… some religion that doesn’t celebrate holidays). And she said “Yeah, well, I didn’t know that for the first 5 years we were married.” Apparently, when Aunt and Uncle lived in Georgia and parents lived in Miami and grandparents lived in North Central Florida, Aunt and Uncle always came to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then when Aunt and Uncle moved to North Central Florida, they stopped coming. When mom asked them about it, they explained that they didn’t celebrate it, but the holidays were always just a good time to see everybody, so they came anyway.
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November 26th, 2008 at 6:48 am
My family is geographically concentrated, like within a 30 mile radius concentrated. I think it’s a lot easier to spend part of the holiday with family, so it’s not as big a deal. With Christmas, it’s our tradition to spend Christmas Eve evening with Mom’s side, Christmas Day evening with Dad’s side, and reserve Christmas morning for just us. We only ever spend a couple/three hours at a time with extended family and then have the option of going home.
It might be different if the travel involved several hours of driving instead of a few minutes. Then it becomes a function of how intwined the concept of family and holidays is for you.
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November 26th, 2008 at 9:09 am
My mum is adamant that it shouldn’t be an obligation and that we shouldn’t get into a routine about where we spend Christmas. That said, she’d be really pissed off if we didn’t see her at some point over the Christmas period. However, that is in the context of my living about 30 miles away and seeing her a couple of times a week anyway.
This year, we will be spending Christmas with my in laws. I have to say, I love it. I didn’t to begin with, the traditions were different and certain persons forgot that I was there and I sat whilst they gave gifts to everyone except me. Now, I’m part of the family. I belong there and I love Ro getting to spend time with all the people he loves. It seems strange to insist that if they want to see us, they should come here. All of mUrt’s family live within 10 miles of one another. We couldn’t put them all up here and there would be issues with the animals. It just seems obvious to go there when we want to spend Christmas with them. Of course, even my in laws are only a couple of hundred miles away, so that probably makes a difference.
It is possible that next year I’ll have to deal with long distance family (Charly and Guy might be moving to SA for a few years), but we’ll see what that’s like when we get to it.
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December 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
My Jewish partner is celebrating her mother’s birthday on Christmas day with their family tradition of a trip to Atlantic City. As a religious Anglican, I just can’t bring myself to forgo church on Christmas to spend the day gambling, but as my family are in South Africa, and I can’t afford to go there this year, it means spending the day alone. I’m dreading it.