The holiday season in this shiny home is over run with trips. We drive to some one’ house for Thanksgiving (this year it was in New Jersery with B-man’s family, last year we split the day between the two families and ate twice), and then we have a few weeks to filled with holiday parties and church get-togethers, then we spend Christmas Eve with B-man’s family, drive to my parents’ house and spend the night there so that we can be there for Christmas morning. Then a week later we drive to New Jersey for another B-man family get together over New Years.
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As much as I love family, mine and his, I can’t help but long for a simpler life. One where B-man and I get to spend the holidays creating our own nuclear family traditions, instead of trying to make everything work. Part of me is sad that I miss out on my own family’s Christmas traditions, which happen on Christmas Eve. The reading of The Forgotten Carols, putting on a family Nativity, eating delicious lasagna, and opening a present, which inevitably is always pajamas.
Getting married has basically required me to give up a lot of my favorite traditions, and we haven’t made any of our own traditions.
I’m having a hard time balancing spending time with our family (who for the most part live in the same area as us), and enjoy my nuclear family with our own (not created yet) traditions. How do we make things special, with out essentially having three separate celebrations? This is something that will be an issue for as long as we live in NoVa, so while Ginny is little and won’t be much of a participant this year, the same can’t be said for the years to come.
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Ideally I would want to finish earlier with B-man’s family, so that Christmas Eve is ours, and then go to my parents’ home later, so that Christmas morning is ours as well. I want to have a time, a part of Christmas, that is focused on us just spending time together, instead of “us spending time together to exchange presents”. We haven’t formally decided this, but we have talked about when to exchange our presents with each other, and when we will give our presents to Ginny (in the future). It just feels like too much, trying to find a different time. Three present-opening times. Mind blowing.
With so much focus on present giving I feel like it will be difficult to help Ginny remember the reason for the season. What I want to do is only keep gifts for other people (not me, B-man, or Ginny), under the tree. Then when we get ready to go to the Reed Christmas or the W Family Christmas it will be an exciting thing to dig through the presents under our tree and find the ones we are GIVING away. Then at some point our nuclear family gifts will appear under the tree in a smaller gift exchange. My parents have generally limited the number of gifts they gave to us to three. The number chosen because of how many gifts Christ received from the wise men. Also – having five kids can get expensive when you don’t have a limit in place. I like it. This year B-man has bought a gift (or two? I don’t know.) for Ginny, and I am making her a quilt.
We are very blessed to live so close to our extended family, and to have such generous relatives. I am sure that Ginny will never want for anything, and for that I am very grateful. But with clothes and toys coming from extended family, I wanted the gift she receives from me to be meaningful, and something that will last.
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I’ve considered maybe going to Mass on Christmases that don’t fall on a Sunday, because the LDS church does not do a meeting specifically for Christmas. Maybe I’ll look at other local denominations and see what type of things go on around town. Do religions other than Catholicism typically have a Christmas service?
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Some times I just need to put my big girl panties on and get over myself. This is one of those time. I think next year we are going to observe advent, and I plan to make a daily advent calender with scriptures and more of the religious side of Christmas incorporated.
Do you try to incorporate more Christ into your Christmas? And how do you balance spending time with relatives, while still being your own little family?
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011, 5:13 pm | 
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December 14, 2011 at 8:55 am
Once we had our first child we changed the way we did Christmas. We always traveled to see his parents and mine and usually tried to do Christmas Eve with my parents and day with his when it was feasible (until his parents moved too far for us to do both so close together). We have spent every Christmas Eve at home since Kate was a baby. It isn’t always easy to say no, but I am glad that our kids memories of Christmas mornings are in our home(s)–this is Kate’s 5th Christmas house! On Christmas morning we aren’t competing with grandparents on gifts, we can do things in our own sweet time, and we get to give those PJs on Christmas Eve here too.
I grew up Methodist and we always had Christmas Eve Services. We went early when I was little, but as my sister and I were older we went to the 11:00 service so we would get out at midnight Christmas morning. We would go home and open presents then, rather than go to bed so late and get up early in the morning.
We celebrate advent and I have enjoyed it. The kids have a Little People Nativity set and we talk about Jesus throughout the season, including why he came to earth as a baby.
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Jessica Reply:
December 14th, 2011 at 10:49 am
I’m not going to push it this year, especially since Ginny won’t remember it. But I am trying to plan for next year.
Maybe we will do something similar, slipping in some church and family present opening between the two bigger family celebrations.
I saw the Little People Nativity at the store when I was shopping for my nephew, and that is a good idea, to have a set that the kids can play with.
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December 14, 2011 at 9:10 am
I’ve seen a lot of churches advertising Christmas eve services outside of their buildings – I also think some of the local newspapers print a list of where you can attend a Christmas eve service.
I love that you’re making a really special gift for Ginny instead of just throwing some toys at her that she won’t remember. What a great idea! I wish I had more things like that from my parents – they did stuff like that but didn’t keep telling me as I grew up what the story was behind certain things until I would go to throw something away and my mom would be like “um…you can’t throw that out, your grandmother made that for you.” And I would be like, “If I had known, I wouldn’t have dragged it through the mud….” (not a true story, just an example).
It’s hard to blend families and I’m trying to cope with that now with my brother and his girlfriend being so serious these days. We spent Thanksgiving with her family in another state, which is the first time in ten years I haven’t been with my best friends and their families on Thanksgiving. It was totally fine and we had a good time, but change is hard for everyone! I hope you figure out a way to make your holiday feel like your own!
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Jessica Reply:
December 14th, 2011 at 10:51 am
I’m a very sentimental person, so there is no doubt that she will know that this blanket was from her first Christmas. I can’t wait to blog about it, it’s SO COOL!
I really don’t like spending Thanksgiving at places other than my parents’. It’s not that I don’t like other people, because I do enjoy seeing people we haven’t seen in a while, but no one cooks the things my mom makes like she makes them. lol.
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December 14, 2011 at 12:31 pm
When we had our daughter we celebrated Christmas in our own home. If family wanted to see us, they have to travel to see us. Period. End of story. It may sound harsh and at first my mom didn’t like it but it is what it is. Get over and get with the program, or we’ll see you on the flip side. I have learned early on in our marriage to put our family first (TP, Me, Bean, Reid) and then think about others. I always wanted kids to have stories about Christmas in our home, not stories about running around from house to house and too exhausted to enjoy anything.
Christmas Eve
My Dad and I go to the movies
I prep dishes for the next day
Make cinnamon roll dough
Everyone is allowed to open one gift
Our Christmas mornings look like this:
3:00 am – I sneak and stuff all the stockings
6:00 am- My mom and I are up preping dishes for that day’s dinner
8:00 am- I cut the dough of the cinnamon rolls I made the night before and bake them
Usually everyone is still sleeping
8:30 am- Bean wakes up and we spend the morning eating cinnamon rolls
9:00 am – TP wakes up and eats
10-3pm- We all shower and change into our nicer Christmas clothes (usually sweaters but this year we’re starting a new tradition and we are all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters). We open stockings first, then presents and then we lay around the house snacking on cinnamon rolls and eventually dinner.
The rest of the day is used making phone calls and playing with gadgets. Then around 6pm or so I always go to the movies with either my mom or TP (depending on who really wants to go and who wants to watch the kids). Then we come home and have a later meal and go to sleep.
I love our Christmas day. It’s always relaxed, no hectic car rides.
It takes time to create traditions but most of all, I find that young families really have to put their foot down and let other family members know that we have our own families now and that we’re trying to create something.
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December 14, 2011 at 2:51 pm
I’m Lutheran and yes we have Christmas services. Also, Christmas Eve services starting at 6 (typically, at least at my particular church). Then at Midnight Christmas Eve/Christmas morning however you want to look at it, they have a special candle light service, its really special. They do a sermon and everything like normal but it’s candlelit IE no electricity. I never questioned why actually, but its really a treat.
Anyway, when I was little we lived in CA and my dad’s side of the family is there. We’d do Christmas at home in the morning then at my Grandparents in the afternoon & have dinner there.
Then we moved to AZ and my moms family is here, but we always had Christmas at home. Sometimes family would come over, but usually it was just our immediate family.
Now, fiance and I go to my parents house on Christmas day. His mom and grandma moved here this year so we are supposed to go there on Christmas Eve, but they’re actually at our house right now helping us out with our dog who got injured on Sunday. And I am thinking (hoping) that they’ll be here at our house through Christmas weekend because thats how long our pup has to keep here stitches in and take meds. So, this year is a bit of a toss up at the moment…
Ok, I’ll stop writing my novel now
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December 15, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Looks like others have commented, but we’re Baptist and also attend a nondenominational Christian church – they all have Christmas services. You can find somewhere
As far as family – I’m dreading it to be honest. We are in KY, both families are in Richmond, VA. I hate the 8-9 hr drive back with just us and can’t imagine factoring in a baby next year! Normally we stay home for 1 holiday and my parents come to KY – hubs family have only come out here for our wedding. It may sound harsh, but its their decision and their loss. The stress and burden of going back to VA for Thanksgiving and then again for Christmas only to bounce from place to place for a couple hours here and there is no fun for anyone. It makes me miserable which in turn makes the hubs miserable.
Once baby is here, we plan on continuing just going back for one holiday or the other. If people want to come to us, we’re more than happy to host them!
Eventually, we’ll move back to VA (hopefully in another 2-3 years) and then it’ll change, but I grew up with grandparents coming to our home so I hope we can somehow keep that going. Set boundaries and make yourself happy
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