How do you decide on which in-laws to visit during the holidays?

Both sets of grandparents live near us. But we end up trading off Thanksgiving and Christmas every other year. My sister lives in another state. She comes either Thanksgiving or Christmas to visit us every holiday season and she switches it every other year. And since she has a big family we always meet her at my parents vacation home. The vacation home is about an hour and half from our house (and the other grandparents)

Not really or choice. My sister pretty much makes up the rules and we have to go by them. But honestly it works out O.K anyway.

And as far as sole custody- that is scary. I would want my parents to take our daughter (and one on the way) but their health isn't that great but they have the finances necessary. Then my husband's parents are in pretty good health, but their finances are not great. They have never been good at planning financially.

We are just hope our best friends get married soon so that we can ask them to take sole custody of our children if necessary. Neither my sister nor my husband's brother would be ideal parents for our children.

Well, since my parents divorced when I was little I now have three different families to do Christmas with. Since my mom is basically just her by herself I invite her with my husband's family but she doesn't really like that because they all speak Spanish and she doesn't. We never celebrate the actual day with my dad and siblings. This year will either be the day after or the day before. When I do celebrate Christmas with my mom alone just me and the kids at her house for a few hours on Christmas eve and then with my husbands family the rest of the night. They throw a big part with lots of food and don't open gifts until midnight. Thanksgiving varies. This year the kids and I went out to Colorado River in AZ with my sisters and just had fun. Other years we celebrate with my husbands family and invite my mom over. My dad goes to Las Vegas every single year for like the past 20 years with his girlfriend.

Since my relatives all live 250 miles from us, and his are so close, plus some other factors involving his job and not having much time to travel over the holidays, I usually go to my family's gatherings and he goes to his. It's a choice you have to make together. I would say that if it's possible, you should try to see as much of both sides of the family as possible during the holidays.

As far as custody if you both die, you should choose someone/a couple that you are both comfortable with. Choose people who have experience raising children successfully so you will be happy knowing they will do a good job with yours if you're not around.

Well, we don't have the holiday problem with our children because we don't celebrate- but when I was younger- my mother and father switched each year between the two of them. Thanksgiving with my mother, Christmas with my father- next year, switched. If you don't do thanksgiving with the extended family, just use christmas. Switch between the two. This year your family, next year his. Or vice versa.

As a constant worrier, my husband and I had a long talk about who would get our children if something happened- and we talked about who would raise them better. It's hard because you tend to be biased against your own family, because they raised you okay, right? But, you really have to think about every aspect and what would be best for your children and look at your parents flaws and still decide. It's not easy, but it's possible.

Hope I helped a little.

Holidays are the hardest believe me! Me and my husband decide where we are going ahead of time. This year we did Thanksgiving with his family and are doing Christmas with mine. And the next year we will switch. We live closer to his family so we will be doing Christmas early with them, and actual Christmas day with mine. It works our better if you live really close to both set, because then you can make a point to celebrate with both of them days before or after the actual holiday. But the best to do if you have to travel is to switch each year.

Good luck

We would only visit the relatives that we feel comfortable. If we couldnt decide (or they live too far away), we would spend it together as a family without the relatives.

As for deciding who would get custody... tricky question. I have no idea...

i cant answer the part about children, because we dont have any yet, but we decide where we go on holidays based on where we went the year before. the first year we dated we went by his mother for christmas so the next year we went by my reletives. and so on for the rest of the holidays. that way everyone gets to see us on all holidays at some point. this year got a little screwy because we were supposed to go by my family for thanksgiving but his grandmother died Nov 3 so we felt it was important we go to his family's thanksgiving instead

WE are lucky enough to live fairly close to both of our families and they are nice enough to have christmas on different days. We spend a couple days before with my mom and a couple days after with his. My cousin does the every other year thing though and that seems to work for them but this is what works for us.

It helps tremendously to have sets of parents who are of different religions and nationalities. It's kind of a foregone conclusion for us with one set of Christian American parents and one set of atheist Eastern European parents which set of parents it makes sense to visit for which holidays.

As for custody, both of our sets of parents are too old and have too many medical issues of their own to take on our four kids. Our siblings, sadly, have major medical issues as well, so there really aren't any good options for us on that front. Short of living forever.

I stay in Virginia and that i surely desire to bypass to Hawaii. Virginia is alluring too with the blue ridge mountains, VA capes, the seashores, rivers and the atmosphere. i could by no ability leave to stay someplace else yet i might surely bypass to Hawaii however. it is domicile however I dream of being on the coastline in Hawaii