Knowing that tomorrow evening Ryan, Sadie and I will be off to my mother-in-law’s for a long holiday weekend has me feeling way too excited today. Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday of the year (Christmas is number one) and my mother-in-law’s Thanksgiving Day brunch in Sarasota is always filled with the best food and a lot of family fun.
This will actually be the first year that I don’t see my parents on Thanksgiving. My family and Ryan’s family used to live about 45 minutes apart when my parents lived in St. Pete so everyone would get together and we’d see both families. Now that my parents are living in Jacksonville, our families are four hours apart and my parents won’t be making the drive to Sarasota.
It will be strange not to have them there, but my sister and her boyfriend will be there to represent my side of the family. Leslie lives in St. Pete and has to work on Friday, so a four-hour drive to my parents’ place in Jacksonville twice in one day on Thanksgiving would be a little much. Leslie and her boyfriend are planning on staying at my mother-in-law’s with me and Ryan for the long weekend like they did last year and I can’t wait! We’re doing the Turkey Trot again but haven’t given our costumes too much thought just yet. Last minute planning!
Breakfast
Breakfast this morning began with a blueberry LUNA bar.
My stomach felt a little off yesterday and I awoke without much of an appetite, but about an hour later, I made myself a batch of steel cut oats with milk, banana, egg whites, vanilla protein powder and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Question of the Morning
- If you’re coupled up, how do you decide where to go for the holidays? Do you bring both sides of the family together? Alternate holidays between the families? Do your own thing?
For our first two years of marriage, Ryan and I were lucky enough to be able to bring our families together, so this holiday season will be quite different for us!
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Thats awesome that you will at least get to spend Thanksgiving with your sister! My fiance unfortunately has to work on Thanksgiving this year so I came home (Both of our parents live near each other- 3 hours from us) to be with my family. I’m hoping he will get Christmas off, but we’ll have to wait and see on that one!
I couldn’t imagine a Thanksgiving without my parents, but it’s nice your sister will be there!
This will be my boyfriend and I’s third holiday season together and we live together in DC but our parents are both in upstate NY. They live super close but when we go home we both are crazy homebodies because we never see them (6 hours to DC). We have yet to combine. Marriage would be the only thing that could drag my from my parents on Thanksgiving or Christmas : )
That is my thought too! I wasn’t willing to give up Thanksgiving with my parents until we got engaged. Now, I’ll miss them, but I’m sort of excited to start my own tradition. Hopefully they will join us one year!
ryan and i always woke up in our own parents’ houses on christmas morning until we got married. 🙂
We’ve only been married for a couple of years now, and so far, we’ve been able to work it out. His parents are in Ohio, my mom is in Florida, and we’re living in Atlanta. So this year, we’re driving to Ohio for Thanksgiving and then flying to Florida for Christmas. And since we’re going to be in Florida anyway, we’re also planning a little “baby-moon” in Marco Island. 😉 Can’t beat that!
We spend all holidays with my family by default because we live within 10 miles of my family (Berks County, PA – which I’m sure you know). My husband’s family lives in Pittsburgh, so we see them less often. But we’ve invited them out to spend the holiday with us, but they said no (but that’s another sore subject all together).
Our parents live within 10 minutes of each other (we grew up in the same town) so we have always dropped by both houses on Thanksgiving and Christmas. We usually spend the morning/early afternoon with my family, who tends to eat earlier and then make our way to his house for late afternoon/evening. Unfortunately, he and I both moved across the country this year and decided not to go home, so this will be his first Thanksgiving away from family! We will be flying back for Christmas, though.
For Thanksgiving, we are lucky because my family celebrates the weekend before, so we spend Thanksgiving Day with my husband’s family. Christmas however is a different story. Our schedule is crazy. We go to my dad’s, grandma’s and sister in law’s on Christmas Eve. Then wake up and do our Christmas, then go to my mom’s then to my mother in law’s. Then sometime around the holidays, we meet up with my father in law and then go to my other grandma’s. It works, but it’s crazy and hectic.
It can be tough… I wish we could be everywhere at once! 😉 Both my husband’s and my parents live in Arizona and we’re in Utah, so we do Thanksgiving in AZ one year and Christmas in UT, then vice versa the next year. Fortunately our parents only live within about 30 minutes of one another in Arizona so we spend half the day with each when we’re in town. Fortunately this year, my parents decided to travel out here for the Thanksgiving holiday this week! I’m so excited! We’ll be going down to AZ for Christmas, and I’m sure it’ll be a whirlwind of fun!
Nathan is actually working through this holiday and the weekend too. So we are just going to hang out together. I think it will be kind of nice 🙂
Not married but alternating seems like the fairest option! Will u be spending Christmas with your parents?
yep! that’s the plan!
Thanksgiving is always a complicated subject with dividing it up with our families. I cannot stand conflict. I love to cook Thanksgiving and have been doing so for the past few years so I’m doing it again this year. 🙂
We will try to split out time with both families, but it’s easy for us since we all live in the same place right now! My BF’s parents are divorced so we have to find time for 3 holiday celebrations each holiday, which makes it tricky. And my family is pretty small so they’re really flexible on celebrating holidays a week later so we can celebrate with my BFs large family on the actual holiday.
My husband and I spend one holiday in Arizona with some of our family and then the other in Colorado where we live with some of our family. It can be a pain, but it seems like the fairest thing to do.
For the first 4 years me and my husband were together, we went to both sides of our families for Thanksgiving! Talk about feeling full! The past two years, we have lived in Florida, so we haven’t made it home. I miss my family, but not that feeling I get every year. This year, it is just the two of us, and I’m making just our must haves from each place. That way, I’m not eating a bunch of other stuff 🙂
Safe Travels!
It’s great that your sister feels close enough with your hubby’s side of the family that she can celebrate with you guys! For me, I just got married last summer, but we started sharing holidays with each other last year. Our families live four hours away and have separate traditions, so they don’t get together. Last year, somewhat inspired because of convenience, Kevin stayed with my family for Thanksgiving. And then since we were engaged by Christmas, I traveled home with him for Christmas. We had a mini early celebration with my family and opened some gifts before we left. This year we swapped it. So I now will be heading to his family’s for Thanksgiving and we will spend Christmas with my family!
Eventually years in the future, we will probably stay home for Christmas because we both want to establish our own family traditions when we have kids. But for now, this traveling arrangement is working out perfectly!
this yr we will be with my family and we already decided next yr we will go to Indiana to visit his parents. Christmas will be the hardest for me because it is my favorite holiday and I love being with my family, this yr we will be apart for christmas but I hope its the only yr we will be apart for it!
Hey Julie! Love your blog-this is my first time visiting you! The holidays can be tricky when you’re in a relationship, but still loads of fun! My husband and I usually spend one holiday with his family and one holiday with my family. Our families are also 4 hours apart, so making the drive in the midst of all the hub-bub would really suck the fun out of things! This year, we are spending Thanksgiving with his parents, which is always a really good time! I am one of the fortunate people of the world to have married into a wonderful family, and can honestly say I love my mother-in-law! Probably sounds crazy to some people, but it actually does happen! It sounds like you have two wonderful families in your life, so you probably know just what I mean! I hope you have an amazing time, and I wish you safe travels tomorrow! BTW, I will visit again and often-your blog is super cute!! 🙂
thank you so much for stopping by!
Just wanna say, you and Ryan are my favorite couple of all time ever.
Haha. 🙂 True story.
Josh and I haven’t really had to deal with that yet. We’re engaged this year and he’s at home in CT with his parents for Thanksgiving and I’m in PA with mine because I have to puppy sit for my parents when they go on a cruise the day after Thanksgiving. I’ll be spending Christmas and New Years with his family in CT. His parents are bigger on the traditions than mine are so I think we’ll probably celebrate with mine at a non-holiday time (they just want to see us) and then do holidays with Josh’s family.
My husband and I just moved to Alabama and his family is in Minnesota and my family is in Pennsylvania. We are staying here for thanksgiving because we dont have enough time to get up to either family. But we are going to MN for Christmas this year, my sister in law is having a baby in January so it will be fun to be there for his first Christmas.
We did talk about having both our families meet in TN for Thanksgiving one year which would be really fun!
I live in London with my boyfriend now so unfortunately I can’t travel back and have Thanksgiving with my family so I make sure to have one here! We take turns with his family for Christmas and luckily it’s at his sisters house in New York City this year! My mom only lives 4 hours away in Marlyand so luckily I’ll get to spend some time with her too 🙂
I love those Turkey Trot costumes. Every google search for costume ideas landed on your posts about the Thanksgiving races. Holidays are still tough for me with splitting between my parents who live in Louisiana, and my husband’s parents who are divorced and live in Alabama. I think for Christmas we had 6 or 7 different events to go to in multiple states and it was strange not to spend all the holidays with my own family. We switch off Thanksgiving and Christmas now so that we only have one state to conquer for each holiday. It’s hard but I always try to remember that we have so many loved ones so even if we are running around like chickens trying to get to everything – it’s worth it in the end.
So, I think I’m about to use your comment section to vent a little. haha! my husband and I (married 5, together 8) are still figuring out what to do for Holidays and getting in trouble from his family while doing it. We have always gone to my Dad’s for Thanksgiving, he has always been closer (until this year-we both moved) and with it being a shorter break for us, it just made sense. Because that is the way it has been, Thanksgiving this year will be with him again. Christmas has been a mess. We have spent a couple Christmases with his family, but most with mine and this is why we get in trouble. Christmas with his family involves us waiting until 3pm to open presents while my sister-in-law goes to visit her in-laws. It is awful… there is no real Christmas morning… just waiting. So we have been going to my family’s for Christmas and then his family for New Years. His family doesn’t do anything special for Easter, so we have had Easter at our house. I know it doesn’t add up! But I have excuses! slaps wrist… bad daughter-in-law. Oh and just one more thing… his sister-in-law and family hadn’t visited us for 3 years before last weekend, because we lived 8 hours away. So, we have always had to do the driving! Okay… I’m done!
I’m not married, so I don’t need to juggle time between two sets of families over the holidays yet. Well, sort of. We still have family disagreements over whether to spend the holidays with my mom’s side or my dad’s side of the family, would you believe it? It’s crazy. Thanksgiving brunch sounds like a great tradition, have a wonderful holiday!
I can totally relate to this. My fiance’s parents used to live in the same city as mine, so when we were in the dating phase of our relationship one of us would always go to the other’s home following the big meal. Now that we’re engaged and his parents have moved to North Carolina, things are a little trickier. I’m lucky to have tomorrow off from class/work, so I’m heading home tonight to get some quality time with my family. He’s driving in tomorrow evening after work and then on Thanksgiving morning (bright and earrrrrrly), we’re making the 8-ish hour drive up to NC to spend the holiday weekend with his folks. Whew! I’m tired just writing that. Much easier when everyone lived within 30 minutes of each other, but we’re making it work!
my parents moved to phoenix a year ago (i live in nebraska), so it’s weird not being able to have holidays with them. believe it or not, flights from freezing cold nebraska to sunny phoenix are quiiiiite expensive! 🙂 luckily i have family here to spend it with. my boyfriend and i (4 years) have yet to spend a holiday together, waiting until we get engaged/married.
The whole family & couple situation is what I despise & stress over during the holidays. It’s hard because you don’t want to leave anyone out, so we usually end up stressing & trying to see BOTH families, separately. Our Thanksgiving will start with brunch out with my parents & sis, then my husband & I have to drive over to his side of the family, which does a much bigger thing & meal. Luckily, we don’t have to eat again, just visit, quick, then back to my family to pick my sis up. Crazy. LOL Makes me miss the simplicity of when my husband & I lived in FL last year – no family for thousands of miles! 😉
We’ve been married for 4 years and have only spent 1 Thanksgiving with my family. All other holidays have been with his family. It’s because of his work schedule and the fact that my parents live 8+ hours away. It’s always been hard on me but this year I am doing better. We are moving into a new house soon and will be hosting Christmas Day at our house. And hopefully my parents can visit before Christmas. One day we will return to Texas for my family’s traditions but until then I’m determined to gave the best holiday season of our marriage thus far.
It’s SO hard living so far away from your family. I’m not quite as far from mine, but still, it’s 5 hours and I don’t have a functioning car right now, so we’re a one-car family. Trust me, I know how you feel. Sometimes I just get SO sad that I can’t see my family. I try to look at things like I’m making my own family here with my fiance and his family, and someday soon we’ll have kids. It’s just really hard because I’m super close with my family and I miss them SO much sometimes.
Just wanted to let you know that I feel your pain!
My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost 5 years, and we have yet to spend an actual holiday together! His family lives in Massachusetts and mine in New Jersey about 5 hours apart (and we live in Connecticut, about an hour from my parents), so we end up separating for the actual holiday. I think if we were married that would change, so if that day comes, I guess I will be in the same situation, having to decide whether to go to one place or the other!
Yes! Split up while you’re dating and then alternate when you get married. This is my first year alternating, and it’s hard, but I’m glad I didn’t sacrifice any holidays while we were dating, haha.
I am lucky enough to have both my parents and my in-laws within 10 minutes from our home. So we get to spend the holidays with both sides of the family. On Thanksgiving weekend (ours is on a weekend in October here in Canada), we have one dinner with my parents and one with my hubby’s – the same goes for Easter weekend. Then for Christmas we alternate Christmas Eve and Chrstmas Day dinners with each family. For example, last year we spent Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day dinner with my hubby’s. This year Christmas Eve is with his side and Christmas Day is with mine. Works out great!! 🙂
My husband and I have been doing the holidays together since we moved in together about 4 or 5 years ago, now. His mother has a BIG thanksgiving and it’s “her” holiday, so we travel to our hometown to go to that every year. My husband is Jewish so we go to my family’s Christmas celebration and have our own Hanukkah celebration in our house. Having our parents be different religions makes most holidays easy to divvy up!
Our families have always lived far apart and initially, it was too far to get to my family for Thanksgiving. So it was a natural split of his family for Thanksgiving and mine for Christmas. And it has stayed that way over the years. Now that we have moved, we are STILL traveling to be with his family for Thanksgiving. I am excited to not have to travel for Christmas.
The Kidless Kronicles
I loooove spending the holidays with MY family (and Weston doesn’t really mind if he misses some if his) therefore we always spend most of our time that day on my side and just make an appearance at his.
It’s my only once-a-year, “Awww honey…I don’t ask for much…”
We usually go to my husbands Aunt’s house for Thanksgiving and his mom as well as mine all get together over there. They love to cook and do it well so that works out best for us. They all live in the same town but we travel about 2 hours to spend the day with them.
As for Christmas, if our families want to spend it with us, we make them come to our house. We have two kids and they deserve to wake up in their home and play with and enjoy their gifts so that is a tradition I am not willing to budge on. Maybe when they are older and no longer believe in Santa but for now, this is how it is!!
I’m so excited to that I actually get to go home this year. I live in Philadelphia but am orginially from Mississippi so it’s not close! My boyfriend decided to do Thanksgiving with his family in DC so we won’t be together but it was definitely worth it to see my family and go back home. Haven’t been home in a year!
I love this post, because I’m feeling so much better about not making it home very often. I sometimes wake up racked with guilt that I haven’t been home in X months or whatever. It’s just comforting to know I’m not the only one.
I suppose the one good thing about living in TX is that my boyfriend and I have no problem navigating the holidays. We’re doing Thanksgiving here in San Antonio with his family and we’ll leave here on December 21, stop at his mom’s house who lives in Dallas for one night, and continue on to Kentucky where we’ll spend a week with my family. When your families live 1,200 miles apart no one expects you to attempt spending holidays with both.
This will be our first married thanksgiving! I actually wish we had more trouble figuring out where to go for holidays. My family is in Australia so we go back to New York for thanksgiving and then Christmas is usually spent with my sister and friends in Tahoe. This year though, Chris’ family is coming out to tahoe for Christmas too! Family time two months in a row, hooray!
Oh holidays, why are you so complicated and difficult….my husband and I have been married for a year and a couple of months but have been together for almost 8. My in laws are those who plan things at the last minute, which drives me insane, and, therefore, makes things complicated. I don’t think we have had a regular schedule for Thanksgiving but it seems to alternate somewhat between our families. We have never combined both families together before and I don’t think it would work too well. Christmas has always been Christmas Eve with my in laws and Christmas Day with my family, but for some reason my husband was hoping to switch it up this year. I don’t think it will happen since my in laws are so last minute and my family plans so far ahead of time. It is just so hard and complicated and we both feel bad if we don’t go to one or the other. The other hard part of it all is that our parents live 5 minutes from other, but we don’t want to leave the other to go to the other. I almost wish our parents lived far away from each other, because then we would have to attempt to split our time.
Brandon’s parents are separated so every holiday we have to juggle three different gatherings. They’re normally all on the same day, and one of his family parties interferes with my only family one so he will either miss one of his or we separate for one. :/
I’m very lucky that both my boyfriend’s parents and mine live within 30 minutes, and get along great! They actually have lunch together when we aren’t even around! Spending time with family is so important to both of us, and having both of them there makes it that much more special!
My ex last holiday season tried to control everything so it was all about his family.. but usually in relationships we would see both, which I think is better 🙂
Sadly I am not coupled up… haha so I’m going home. But my brother and sister-in-law share holidays, they go to Springfield, IL to see her half sister and her brother for Thanksgiving since it’s her favorite holiday and then they come to Kansas City for Christmas with us, since that’s a bigger deal in our family. It worked out well for them. Of course their dog, Molly, comes too!
I’m doing a turkey trot, too, but no one dressed up last year; it looked like a normal race–you couldn’t even tell it was Thanksgiving! I want to wear a costume this year, but I also don’t want to be “that girl,” so we’ll see. 🙂
Thanksgiving is my very favorite holiday, so I woul dfeel weird to be without my family on that day. Even though I live cross country now, I always fly home. 🙂
Christmas is my favorite too so we spend that with my family in Maryland (4 hours away). We spend Thanskgiving with his families on Thursday & Friday where we live. I like it best this way!
benefit to mixed religion is it is pretty easy to go for thanksgiving at my mom’s and christmas with his family (and my dad whenever it fits….)….
That’s awesome that your sister and her boyfriend are able to stay with your in-laws.
Right now, we visit both families on the holidays. My parents and my husband’s parents only live about 5 minutes apart and typically hold their celebrations at different times, so there hasn’t been much conflict. I have a feeling that years from now, when we have kids, we’ll want to pick one family per holiday — or have them come to us — just to make things easier!
We’ve spent the holidays with my family for the majority of our four-year relationship. This year, we’re celebrating engaged! My family is pretty traditional with a big Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas Eve celebration. His small family doesn’t really do traditional dinners on Thanksgiving or Christmas eve. If it works out, we do both, if it doesn’t I like to spend the holidays with my ever moving out-of-state family.
His family is closer, and since we don’t get much time off for Thanksgiving we go there, but we end up seeing them a lot more during the year. My family is all the way across the country so we make the trip out there for Christmas and make a long vacation out of it!
My boyfriend and I have not yet spent thanksgiving together (this is our 4th Thanksgiving as a couple). Out families live 12 hours apart (sad!), and up until this year, we’ve both opted to spend that day with our own respective families (we figure we don’t have to worry about choosing until/if we choose to get married). This year, it’ll be my first year without any of my family members on Thanksgiving. At first I was okay with that, because I know that I’m so lucky to have such a loving family in my life at all….but I will admit I’m starting to feel a little sad. BUT, regardless, I’m excited for Thanksgiving 🙂