Help with the holidays!?

Question

My Dad's parents are divorced (grandpa's house is a 2 hr drive there and 2 hr drive back and my grandmothers is 1 hr there and 1 hr back), my MIL and FIL are divorced. My MIL family is divorced as well. My FIL does not get along with his family, so that is one stop at my FIL and at my FIL family (1 hr there 1 hr back). Oh and I never have time to see my Mom's side of the family. That is at lease 5-6 stops a holiday! And a lot of them live 1-2 hours away! I have thought about having holiday gets togethers. But my Dad has made some comments about spending it with my husbands family...my Dad's family is weird like that. How do I see everyone?! What should I do and how do I not making anyone angry!? P.S. It is overly exhausting.

Sorry that this is a repeat of the last question I asked but I was really confusing with the first question...thought this one was a little better asked.

Answer 1

mabe u should work out a schedule so that u dont visit every one on one holiday try or even not all in one day hav a holiday week so u can see ur cousins and not immediate family around a holiday not on it
Easter week-dad's side
Christmas-husbands fam
thanksgiving-mom's side
summer vacation- every one during different times (of course only if u hav off)

Answer 2

Sounds like a difficult situation! It's probably not possible to make everyone happy, so don't make that your goal. The best thing you can do is sit down with your husband and decide which family members it will be most important to see on which holidays. At this point, you may need to limit your holidays to just your parents and his parents. As children grow up and have families of their own, it is normal for holiday gatherings to change quite a lot -- the siblings or cousins who always spent Christmas together twenty years ago now have their own children and grandchildren to spend Christmas with. If your father-in-law doesn't get along with his family, then perhaps you can arrange to visit them at another time instead of during the holidays.

For example: Perhaps you can spend Thanksgiving with your dad's father and mother (only 2 stops), Christmas Eve with your mom's family (1 stop), and Christmas Day with your father-in-law and mother-in-law (only 2 stops). Then the following year, you can switch it around so the people who got to see you on Thanksgiving now get to see you on Christmas.

If you still are sad about not getting to see everyone, perhaps you can make a tradition of hosting a day-after-Thanksgiving or a day-after-Christmas dinner at your house; invite whatever side of the family you did not get a chance to spend that holiday with.

I hope this helps! Good luck sorting all this out and best wishes for very happy holidays this year!