The Holidays

eople seem to be posting about the holidays now.  I guess since we have successfully made it to November, everyone is getting anxious for the big show of the year.  My family, unlike my husband's family, has very little in the way of big traditions.  For Thanksgiving, we sometimes spent it at our house and sometimes we drove to my aunt and uncle's house.  It just depended.  On what I really don't know.  But my parents had it worked out and I really didn't care.  We always had turkey and all the fixings.  For Christmas, we decorated the tree after Thanksgiving and we got to open one present a piece Christmas Eve and then we woke up the next day and opened the rest.  There was very little ceremony to the whole thing.  And sometimes we stayed home and sometimes we went to my aunt and uncle's.  We had ham and all the fixings and the day was spent playing with our new stuff.  But we always spent it together.

Once BT and I moved in together, things began changing.  I think the first year we lived together we spent Christmas apart with our families or maybe that was Thanksgiving.  I know we did Thanksgiving apart for a few years.  And then we started spending Christmas Eve at his parent's house and then driving Christmas day to my parent's house.  It started to become too much.  BT never wanted to leave his parent's and I was anxious to see my family and it was overwhelming.  I decided that there was no way I was going to do all this driving when we had kids because then it really would be too much.  So at some point we instituted an alternating pattern.  One year we did Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine and then the next year we switched: Christmas with his family and Thanksgiving with mine.  And it has worked out for us.  I don't know how our parents like it.  They accepted it anyway.  And they get a full holiday with their grandson instead of just a half a day otherwise.  I could not even imagine trying to drag Bub away on Christmas Day to go to someone else's house.  My brother-in-law and his wife seem to have fallen into our pattern as well so some holidays my mother-in-law gets to have all her children and grandchildren at her house which she loves.  And my sister comes down when it is my parent's Christmas so then my mom gets to have her daughters and grandson as well.

So far I think this has worked out for everybody or at least no one has complained to my face.  I think it takes the pressure off of the holidays for the families and it just makes it so much easier.