NWR: Thanksgiving ... oh the joys of a merging family. What do you do?

My family is out of state. This is easy. But technically I have three families to worry about. My ex-husband's plans (since we share custody of my son), my future in laws, and my mother (I don't count my father lol).

Most people do that whole rotation thing: christmas at one, thanksgiving at the other, then switch.

I pretty much refuse to have Thanksgiving dinner anywhere but my grandmother's house. She's 76 and is still cooking Thanksgiving dinner and it's amazing. I figured I probably only have a couple of years left with her cooking Thanksgiving dinner, so I simply refuse to do anything else. H came with me last year and prior went to his aunt's house. This year, he'll be coming with me and afterwards we'll go to his mom's house.

Once my grandmother can no longer host Thanksgiving dinner, I will take it over and host.

I say if his parents don't mind go to your sisters. You've gotta plan what's best for you and him year to year. Even if that means staying home and doing it alone.

Our parents live half a mile from each other in the same town. Last year we weren't even engaged yet so we decided to do turkey day with each of our own families and then met up later. This year...I'd like to just have everyone at one place but I don't think it's going to work out. I think we might be doing two dinners, one early afternoon and one later. Oy! I don't even like Thanksgiving food and am not looking forward to trying to eat two meals.

We are really lucky and have it easy at Christmas. His family traditionally celebrates on Christmas Eve so we can go there, celebrate, spend the night, and then head to my family's celebration location for Christmas day.

Thanksgiving hasn't been one we've had to worry about yet.

Three years ago we celebrated apart because we were kind of in one of our not dating but dating periods, so we each went to our own family's place. Two years ago my family celebrated on Friday because my sister's in-laws couldn't do it on Thanksgiving Day so we were able to just have two days in a row of Thanksgiving. Last year we hosted so both families came together.

So this year is the first time we have to actually choose. I really hate letting people down so I'm probably making a bigger deal of it than it actually is. DH's parents are very accommodating and understand that their children have their own lives now. They told us to make our plans and they will go with the flow and do what needs to be done to see as many of their kids as they can - but if they can't see everyone then that's the way it is.

Unfortunately, his sister is a bit more "the whole family needs to be together" as is my sister ... so it's more about making them happy if we can. I think this year it'll work out to go to my family's especially with new baby and all. His fam should understand I think ... but I'm hoping in future years they'll just let us continue hosting!

We are going to alternate Thanksgiving between the families by the year. His parents live 20 miles from us and my parents live 6.5 hours from us. I'm not sure what we are doing this year, but we will start rotating after that.

For Christmas, we are going to spend time with both families. It may not actually be on Christmas, but close at least.

Thanksgiving with my parents, because it's a big deal for them and DH's family doesn't have established traditions. Christmas with his family because it's huge for them and my parents don't celebrate Christmas. That's this year, anyway--we haven't been up to see my parents since the wedding, so it will work out well. We'll see what we do in future years.

We both have divorced parents, so we basically have four sets of parents. But we all just trade off and take turns where we can. Fortunately, we all live in the same state.

My in-law's live in another state so this year my family is coming to our house for Thanksgiving. Christmas day will also be with my family but we'll fly to his family on 12/27 for the week and celebrate New Year's with them. I have a stepdaughter so we also have to work around the ex-wife and her schedule, they typically rotate holidays but will split the day if both are in town. Next year we may rotate and go to my in-law's for Thanksgiving.

Edited for clarity

Everyone comes to our house. We have the most space so after we bought the house I said okay, lets merge the dinner on thanksgiving at least. This is our third year of doing it. I wanted to murder people last year (last minute cancellations - really pissed me off) but whatever. More leftovers.

Christmas we spend the morning with his family at his brothers house (the only 'baby' in the family is my FH niece who is 11) and then the evening we spend with my parents for dinner. We don't plan on having kids so I don't think this particular set up will ever change. If for some reason I had a lobotomy and we were all about the babies, christmas day would be at our house and I'd likely order chinese food for dinner.

We are hosting for the first time ever. We typically go to his ex-girlfriend's house (baby mama), but we're both kind of over driving up there all the time, so we told her she can come to us. Perhaps she'll keep her sanity in check, and not spit in anyone's face this time, too. (true story).

We also have some friends coming over who are like us with no family in town. Sometimes you make your family.

Haha...in my case I have the Wedding Thanksgiving weekend and just haul everyone together. In the future we will do what we did last year...which is Thanksgiving at one house on Thanksgiving Day and Thanksgiving with the other family that following weekend.

We spend Thanksgiving with my family and then switch off Christmas every other year since my family is in CA (as are well, but 7 hours away) and his is in Hawaii. It makes it easier.

I put way more pressure on myself than my family puts on me. We haven't celebrated Thanksgiving with my family ever because his family has a tradition of going bowling on Black Friday. We actually just decided that we would go to my brother's house instead.

Its hard because my parents and his dad do not put a lot of pressure on us but his mom definitely does. She lives in TX and when she comes to the area to visit, she really wants us all to drop what we are doing to see her. It gets really, really annoying.

Every year we head up to my family the night before Thanksgiving and Christmas and leave by noon on the actual holiday to come to his parents house for dinner. Luckily for us it's only 2 hours to my family and his parents live in the same town we do. Unfortunately though both sides are really holiday happy and freaked out last year when we decided to stay home for Easter and the 4th of July to spend time as a family with just the 3 of us. It was a much bigger deal than it should have been.

My family is 45 minutes from us. His family is 3 hours from us in another state. We don't like my family, so we go to his family for holidays. The excuse we tell them is that since my family is so close and they all celebrate everyone's birthdays and holidays (Memorial Day, 4th of July, etc.) that we will see his family on big Holidays because they are further away and we will see my family on other, regular occasions.

Small Thanksgiving dinner at my house with my parents and his Dad. Big Thanksgiving dinner with my family at my brothers house (he is recently married too and his wife was dying to host) the Saturday after.

We are from two different states and our families live 8 hrs apart, so there's no way we'd be able to see both! We decided to do Thanksgiving with one family and Christmas with the other. We started it last year- luckily we have cousins who bit the bullet years ago and we were able to just fall into their rotations. It really sucked last year (I didn't get to spend Christmas with my family ) but it's part of the sacrifices you make when you merge two families. Now, when we have kids it'll be a whole different issue!

My parents are a plane ride away, as is my sister (or 11 hrs in the car for her). His are 1.5 hours away. We are doing Thanksgiving with them & Christmas with my folks. We'll celebrate early/later with his parents. Next year we'll switch to keep it fair. My family's not huge on Thanksgiving but since he's an only child, we want to keep the holidays even.

His family is in Texas, mine is in Canada and we are in Oklahoma. In all honesty, we are so happy this year because we are not spending any holiday with anyone. Canada is too expensive of a trip to make too frequently. last year we did thanksgiving in Texas and a few days before Christmas we were in Tennesee with his dad's side of the family. I love his family and obviously I love my own but we have our own home and our own little family (just us and our dog right now) and I would much rather it be just the 2 of us starting traditions together. Both families are cool with it! Maybe next year we will travel again.

My sister and mom live close (like less than a mile), so the issue always just who will cook, cause none of us are traveling cross country (where my dad and in-laws live) for a short holiday. Most Christmases we stay home, just cause we hate traveling.