My in-laws are coming from Ohio to stay with us in a few days. How do you think I feel about that?

If you’re like many people, you may think that I’m dreading it. Well, I’m one of those rare people that actually like my wife’s parents. I’m glad they’re able to visit and wish that we had the opportunity to see them more often.

My wife and I are blessed in that we both like each other’s parents. And our parents all understand that in our marriage, we’re now to put our spouses before them in the order of priorities. They don’t try to control our lives, but are there with love and Biblical advice should we need it.

This atmosphere really benefits our kids also and they look forward to spending time with each set of grandparents when they can.

There are not very many visits throughout the year though because we live in Texas, my wife’s parents live in Ohio, and my parents live in Louisiana. So we really need to make the most of the times we can get together.

Of course, in marriage, family visits for the different holidays throughout the year can cause many problems in regard to logistics. Deciding who’s going to whose house on what holiday could lead to frustration and potential hurt feelings. That can get really sticky, to say the least.

Before we had kids, it was difficult deciding where we’d be going for each holiday. We both wanted to spend time with our parents, especially on Christmas. But we couldn’t be two places at once and we definitely couldn’t split up.

Thankfully, over the past few years we’ve been able to work it out pretty well. We’ve basically made Christmas at our house. This allows our kids to be home on Christmas morning, so they can receive presents from Santa under their own tree. We’re attempting to build our own family traditions. That’s the one holiday where everyone is welcome to come stay with us and our parents understand that. For the other holidays throughout the year, we try to work out visiting our parents where it’s possible.

It’s a matter of expectations. Everyone understands and works ahead of time to communicate their plans. So far, it’s taken away any anxiety that may come as each holiday nears. There are no unspoken or unmet expectations.

So how do you and your spouse deal with who does what and goes where over the Christmas holidays?