Background to this.
My in-laws live in a different country and we, on average, get to see them about once a year. They’re a +8 hour flight away so my wife and I have to use our annual leave to go see them as we can’t really do a “weekend trip” and the thought of spending only 1 week is not adequate to see and spend time with the family.
Whilst we’re with them we don’t get a hotel, we stay at theirs to save on costs and we spend all our time with them. To which I’m really grateful for.
Now, jump to me back at work where my co-worker said if I enjoyed my holiday. I said I did, but it wasn’t really a holiday since it’s just visiting the in-laws and spending all our time with them.
Co-worker said that’s it’s still a holiday as I was away, whereas I went back saying, if I spent a week with my folks, 10 miles away, doing everything with them, it’s not really a “holiday” as when does anyone relax with family?
To me, a holiday is doing what you want to do without the usual crap you have to worry about in life, such as work, and that includes other members of your family (not counting kids and spouse, I’m talking about your mum and dad, brothers, sisters etc).
I feel like I’m the only one that kinda feels this way of thinking. To me, if you go see family for a week, at their place, it’s no different than spending an afternoon with them. That’s not a holiday, it’s just staying with them and spending time with them. Just because it’s in a different country doesn’t really count. I’m not exploring anything new and I’m not really relaxing as I have to be social.
What does reddit UK think?
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I wouldn’t call seeing my in laws a holiday and mine also live in another country 5+ hours away.
It would be the same if my parents lived that far away, I also wouldn’t call it a holiday.
I like going on holiday to different places and being 1-1 with my husband doing what we want to do with 0 stress, that’s what I class as a holiday.
But everyone’s different, people also have different relationships with their in laws / parents.
It’s up to you. None of this matters so you make that decision.
If you’re off work it’s a holiday, even if you spend it stripping wallpaper
For me, if you’d all gone away together, to a completely different location, I’d say that was a holiday. Going away to stay with in-laws (as you did) wouldn’t be classed as a holiday (from my perspective)
Time away with my in laws would not feel like a holiday to me. For me a holiday is going somewhere and doing what I want to do and to be honest a holiday is a break from family and all of the stresses of life. I turn my phone off when away because I don’t want to spend my time texting and talking to family or friends. I can tell them about my holiday when I return home.
To me, it’s more of a sentence than a holiday but ymmv
I can see why your co-worker thought of it as a holiday, foreign country, no work, leisure time.
I can see why you don’t think of it that way, it was a duty visit, not somewhere new and exciting, your time was spoken for with family obligations not sightseeing/relaxation.
I’d lean more towards your interpretation, but I wouldn’t argue about it.
It is a holiday if you decide to want it to be. For me going to a different country and spending time there seems like a holiday. Is it a chore to you?
Do you do any touristy/holiday stuff when you’re staying at your in-laws? Or are you literally just sat in their house.
yeah, feels more like family duty than a holiday. different setting, same energy drain. not the same as switching off somewhere new
My (hopefully one day to be) in-laws live in Hull, and I even see that as a holiday because I like them so much. A holiday is what you make of it.
If you aren’t working it’s a holiday. If you spend your holiday with family that that’s up to you.
I have a similar family dynamic and what I would say is that if you are spending time in a foreign country you absolutely have to make time to do “holiday things” while you are there – sightseeing, beach or mountain trips, whatever.
If you are just sitting round the house with the in-laws then it won’t feel like a holiday. But it’s up to you to get off your ass and make the holiday happen.
Maybe make a deal with your spouse that you will spend a few days out of the holiday at a tourist hotel in a different part of the country, just the two of you relaxing?
My attitude is if I leave the town I live in for a period even visiting friends for a weekend it’s a holiday but that’s my method
I live abroad, 2 hr flight. I get 30 days annual leave so go home often but i dont count seeing family as a holiday. We try to hike and day trips and such as its north yorkshire and love it there but its still not a holiday holiday. Holidays to me are exploring new places
Most people would count a “holiday” being off for a few days off work and cozying up on the sofa in the living room or playing some video games, or doing another hobby. So yeah, being away from home for any amount of time is still a “holiday”, even though it ain’t a trip to some beach destination.
Definitely not what a holiday in my 20s looked like. Nowadays I have daunting piles of family obligations and staying with family is as good as it gets. I call it a holiday just to remind myself to try and enjoy it 😬
Staying with family abroad is definitely a holiday for me.
Who relaxes with family? People who like their family 😂
I go on holiday with mine. My partners parents want to go on holiday with us at some point too and I’m keen for that.
If I’m going to another country and staying somewhere for a week with no obligation to work or do anything other than chill and hangout with people, that’s a holiday.
My wife and I have moved away from our home town.
When we go back, we are constantly visiting and driving about.
That’s all I used to do when I was a kid and I hated it.
It is not relaxing and not a holiday.
All inclusive by a pool with the occasional excursion or a nice city break. That’s a holiday!
Depends on your personal definition of a holiday and if you like your in-laws.
I like mine, I feel like I’m in the minority there though.
In my view, it would depend on what I did when I was there, and how often I went.
If I went there extremelybregularly and just did regular things, it’s just visiting the in laws.
If I went once a year, maybe twice a year, it’s likely going to fall into holiday territory – unless all you do is potter about the house and do the shopping.
But it can be a holiday. If it was me abroad and my family were visiting for a couple weeks, then I’m not going to just sit about the house with them. We’ll go for day trips or visit a local attraction. We’ll go out to eat etc. We will still stay home some days, still go shopping and other mundane stuff. That’s definitely holiday territory – its actually how I spent my last holiday abroad (minus staying with family, I rented out a flat, did touristy stuff as well as mundane stuff like grocery shopping etc).
A holiday is really what you class as one. You dont even have to fly abroad to do so. You can have a holiday in the country you live or even at home. Or fly off somewhere sunny and stay in a hotel and sit on a beach. It all means different things to different people.
I got the same when visiting my parents in the US – I’d take two weeks, just to justify the duration and expense of the flights, and would stay with them. It was anything but a holiday, sat doing nothing but watching The Weather Channel and the occasional NASCAR.
Once Dad passed, Mom got more adventurous and would take us to the big Chinese buffet in town – once. In two weeks. And a few times to the nearest supermarket, which was a subpar one. If not for my childhood bestie occasionally carving out time to come rescue us we’d have gone mad. Toward the end before she went into care, it was nearly 24/7 Springer along with arguments about a certain politician.
Holidays are spent doing something you want to do to relax, have a bit of an adventure, and/or party. I was on annual leave, not holiday.
Depends on how well you get along, and what you get out of it. We never had holidays as such when we were kids, just two weeks with relatives in the summer, and two weeks over Christmas and new year. Not my idea of a great time now, but we didn’t know anything different back then and enjoyed it anyway as kids tend to do.
My dad was OK with it, because he got on nicely with his in-laws, and would sometimes go off fishing. My mum, on the other hand, got roped into doing my nan’s housework for her while she went out to meet her cronies LOL. “Busman’s holiday” was the phrase she always used.
We used to always stay with in-laws but it was kind of hard work for me because everything had to be by their rules. So not total freedom, bound by lots of expectations and not total relaxation = not a holiday.