We've (two adults, one toddler, one bun in the oven!) been easing back on my family's Official Family Christmas for several years now. They want a sit-down turkey dinner, a tree, games no one likes and presents, we just want to go to church and then kinda hang out. We live in the same city so see my parents plenty during the year, so it's not like this is the ONLY TIME OF THE YEAR when we're all together or any kind of high-stakes situation.
But this is the year we've put our foot down.
I'll be 7 months pregnant, ToddlerSLTD has a long nap in the middle of the day and is a stickler for his routine, we just aren't that interested in doing the stuff my parents do, we don't want to "do presents", public transport on Christmas day wtf... you get the picture.
My advice:
1. You probably only have to have year of "But it's Chriiiiiissstttmmaaaaaasssss!" before they realise you're serious and this is the new normal. So tough it out!
2. Children are an AMAZING excuse for getting out of all sorts of stuff.
3. Whatever you decide to say, say it in a cheerful "of course it's better for every this way and this is how it's going to be!" voice. Don't snap, even if you're dying inside.
We decided that we'd be happy to host an our-style event around Christmas, so we're doing Boxing Day at our house with my parents, my brother and (probably) his girlfriend. They are all "doing Christmas" at my parents house on Christmas Day. We're going to do cold food (gammon and bread and salad type stuff) and have no decorations and just kinda hang out maybe eating mince pies or something. ToddlerSLTD will be the main attraction anyway.
I said, "I've been thinking about Christmas and I just don't think we're going to be able to make it to yours this year. It's hard to get public transport on Christmas Day and to be honest, by the time we've travelled, ToddlerSLTD has had his meganap and then we'll have to leave early to get him home in time for bed, you'll barely see him awake. Plus I'm going to be really pregnant. So we thought you guys could do Christmas Day without us, but then we'd love to have you over on Boxing Day for a casual lunch and then you could stay for the afternoon."
Sadness, my mother offering to drive to pick us up, wailing, gnashing of teeth. "It will just be too difficult with ToddlerSLTD and my giant pregnant self, but we're really looking forward to having you all over on Boxing Day!" I am still expecting a few heroic attempts to "make it work" before Christmas, but we're set that this is what we want to do and we've offered a nice alternative that involves us doing all the hosting work and them just turning up. Next year, the plan is just to exclaim over how well it worked last year and how hard it will be to travel with new-baby-SLTD, rinse and repeat until it becomes the new normal.
DO NOT GET GUILTED INTO SCHLEPPING AROUND FOUR DIFFERENT HOUSEHOLDS PER HOLIDAY FOR ETERNITY. This year is your big chance to cheerfully and generously establish a new normal. It's OK to not see everyone for every holiday! Especially if you see them plenty during the rest of the year. But the two of you have to be on absolutely the same page and you have to be firm and cheerful about how they can do whatever they like, it's fine they're doing stuff you can't come to, you hope they have a great time, here's what we're doing, hope you can make it!
Further pro tips about holidays with babies/toddlers:
1. Keep a running list throughout the year of things that people might give you as presents. For example, I have asked my parents to get ToddlerSLTD a pull-along toy dog for Christmas - an idea which occurred to me in August and which I wrote down so I wouldn't forget. You can use this to ask for things that your child is interested in (DOGS) and things which you personally don't find objectionable (I asked for a wooden one, not a stuffed one, so we can take it to the park and drop it in puddles, and NO BATTERIES)
2. Tell people that books and clothes are always good presents. You'll need clothes and they grow out of them so they're not around forever if you don't actually like them. Books don't take up much space and we've discovered some ones we really love through presents.
3. Start a toy rotation. Google it.
4. Keep one horrendous light-up all-singing all-dancing toy with batteries. We have a Noah's Ark that does so much random electronic stuff we call it Satan's Own Ark. It's in a cupboard 99% of the time, but when he's teething or we're ill or whatever, we get it out and he makes it play skin-crawling monophonic music and dances to it. Then it goes away again.
5. Get on board NOW with returning stuff, exchanging stuff and donating stuff. If you are worried people will ask where something is, blame toy rotation for it being out of sight.
6. Also, when you get an avalanche of things for Christmas or a birthday, choose 1-3 to keep out and put the rest in a cupboard to bring out throughout the year. I intend to do this as long as I can get away with it. It spaces out the fun, means no one gets overwhelmed.
7. Have an allocated container/space for toys that are 'active'. We have a small set of shelves in his room and a trunk downstairs. If it doesn't fit in there, it gets put away in the backup cupboard or we get rid of it.
8. Do not buy anything for your own child for birthdays/Christmas until they notice. You'll get enough stuff anyway. Save your toy-buying for the lacunae in the year when there are no special events but you are all bored with the existing toys or you feel they've developmentally grown out of a lot of stuff.
9. If anyone ever gives you anything second-hand, exclaim publicly and with great delight.
10. If people who live very close by and that you see regularly give you toys you don't want, exclaim with delight about how great it will be for them to have XYZ for your child to play with at their place. My parents have my ye olde Brio train set at theirs and ToddlerSLTD is ecstatic to see it every time. I have also done this with some books I find tedious - of course they'll want to have books to read him at their house, right?!
I don't want to scare you! It's just that this stuff can sneak up on you when you're not looking. I feel like we're doing a good job of managing toy influx right now, mainly because I was warned about it before I had ToddlerSLTD and was able to put in some pre-emptive measures and make a plan. It'll change as he gets older (for example, art supplies will become useful, he might start to expect presents, I will be able to ask for experience things like grandparents taking him on a trip to the zoo) but the boundaries have been drawn. And people generally know what our vibe is. We don't have a lot of stuff out in our house and it's pretty grown-up-looking, and we talk about stuff like how Mr SLTD made him a giant house out of cardboard.
