How do you decide which family you’ll spend holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas with?
Some people are lucky and have their families all in the same city or state. Others, like Wayne and I, live in a different state than our families. Others have an even more complicated dilemma: her parents live in one state and his live in another.
It gets tricky juggling where to go.
Wayne and I are lucky, because even though we have to travel to go home for the holidays, at least everyone’s in Colorado somewhere. The majority of kin is in the Denver metro area, but part of the branch lives down south near Pueblo.
When we lived in Phoenix we usually drove back and took Budly with us. We always stay at my mom’s house, so we have Thanksgiving or Christmas breakfast with her, then usually lunch or dinner with either my dad and his girlfriend or over at Wayne’s grandma’s house. Christmas Eve usually found us down south with those relatives. (However, we had a falling out with them and now we’re not on speaking terms so that eliminates one trip. Unfortunate, but…that’s the way the coin flipped.)
It’s a lot of eating and running around and truthfully the day of the holidays themselves are not much fun. There’s a lot of pressure to see everyone (some of it is imposed on us by others, some we impose on ourselves), but if we actually made it home then we feel we should get to all the gatherings. (That’s the thing, we don’t make it home every year. For instance, the last Christmas we were back was two years ago. This year we’re in town for Thanksgiving, which is a rarity. I can’t even remember the last Thanksgiving we were in Denver. It’s got to be over 10 years at least.)
It helps that everyone’s pretty understanding and that they try to coordinate through us when our other meals are and when would be the best time for them to serve their food. But still…it’s a hectic 24 hours no matter how we slice or dice it.
Related Articles
Tips for Staying Connected During the Holidays
Avoiding Awkward Holiday Moments
Celebrating Your First Holiday Season Together?