17 Yr Old Junior Wants to Spend Christmas with Girlfriends Family, Any Thoughts?

my inlaws ALWAYS have a girlfriend or boyfriend at a holiday event. they are welcome to come, we allow the ones old enough to drive to decide where they holiday. they usually split their time equally and both sides of their family and gf/bf family get to see them.
we also invite others that may be alone for the holiday.. and they are all accepted and treated as family

Cute name, Tyme Benda...welcome to mamapedia.

Set the rules. He can go over AFTER you've had Christmas with the family..

Talk to his girlfriend's mother and father and ensure they are okay with this.

I have a 17 year old Senior. He will be joining his best friend (who is a girl and whom he went to Prom with last year and has known for over a decade) house in the afternoon. I've already talked with her mom. We are invited as well - but my best friend and her husband are coming here from Colorado! So we won't be joining!

What's the issue? He did TELL you or ASK you?

I come from a "blended" family so my perspective on holidays is different. To me, the "day" is not the point - the "holiday" time is all fair game. We had several "Christmas" days because there was us, then dad's kids from previous marriage, then after divorce we had Mom time/Dad time/Dad's older kids time. It was actually pretty awesome.

Talk to him - pick the stuff you really want. Ask him what he's thinking and what his girlfriend's family plans are. And if you have flexibility, make BOTH of them welcome at your place as well. I don't know how serious they are, but if you build some room for his "soon to be adult" self and those he cares about, you'll have a space already for when he's building his family traditions down the line.

Create something loving with this opportunity. Stone Soup - there's always enough for everybody.

Well what does he mean by this?
Is he telling you or asking you?

At that age I was spending Christmas Eve at my boyfriends house with his family.
I'd have a fold out couch to sleep on till morning - my boyfriend stayed in his room - and then after an early breakfast I'd go home to be with my family - between 7 to 8am I was back home.
That way I didn't wear out my welcome and everyone got plenty of time together.

My boyfriend didn't just invite me - his parents did - AND it was discussed parent to parent with my mom as well.
So there was plenty of supervision and no hanky panky.

There's no way I'd just inform my mom what I was doing - it had approval every which way around.

I think you and the girlfriends parents need to have a talk - the kids don't need to listen in on it - and you need to hammer out an arrangement that everyone can be ok with.
Approach it as "I know this is a family holiday and I don't want our son to be an imposition" and of course you want your son to have some home time too - let them know this.

In fact - you can reciprocate by inviting the girlfriend over to your house for New Years Eve.

After everything has been negotiated - inform the kids what the deal is going to be.

We visited friends in the afternoon usually, but before our evening meal or before guests showed up to visit. That was pretty standard once we hit a certain age. We kind of made the rounds.

The morning of? No.

I can't imagine a family being ok with having an extra kid there - I wouldn't want to pull a kid away from their family on Christmas morning. Do you know the parents? Seems odd to me.

Can you not just say no?

Hmmm, well as older (driving) teens my kids often had friends come over or went visiting with friends LATER IN THE DAY on Christmas, which was fine with me. Why not just tell him he can go to his girlfriend's house after you do your family celebration/meal? Or invite her over for dessert or something?

no, my kids loved christmas here. in fact, this will be the first christmas morning they're not, and they're adults who moved out some years ago.

but i wouldn't turn this into a battle. it would seem that a sensible compromise is eminently do-able. why not have him spend christmas morning at home, but let him go to his girlfriend's family for the afternoon and evening?

are you sure the gf's family actually wants him, and he's not just horning in?

if that's not the case, then keep it relaxed and happy. nothing wrong with young adults making steps into young adult decisions.
khairete
S.

That would be a hard no in my house. I would just say "sorry, hon, but Christmas is a family celebration and you are part of this family, and she is part of hers. If you would like to visit with her briefly on Christmas, or she would like to come here for a bit that's fine, but I'm not OK with you spending the entire day there." If he balks at that, I honestly would call the girl's parents and ask them to put a limit on the invitation. They probably feel the same way you do. Teenagers can be kind of dumb about this kind of thing.

FWIW my oldest son is 19 and has been dating a girl for over a year. Each spends holidays with their respective families, but he joins her family for dessert for Thanksgiving and on Christmas, she'll either join us on Christmas Eve or stop by for a bit on Christmas night.

I'd put my foot down on this if I were you.

What is important to you at Christmas and what are your traditions? Ask your son to participate in those (and consider inviting his girlfriend) out of respect for his family celebration, and see if he can be flexible about spending other parts of the day with his girlfriend and her family. Christmas is a whole day long and I assume his girlfriend is local, so it’s not like he’s skipping town. There’s room to compromise so that everyone spends meaningful parts of the holiday with the people they want to spend it with.

First, what are you/he calling "girlfriend"? Someone he has known a couple of weeks, or a couple months or a couple of years? Is his girlfriend not invited to your home for Christmas?

What we did was we asked that the kids not interrupt our normal Christmas schedule, but other than that, they could certainly spend holiday time with their girlfriend/boyfriend. We have a Christmas Eve dinner and celebration that is not to be missed. So generally their boyfriend/girlfriend came to that at our home. We don't do much on Christmas Day so that is usually when they went to their home to celebrate. We do believe that family comes first, so we wouldn't be keen on our minor child missing a family celebration for a girlfriend/boyfriend. However, we didn't face that - it always ended up working out that they could do both places.

I'd find out when the girlfriend's family is celebrating and go from there. Invite her over and ask her right out "what does your family do for Christmas?"

Good luck!

I have a photos of a boyfriend with me (at 16/17) at my extended paternal family's Christmas celebration in the afternoon. He had spent Christmas morning with his own family..

My parents divorced when I was pretty young, so it was normal for people to be at several locations during the course of a holiday. The key is that you don't spend the whole day in just one place, you split your time. Assuming his girlfriend lives locally, a reasonable compromise would be to spend part of the day with each family. Him with hers, her with yours, or both.

A heads up for the future - traditions often have to change with the times especially as kids become adults and then have their own households. My siblings and I (with our spouses/SOs and kids) are having our Christmas celebration in January because our schedules don't mesh up in December.

With my boys I would have said no. At that age and still in school, mom was still the boss. If they wanted to have a girlfriend over at some point during our Christmas or Eve gatherings for a time that was fine. Likewise, if they wanted to spend some time at a girlfriend's house before or after our plans, then fine as well. But, to spend the whole holiday elsewhere? No.