..........I am so excited about Christmas this year, I mean, it's August and I'm already talking about it. The main reason - as some of you may know - is that I've been deprived of my family for the holidays for a few years now. Many reasons.....my sister didn't live here........Mother went to AZ for treatment for a year......Mother's death......I don't speak with my father.....my other sister has towork holidays.....
Anyway, we've spent all of our holidays with Liz's family, but I want to change this up this year. Normally, we spend Christmas Eve with her immediate family (mom, dad, sister, brother, neice), then go to her Aunt's on Christmas Day to be with her extended family. This is the family she enjoys the most - her extended family. This is what she doesn't want to give up, but we can't very well give up spending Christmas with her immediate family now, can we? I'm afraid this whole thing will cause a bit of an issue for me and Liz. I want my family here all day Christmas Day and she says we can split it up and go to her extended family for part of the day. I know this may sound like a good compromise, but it doesn't even feel like Christmas there. It feels like Thanksgiving. There are no gifts, no real celebration.......just dinner and sit and visit (minimal since they avoid any meaningful topics), play dominoes and sleep.
I also want to be home Christmas morning with just the three of us (well, maybe Catrina & Cylie) for gift opening. OK.......here's my perfect Christmas this year and I'm working this out in my head as I type..bear with me.
Christmas Eve........dinner with Liz's immediate family; gift exchange (us & them)
Christmas morning........Bella's gift opening from us & Santa (I want Cylie here as well, but that would open a whole can of worms and Liz's entire family would be here)
Christmas afternoon......my family arrives; we have a big lunch a round 2 or 3 ish, then open gifts and play games and snack the rest of the day.
I guess - to make Liz happy - we could, instead, go over to her Aunt's around 11 or so, which is when they eat, spend an hour or two, then be home for my family late afternoon/early evening.
Maybe I'm just being selfish; what do you guys think? I can't find anything on Amazon books that will tell me definitively how to handle this! Haha..I had to get one in; this is my Christmas money. :)
2 comments:
Keeping in mind that I'm single so I don't have to deal with this. I think it's only fair that you spend one day with each family. If Liz wants Christmas she doesn't get Christmas Eve and vice-versa... although if you've always gone to her family I think yours takes precidence this year... is there any way you could have everyone at your house?
Growing up we had a lot of issues with my moms family vs my dad's family.
Until we found a balance it was very blah. If we stayed home without extended family we would do somethign special just us on christmas eve. On christmas day we would usually get together with my aunt and her kids but it was always crazy and never fun.
If we visited our family we did a "traveling" christmas.
Christmas Eve we would have a nice little dinner, and do christmas crafts and cookies, etc. Christmas morning it would be just my grandmother and my mom, dad, my brother and I. My grandmother would make a light breakfast and we would spend the morning with just us. (my other family would go to a family members house for breakfast, but we always treasure this alone time) Then we traveled. We would go to one member's house for a light lunch and some kind of fun thing. Maybe a christmas cartoon, maybe just playing with christmas toys. Then we would go to someone's house for appetizers and we would hang around, chat, etc. Then we would go somewhere else for dinner. Before dinner we would open gifts and whatnot. After dinner we would always finish by watching "it's a wonderful life"
It sounds crazy, but it was really, really fun and gave us a great sense of family love.
I hope you guys find something great that works for you guy!!!
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