Family drama. We all have it. Don’t even pretend like your family is perfect and you don’t know what I’m talking about. You do. In fact, I am sure you can relate ALL TO WELL.
One of the biggest problems with families is that certain members think that they are more important and therefore significant than others. (i.e., “Christmas should be at MY house because I am the best aunt evahhhh!”) It gets even more prickly when it comes to in-laws and having two sides to a family.
Much to the sniffling and griping of my grandparents, I go to my husband’s family’s house for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. Yes, they get both holidays. But, I have my reasons.
Not having parents of my own, my husband’s parents are basically my adopted parents. They are much more involved and supportive of us than my extended family is. They communicate with us more, see us more, and go out of their way to help us. To NOT spend Christmas at their house would like like saying, “Sure we’ll take advantage of your assistance, but give the rewards of our quality time to the family members who only care to see us when the holidays come around.” An exaggeration, to be sure, but that’s the gist of how I look at it.
Days spent with secondary family (such as grandparents) should be on a different day than the main holiday anyway (for example, Christmas Eve), or everyone should meet at one central location. Adamant on having Christmas at their house, my grandparents won’t budge. Also, the two locations are about 100 miles apart, so hitting both places in one day includes too much traveling and stress. No thank you. I actually like to enjoy the holidays if I can.
I relish waking up on Christmas morning and enjoying opening presents and eating cookies in my PJs. It’s even better if I don’t have to do any packing up into cars and traveling from place to place. My preference is to stay put and enjoy dinner in the same location.
Besides, my grandparents have more than enough family coming over to their house on Christmas day. If we all came it would simply be too crowded and impossible to enjoy one another’s company. I honestly think that my grandmother is too determined to be unsatisfied over the issue that no matter how many family members showed up on Christmas day, she would complain that the deceased were being being lazy for not getting up out of their graves to see her, God rest their souls.
This holiday season, do what I do. Spend the most significant time where you want to spend it and with who you want. Don’t let family members guilt you into favors you aren’t comfortable with. Don’t let the complainers and the gripers get to you. Enjoy your time with family and let the drama fall by the way side. And feel free to have as much turkey and eggnog as you please. You’ll thank me later.
Psst: giveaway still happening. It will continue until December 11th, winner to be announced on the 12th. So if you haven’t entered yet – don’t miss out on your chance to win free stufffffff.
