It's hard to believe that it is almost Thanksgiving, which means that the holiday season is upon us. That is bringing a whole bunch of issues this year, since it is the first with The Baby.
The biggest issue being where do we go?
We are lucky enough that both families live within two miles of each other. So in the past, we've always split the major holidays. For Thanksgiving, we would have dinner with the husband's family and dessert with mine. That meant that we usually spent less time with my family.
So this year, my mother asked if we would do Thanksgiving dinner with them. Since Thanksgiving is the one day of the year that we get together with my cousins (who live quite a bit further than two miles away), I agreed.
This is not going over well with the husband's family. They want the see The Baby.
It doesn't seem to matter that every Christmas for the past ten years (with the exception of the one year I was out of the country), I've spent both Christmas and Christmas Eve dinners with his family. I would only see my family for a little while before church on Christmas morning. And this year isn't going to be different.
It also doesn't seem to matter that we are going to be visiting with them before heading over to my parents' for dinner. So they will get to see The Baby. They just won't get to spend all day/night with him.
And I feel bad for my parents. They are getting the better part of Thanksgiving, but they are getting seriously shafted on Christmas. I know that this bugs them. One time my mom made a comment about it and since she feels that she should never complain, I know it must have really been bothering her.
Sometimes it feels like we are spreading ourselves too thin trying to spend time with everyone. This doesn't even take into account spending some holiday time with just us, but that is an issue for another post.
How do you handle seeing family at the holidays?
I hate having to split up the holidays. Luckily my folks are super understanding. They also live a state away in Oregon, so they're flexible. I normally visit in January, and celebrate a late Christmas, or drive up the day after Christmas. Sadly I haven't spent a Thanksgiving at home in years. When we have kids I'm not sure she'll be quite as flexible. My in-laws live a lot closer and we see them at least once a month, yet she's very demanding of our time on the holidays. I may have to take Jill's lead and just refuse to leave and make them all come to us!
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