Do I Have to Spend Christmas With My Family

The Christmas travel was taking more and more tolls on our bodies, and we were getting grumpier every twelvemonth. (Photo courtesy of the author.)

"Why do we go on schlepping over to the East Declension during the worst time of the twelvemonth when we're no longer the principal attraction?" I grumbled to my husband, Anthony.

Our flight was delayed. Again. I grew upwards in Northern California and moved downward to Southern California for school, where I stayed and met and married my husband. His family, nevertheless, is from New Bailiwick of jersey, where weather dictates all your winter travel plans. I experienced none of this on the West Declension, and e'er forgot Mother Nature loved to delay airplanes with snowstorms.

Before nosotros were married, Anthony and I individually went to our parents' houses for the holidays. It was expected, and information technology was still fun — siblings all together hanging out, going to our old haunts, and running into high school friends.

In one case Anthony and I were more serious and moved in together, information technology but made sense for us to alternating winter trips — nosotros'd run across my family unit 1 Christmas, his family the adjacent.

His family is Italian, bigger, and boisterous. Cousins and aunts and uncles, and non-blood related friends who were likewise called cousins and aunts and uncles would come over, and we'd play, make jokes, tell stories, yell in Italian, and swallow Mamma Nina's amazing Feast of the Vii Fishes Christmas Eve dinner that she and her daughter Maria cooked for all 20 of us. These were my favorite Christmases, being around such a big, loud, loving famiglia. I was 27, Anthony 30, and we have so many happy memories of this time, including witnessing the surprise spousal relationship proposal to which his sister said yes. Information technology was the all-time of times!

Merely as my husband and I grew older, then did the cousins. They grew up, got married, and created families of their ain — having to too alternate years themselves, or only having to skip seeing united states of america altogether, as their tradition with Santa Claus trumped a not-by-blood cousin's visit.

"I don't want to do this anymore," I told Anthony.

"The flights are overpriced, overbooked, and delayed, and we always get sick our first few days."

"We take to visit my family," Anthony said, confused.

"We do! Just let's do it when there are things to practice — when the mini-golf place is actually open, when there are leaves on the trees, when there'due south no black ice on the route!"

Anthony and I don't have children, and he was nearly 40. The Christmas travel was taking more and more tolls on our bodies, and we were getting grumpier every year.

I decided to finish visiting for Christmas because it was a huge hassle that didn't have enough payoff.

His female parent was not happy about it. And his sister was too hurt. But our start yr off from Christmas, nosotros flew over at the end of April for his mom'southward altogether. Instead of white blankets of snow and icicles, we saw his mom's flowering tomato plant plants, and a ruby-red-breasted robin feeding its babies worms in its nest on their porch. Mamma wasn't busy in the kitchen for two days direct preparing an epic meal; she was the focus of our unabridged trip.

We were all able to go out and explore the town, the flavour, and help effectually the firm while fawning over his mother. At the end of the week, his mother agreed that coming when it was less hectic was really more fun for her as well, as she got to spend more time with us, instead of running around last minute, catering to and then many
others.

The following fourth dimension, we went for his sis's altogether, which is virtually Halloween. And we got to see the changing leaves, feel the brisk air, and accompany our niece trick-or-treating.

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Everyone is far more relaxed, no i is worried most concluding-minute gifts or dinner guests coming or canceling last infinitesimal, and the cousins are actually able to make time to see us with their kids. The kids are excited to see u.s., not overstimulated and tired.

And best of all, we get to decide how to celebrate our ain Christmas, making our own traditions, staying in our ain town to come across the decorations and festivities.

My husband and I get to relax, visit our friends who are however in town, and exist together on our own terms.

And when we visit family on their birthdays, instead of the birth of Jesus, they are the celebrated ones.

We no longer visit our family unit on the holidays. Nosotros, and our entire family, are so much happier for information technology. And I highly recommend it to everyone else.

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Related:

• Christmas Is Sacred

• Surviving The Holidays As An Introvert

• How Social Media Made My Holiday Season Depression And so Much Worse

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