Typically for Thanksgiving I go to my parents and hang with aunts/uncles etc with whom I rarely get to see. My wife goes to her parents and does the same.(she usually takes the boys with her).

She knows I really don’t care for her overall liberal family, and I know that they tolerate me only because of Jen. (Boy do I miss her dad, he was the lone sane one of the bunch).

Thanksgiving is pretty much a given now. Christmas is slightly more complicated but we are pretty good about alternating back/forth on when it comes to spending time with each other’s parents around Christmas.

Used to do it at grandpa's house. He's getting old and has passed the torch to his wife's daughter. I go every 2-3 years. Not the same as going to grandpa's. Her family is nice, just don't feel comfortable making myself at home. We also have done it at my house and in Boston with wife's family.

So we have no real routine.

In the 28 years my wife and I have been married I think we missed one Christmas day. It was back in 2000.
I had started a new job and had to work that day.
Back in the 90s I missed one Christmas morning. My fire department was dispatched mutual aid to a working structure fire in the next town over from ours.
Thanksgiving we missed a lot because my work days always included Thursdays. She would go to a friends house and bring food home for me when I was done working.

We spend both holidays together, but the day after Christmas my wife goes to Georgia for a week. I chose to stay home and get some things done. I'm in Georgia now, she comes down 4 times a year, I come down twice a year.

Not normally. We usually host thanksgiving here in FL but the last 2 years we spent christmas apart.

Our son is stationed in VA and my work schedule did not alliw me to go up there for christmas. It is more important to both of us to spend what time we can with our son's family (read grandkids) then to miss out just because the other one can't make it.

My job, compounded with my kids living with my ex wife, plus both my wife’s and my own families being scattered to hell and breakfast...holidays are more challenging then I’d like.

Currently scheduled to work 12 days straight around thanksgiving and two days off in the 11 surrounding Christmas...neither of them being Christmas Day...with no clue what’s going to happen.

I’d rather have the time with my family. And I love my in-laws, so them too. In fact, this year my wife will be leaving the week of thanksgiving to go to her parents’ house at the beach, while I’ll be left to work, with no time to see any of my family as it’s scheduled right now.

quote:

Do you and you spouse spend Thanksgiving/Christmas away from each other?

No

When we first got married we started spending Thanksgiving day with my parents this year and Christmas day with hers then the other way the next. Worked for years. No problems... no discussions. Everybody knew in advance what to expect and plans were made accordingly.

Only time wife and I have been separated on Thanksgiving and Christmas was when I was on advisory duty in Iran, back in 1961.

When we were stationed in Germany we spent both holidays with the in-laws. Both our parents are long dead and we have a very small family circle. Daughter and son in law, two grandsons, one of whom is married with 2 kids. We have virtually no contact with is wife or kids. She does not want it, and they are 5-6 hours away by car. Daughter and son in law are 5 hours away.

Last year we stayed here at home for both holidays, probably do the same this year. My brother and his family are 3K miles to the northwest.

When I was a cop, I spent too many holidays and special days away from my family due to my job.....no more...I have the time now to spend time with them and enjoy the days regardless if I'm at my liberal sister-in-laws houses (both of them are liberal, and their husbands too), or at my family's disfunctional home! :P drinking beer, my dad pissing outside cause he can, teaching my kid bad things, shooting guns, driving tractors...

Frequently. The airlines know no holidays, and the seniority rollercoaster has been a wild one in the 12 years we've been married.

We have a few times, early on, when the wifes mother was still living I'd be sure to fly her back to her home so she'd get family time.

But the holidays are at our house now, people come here, pretty soon we'll pass that on to the kids now that they have homes.

Thanksgiving.... Unless she comes to deer camp, the answer is obvious. Christmas has gotten almost too big with all the extended family but I wouldn't miss the grandkids at Christmas for anything. That means I have to spend it with the wife too.

We used to. Then we saw the silliness of being apart to appease our parents.

Always spend those holidays together.

for ten years now yes,

BUT we are spending this thanksgiving together
at my family reunion .
for the first time

Only when required for military duties (deployed 3x from Sept to spring, missing all the big holidays).

Then again we only travel tosee my left leaning family once every 5-10 years.

not really,

sometimes the wife will head to her mothers for the holiday, but usually we still see each other that morning, or if she goes early, I will drive down , or she will return early that day,

depending,

and that applies to both holidays,

this year she will go to her mom's and I will likely stay here for work (will she her in the morning) thanksgiving,

we started an every other year thing for Christmas,
one year we (usually travel together even if just for a day) we go to her mom's and the next we stay home (bourbon w/ a big English breakfast with friends)


this year is the stay home year

Not normally, but that may change.....

My older sister (childless) has been inviting herself to spend Thanksgiving at our house for the last several years. Drives my wife batty with her hours of poor, poor me tales about our family and her late husband's family and how none of her relations care a whit about her. Wife has threatened to fly to California to spend Thanksgiving with her sister if I play golf Friday.

Turkey Day together with my family but only because we live near my mom. Neither one of us finds travelling just for turkey all that appealing.

We spend Xmas apart save the year we got married and the year her dad died when I went to her parents house. She goes down the coast to see her mom and sisters and I stay home with my family. I'd be ok alternating but she doesn't want to so no big deal.