Tis that time of year again!

With so much to do you don't know if you'll remember everything?
Who's with me?
I am almost finished Christmas shopping for the extended family, but for my kids, I've got nothing.
And that nothing includes ideas as well.
I do this dumb thing and tell everyone who asks what the boys want for Christmas MY ideas so that I have nothing left.

Who here has family issues during the holidays?
I came from a feuding family. When I grew up, my Aunt and Uncle lived next door. EVERY holiday, all of the family would go to their house. We were not invited. Sure, us kids were, but not our parents. We would go for an hour or so to visit (just me, my brother and sister) because our cousins were our best friends and we didn't want to get involved with the parental issue. We didn't understand all the logistics at the time. All we knew is that all of our cousins were getting presents from OUR aunts and uncles all around, and we weren't getting any.
As we grew up a bit, we realized that we just wanted to stop going.
I was still best friends with my cousin that was my age.
We didn't want to get mixed up with who hated who why. We just knew that we were cousins and we loved each other.

Holidays at my house were lonely. Like I said, as a kid all I longed for was that packed house like my Cousins had. We had the 5 of us. Mom, Dad, me, sister, brother.
Every year...Every holiday.
We sort of had a pact, the 5 of us.
Sure, we could have just ordered a pizza seeing it was just us, but we always tried to make big yummy meals.

Now that I am grown and married and have kids and an extended family I feel like I am betraying my family if holiday gatherings clash.
Take this year for example. The plan was to be at my parents from 2:30-5:00ish and then Dave's family from 5:00ish to 7:30ish. (they live 5 minutes from each other)
Well that changed when we realized that Dave's grandparents would be coming.
Now, we're switching times so that we can eat with the grandparents who are pushing 90 and will not be around much longer.

My sister will be celebrating with her soon to be extended family.
That leaves my Brother-Mom-Dad for dinner. We'll come for dessert.

But the thing is, I feel awful.
That pact we made is slowly fading.

I just don't want my brother, dad and mom to feel that same feeling I felt 20 years ago staring out the window seeing all the happy people celebrating the holidays.