[NovasMom]

Hey all,
I am new to this forum, so this question has probably been asked before, but based on the wealth of information I have been able to gather here already, I figured you would have some good advice about this question, too.

Having just battled my way through the holiday season, and considering myself worse for the wear, I realize that the future holdiays will be even more unbearably complicated once foster kids are in the picture. How do you guys handle the holidays?

I was raised in a secular Christian household, and to be honest, I think that my mom's religious ideas have morphed considerably since I was a kid. When I was little, church was a part of our family on at least a weekly basis. Of course, my mom came from a household that was strictly Baptist, and even though they were dirt poor and at times transient, my grandmother insisted that her kids had too many things to spoil them, and made them donate their last doll and book to the missionaries. Having escaped this extremism at last, my mom's eyes opened to new possibilities once she went to grad school in her late thirties, and now her spirituality is a blend of Christian tradition and some neopagan beliefs, fostered in part by her newfound love of Celtic culture.

Nowadays, she celebrates Christmas by putting up greenery and all that, but it's just as much a winter solstice thing for her, and we exchange gifts, but neither of us are too materialistic, and they're mostly homemade.

My maternal grandparents, though, are still into the old-fashioned Christmas, which includes a huge meal with lots of meat (we're vegetarians), religious books as Christmas gifts, a reading from the Bible, and Christmas stockings with oranges and nuts in them. Attendance is mandatory.

My husband's side of the family, on the other hand, is chaotic in a different way. They are Jewish, but they celebrate holiday gift exchanges like they are going out of style. My sister-in-law is married to a Christian, though, and her kids do Christmas and Hannukah, neither of which is too religious in nature at her household, but instead the opportunity for everyone to get $800 worth of gifts from her. I dread the holidays, because she is always trying to outdo everybody, and she certainly succeeds.

What I want to know is, how do you guys handle the holidays with foster kids? If it were up to me, my own immediate family would just spend a nice day together eating good food, and then we'd do it secret-santa style, with everyone picking out one gift for one other person. But how should we do it when foster kids are there? The extended family tends to go overboard, and simply not showing up will be out of the question to them. What if my sis-in-law buys better gifts for my foster kids than I can buy for them? What if the family gives my biodaughter tons of gifts, but nothing or barely anything to the foster kids?

Although this is all in the theoretical at this point, I want to create a game plan now so that I can stick to my guns later, and no one's feelings are hurt. Thanks!