Like many, for me the Holidays are about being with family and friends and being thankful for everything that I have. This Christmas however I was having a hard time doing this until I took a step back and thought about everything as a big picture. This was my third Thanksgiving and Christmas with my fiancé and although I knew what I was getting into when he told me his mom was one of eight children I didn’t even think about what that would mean come this time of year.
First of all it meant buying or making more presents than ever. We are both givers and love to see the faces of our nearest and dearest when they open our heartfelt gifts. But to get those heartfelt gifts to them it requires a lot of time, energy and money of course. Last year we were able to spoil Joe’s cousins and our close friends and family with a few gifts each and we also made a Mason jar gift for each household. This year however, with planning a wedding and saving for a house the pressure was on for Joe and I to make ends meet and still give everyone a gift they would love. For that to happen we actually had to cut back… a lot. We didn’t buy nearly as many gifts and we also bought for less individual people. We stuck to immediate family and close friends and still got a few gifts or even a gift card each. I truly don’t know how much money went into Christmas this year, as we tend to buy throughout the year because sometimes that soft cuddly blanket for my mom will never be that good of a price again but I do know it was not as much as last year.
Besides budgeting money for so many people during the holidays, Joe and I also had to budget time. When we first got together in 2012 we talked about how to split the holidays so that it was fair for everyone. We had decided at that time that we would have Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his and we could trade off every year or keep it the same but we would always do one holiday with one side and the other with the other side.
This year, as much as we tried and wanted to make everything fair, circumstances made it hard to split the holidays that way and we ended up doing both my family’s thanksgiving dinner and his along with Christmas at my house and his grandma’s. It was impossible to make both officially because both were starting around 1-2pm so we did our best to split the day. We spent most of Thanksgiving at Joe’s grandma’s house with his mom and a few aunts and a few other friends of his family and made it back to my house just around the time they were bringing the food out for seconds. I was okay with that because as far as I knew we were spending Christmas at my house all day.
I admit, when Joe and I were texting a few weeks before Christmas and he mentioned that his aunt told him to bring a fruit platter over for Christmas I was a little shocked. I expected to stay home all day and spend time with my family. But Joe’s grandma has not been doing well and he told me he wanted to spend as much time with her during these special times as he could. I understood that, and was willing to “sacrifice” time with my family so that he could be with his because I was not going to spend Christmas apart.
At first when Joe and I were talking about the Christmas schedule I was upset, I felt like I was jipping my family time with us and I was jipping myself time with them. I was ultimately being selfish because I wanted what I wanted and didn’t think about his feelings or his family.
But after I thought about everything and really looked at what I would HAVE for Christmas rather than what I would be missing I felt blessed. I essentially have two families, Joe’s and my own; and although they are much too large to fully merge and celebrate together right now I hope within the next few years Joe and I will be able to host Thanksgiving and Christmas at our own home with all of our family together; because, let’s face it kids, that’s the true spirit of the Holidays, togetherness.
Day to Day with Britni J 