I LOVE THE F'N HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have to share the family gatherings and traditions with in-laws and out-laws now and eliminated arguments and hurt feelings by being the ones that are "flexible". Once my kids moved out we told them we expected they would start developing their own traditions and that we'd change up as needed. So we still do many of the same things but it may happen on different days or different homes and nobody feels guilty or has bad feelings....at least not with the wife and I. I still can't get over how some folks can take the joy out of the holidays by demanding things stay the way they were for decades and/or laying on the guilt. I'd love to have my kids, grandson and the grandogs all to ourselves Christmas morning but what kind of butt wipe would I be to start shit and attempt to deny the other grandparents/families that happiness and memory making. Maybe announcing we would be flexible and change up from the start made it less likely that the extended family wouldn't be willing to compromise .... or maybe we're just lucky.
For decades we had (and still have) traditions like having Thanksturkey at our house where I make the turkey, tarragon stuffing and gravy from scratch. Doesn't always happen on Thanksturkey day anymore. Everyone has "their" dish and/or chore to contribute that they got stuck to. For Christmas the traditions are still putting up the tree, breaking out the ornaments that we have accumulated (One new ornament every year with the year and some special memory engraved on it like baby's first Christmas). Listening to that same old Elvis Christmas CD that my wife fell in love with almost 40 years ago and still makes my skin crawl. Ugly pajamas, truck loads of cookies, Christmas dinner and that honeybaked ham.
Extended family wants to do XYZ at their house...no problem...we'll do ours when convenient, join them or both. At Thanksgiving dinner we take turns saying what we are grateful for that year and one of mine was "How thankful I was for how the holiday dinner table was filling up because I enjoy spending time with everyone seated at it and not everyone is that lucky".
One of the things that really gets to me is how so many of the traditions we started with our babies are now being passed down to theirs.
Shit...I gotta stop writing this before I really start tearing up. My vapes ain't waterproof.....