I have a confession: Chris and I have been together 7 years and we have
never spent a holiday together, until this past Thanksgiving.
Both of us are deeply entrenched in our family's traditions and neither of us were willing to sacrifice that time with them. So every year I went home to Pennsylvania to spend the Holidays with my family and Chris celebrated with his family in New York. We told each other year after year "We're not dealing with it..until we have to", and now that we're married: well, we have to.
Though it may seem strange to some, I'm really happy we waited to celebrate together until now. For one, it gave me some great alone time with my family around the holidays that I wouldn't normally get, and made those holiday's all the more special to me as I knew we only had a handful of them left as just"us". I'm also glad it was a mutual understanding between us. Neither of us were "sacrificing" or "giving in" to make the other happy - we were doing what was right for both of us, and never held it over the other person's head. But the best reason for waiting to spend the holiday's together is that I am
SO very excited for the upcoming holidays
because I'll finally spend them with Chris. It's a new thing to look forward to and the start of our holidays together as we know them, as a family.
So this year, we both spent Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania and we will now celebrate Christmas in New York. We will probably alternate those holidays each year, depending on where Christmas falls in the week. Being 2 1/2 hours apart, it's not worth trying to split up the one day between the two families. That would make for an exhausting and stressful holiday.
Last year's Christmas was very bittersweet for me, as I knew it would be the last one as just me, my parents and sister getting up on Christmas morning to open gifts. And though it's still bittersweet for me this year...I have to say that I am extremely excited to wake up Christmas morning next to my husband and for us to celebrate Christmas morning with our puppy, Zoey.
How do you split up the holidays? Will this be your first holiday away from your family?
7 comments:
Glad we had those extra holidays with you, too. Christmas is going to be exciting for you this year like it was when you were a kid because you'll have a new husband and puppy to share it with! That will make it extra special. Splitting time between families during the holidays is exhausting no matter how close you live. You've made a good compromise that is respectful of each of you.
We didn't worry about it the first year we were dating and got a lot of questions about it from our families. So we were kind of forced into it the next year. It's been hard. At first, his fam did Xmas on a different day, so we could do everything, but the past two years it have been on Xmas. It is a long and crazy day driving all over the state. And usually ends with me in tears from exhaustion. BUT, that's what you do. You share families. It is still sad to miss things though.
Man that would hardddddd. Way harder than Shawn and I having to eat twice on every Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas for the last 5 of each.
It sounds like you guys really have worked out how to make it your own tradition with parents and siblings, and still be your own family too.
From the beginning we celebrated together but we are lucky that both of our families are local so typically we see my side in the morning for brunch and then head over to his family's house for dinner. We also spend xmas eve with his family since that was never a big deal for mine. It does make for a tiring day though. And this year who knows, I could be in the hospital giving birth on xmas! haha
We've been together over five years and this was our first Thanksgiving together! So you're not alone! haha. I've always gone home to my parents and he stayed with his. Last Christmas he went to my parents also... mostly because his were doing something else. This year though I went to his family's for Thanksgiving because that's their big holiday and my parents would prefer us for Christmas.
Oh my I am so happy this will be your first Christmas together!! :-) Enjoy it and happy holidays! <3
This is also our first Christmas spent together, even though it's our second as a married couple. We're with his family for Christmas, and then I'm going to see my family for New Year's. I definitely have no regrets about how we've done things up until this point.
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