Holiday split planner

First Thanksgiving and Christmas as a married couple

In your first year you pick one of four things: split the days between both families, give each family one holiday, host everyone yourselves, or stay home together. My suggestion: choose the year-one plan with year two in mind, since families often take the second year as the pattern. Below, each option comes with the next four years laid out with dates, so you can see what it commits you to before you tell anyone.

What the guides say

The four options at a glance

Option 1: split the days

Your parents get Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, your spouse's parents get Christmas Day, and next year it flips. It suits two families within a few hours of each other, because the first year already has both sides in it. The cost is a handoff on the 24th or 25th, so settle the hour ahead of time.

Thanksgiving follows Christmas Eve in this pattern, so the family with the 24th also has the November table. Open this plan in the planner to rename the families.

Option 2: one holiday each

Your parents get Thanksgiving. Your spouse's parents get both Christmas days. In 2027 you trade. It fits when one family is far away, since each side gets one longer trip instead of two short ones.

Read the year rows: in any one year a family has one holiday and the other has two, then it reverses. The count table shows it comes out even over four years. Say that out loud to the family with one holiday this year. Open this plan in the planner.

Option 3: host

Hosting Thanksgiving for both families removes the question of whose table you sit at, and everyone else does the driving. It needs a table big enough and a first-year budget for it. One hosted day has nothing to rotate, so the grid covers the days that remain: Christmas Eve and Day, flipping each year, with Thanksgiving at your place.

Hosting repeats itself: do it once and both families may expect it next year. Call it this year's plan. For sharing the work among relatives, see the Thanksgiving host rotation. Open the Christmas part in the planner.

Option 4: stay home together

Spend the first year at home and start the rotation in 2027. One of Biola's six keys is "Agree as a couple on your own holiday traditions", and a quiet first year is one way to begin. Plan a call with each family on the day and a visit on another date, and tell both early that 2027 has dates for them. The grid below starts in 2027 and swaps everything each year.

The risk is that both families hear "you skipped us". Showing them the 2027 dates is the answer. Open the 2027 plan in the planner.

Picking one

My suggestion: choose the option that would feel fair if your own family were the one far away, then check it against the year-two grid. If year two looks unfair to either family, change it now, while nothing has been promised. Who goes first is covered in alternating Christmas with in-laws, the wider set of patterns in how to split holidays between two families, and the phone call in how to tell your parents.