marriage and holidays

How many times do the holidays come around and instead of being happy you start to worry about whose house you will be at and when you will get time for yourselves or your family? Well, my hand is raised.

Every single holiday that comes around the arguments begin.

“But we spent last Christmas with your family.”

“How about we split the holiday, half the day at my parent’s house and half at yours.”

“My family always does Christmas eve at their house.”

“Can’t we just stay at home this year?”

“What if we take a vacation this year?”

The entire time I am thinking, when I am I ever going to get to spend a nice and relaxing holiday with my new family in our own home. After getting married I quickly realized just how much of my time really wasn’t my time.

My husband’s family gets together every single Sunday for dinner. There are many reasons why this is hard for me -

• Usually my only day off from work is Sunday and I am tired and have so many things to do
• It isn’t just a couple of hours of dinner and conversation, it lasts all day long.
• It is EVERY SINGLE Sunday
• My husband usually doesn’t stick around to be with me nor do I really see him, except when we eat
• It is hard to feel at home when I don’t want to upset my in-laws or get in their way or retreat into my own self

I would think since I really like my in-laws that would make it so much easier, and to a point it does, but I love my own parents and I would not want to spend every single Sunday with them either. I am not really that much of a people person. I can be, but prefer just to sit back and let other people do the talking.

Sundays should be my time; my time alone and my time with my family; my new family. Just as I feel holidays should  be as well. I want to build my new family with our own traditions and feelings and memories. I would love to cook my husband and stepson a really nice Thanksgiving dinner and watch tv and just enjoy the day at my own home and with my new family. It would be so incredibly relaxing and, I think, much more special to us.

My husband feels holidays (even more than other days) are for spending time with your family; not just by ourselves. He feels we will have many holidays in the future to spend with just us.

I am not trying to seperate my husband from his family. It would just be really nice to enjoy that time we have and maybe set aside other time around the holidays to spend with his family.

Most Christmases we spend Christmas Eve at my parent’s house and exchange gifts that evening. On Christmas morning we are up really early with my husband’s son. We barely get through one stocking, let alone all three of ours, before the phone is ringing and we are rushing to get ready to go to his parent’s house. We are usually there way after noon opening up presents and enjoying the holiday. I have to drag us out of there. By the time we get back to our house we are all so tired we don’t even want to open other gifts or finish the stockings. If we do go ahead and open gifts, my stepson has usually reached the limit of gift time and has entered the “is that all” or “I really wanted this” children’s phase. And the day after Christmas my stepson leaves to stay with his mom for  a couple of weeks. I feel like we never truly get to enjoy Christmas.

I feel horrible that I feel this way. I should want to be more involved with his family and their traditions. But I just don’t.

I work with people all day long and at the end of the day I would love to just go home and be around my family. I don’t want to have to find things to talk about or entertain other people. I just want to be able to be myself. And yes, I feel the need to do these things when I am with my in-laws. I don’t want them to feel I am being anything, but nice and cheerful.

I want the peace and quiet. That feeling of home and relaxation that I don’t usually find at my in-laws. And try as they may, I really don’t know that I will ever feel at home in their home. I find it hard to feel at home in my parent’s house. But at least at my parent’s house, they know me and know I am not trying to hurt them when I put my nose in a book or take a nap or just zone out in front of the tv.

This year a friend of mine needs someone to watch their house up in the moutains for about 4 days around Christmas. Me? I jumped on the idea. Four full days in snow, mountain air, relaxation, hikes, fun and just plain new beautiful scenery. Did I mention it would be completely free???  They will allow us to put up a Christmas tree, sleep in any of the wonderful rooms they have, light a fire, eat their food. I don’t think it could get better than this. But I know immediately my husband is going to say No because then we wouldn’t be spending the holidays with family. And by family he doesn’t mean me or his son, but his parent’s. I love my parents and going to this cabin would mean missing Christmas Eve with my parent’s too, but I know my parent’s will be excited for us to go and do something different. And they know we would make other arrangements for another day to exchange gifts and spend time together.

Dilema . . . Dilema . . .

So tell me, what would you do?

Would you go to the cabin or stay in town and spend it with relatives?