Christmas Woes! (Long)

How do you do Christmas, as in where, and with who?

I grew up living with my grandparents, we had Christmas at our house, with just us and my mom. We never had to go anywhere or anything. I LOVE Christmas. We had a special meal Christmas eve and I opened a gift. Then I got up early Christmas morning and we sat around and talked and opened gifts, cleaned up the paper and then I played in the living room while everyone made dinner. I kind of assumed that was normal 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hubby HATES Christmas, and it probably has something to do with how chaotic it is. They go to one of his relatives homes (it rotates) for a late cocktail party Christmas eve. Then in the morning they wake up, open gifts, shower, and get ready to go to another relatives house (also rotates) his family is about 30 people and growing, and a lot of people brings friends, neighbors, etc, so usually he and his brother just sit together all day and complain about their family. 🤦🏻‍♀️

So this is baby's first Christmas. Hubby is already being a grinch. Mil wants us to come to Christmas eve dinner even though it starts AFTER baby's bedtime. Then she wants us to drive home (over an hour) and drive BACK in the morning to open gifts, THEN drive another hour to his relatives for the actual dinner.

Not only is this totally stressful and ridiculous, but it kind of keeps us out of our house for all of Christmas, and it totally excludes my family, which is just my grandparents.

In a perfect world we would do Christmas here. Hubby, baby and me. Family is more than welcome to visit. My grandparents want to come here Christmas eve for dinner, which would be nice because I could put baby to bed here and on time. Hubby agrees with me but I know as soon as he talks to his mom he'll be guilted into something.

I refuse to get baby off of his schedule, which means we'll be watching the clock to make sure we'll get home in time to do his bedtime routine. And he won't nap anywhere but his crib, So I really only have about 2 hours before cranky baby emerges, and hubbys family always comments on him being grumpy.

I don't want my baby to hate Christmas like his father. It's supposed to be fun, not stressful. Hubby doesn't think it's unusual to have several stops on Christmas. So where and with whom do you celebrate Christmas?