The Holiday Post

Someone recently suggested that I make some posts about holidays on this blog. It was a great idea, because holidays can be such a hot topic for newlyweds. It can spur that classic discussion between a new husband and wife about where they'll be spending their holidays -- about which ones they'll be spending with the husband's side of the family and which ones they'll be spending with the wife's. I've heard horror stories about couples shedding tears over this issue, about them arguing 'til they were blue in the face, about mother-in-laws getting involved in the debate, etc. Needless to say, it seems this stuff can get pretty hairy for some couples.

But this hasn't really been a huge issue for me and Ryan. The first "holiday" we spent together was Halloween, and we didn't really need to visit family for that, so we just got a big ole' pumpkin from the grocery store, carved it together, and put it on his parents' front steps (they live in a nearby town). For holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, Ryan had actually been thinking that we'd just spend'm all at my mom's house. All of them. When I asked him why the heck he'd been thinking that, he answered, "Well, I just assumed that we'd be spending the major holidays at your mom's since we live so close to my parents and we'll be seeing them all the time anyway." It was really sweet of him to be thinking that way, but there was no way I was gonna go along with his plan. It actually frightened me a little. I knew it'd probably make his family pret-ty darn upset if we snubbed them every holiday of the year, and although it would've been Ryan's idea if we did it, I worried that in the back of their minds, they'd be blaming me. I couldn't let that happen.

"Ryan," I said, "that's very generous of you, but we can't do that to your mom! She's gonna want you around on some of those holidays."

"She won't care," he replied.

"Ha! She won't care? Of course she will! And what about the rest of your family? What about your brothers? They'll wanna share some holidays with you."

"Nope," he said, "They won't care. I know they won't, because I already told them that that's what we're doing."

(This is where I started to feel a little queasy.) "You already told them that what's what we're doing?" "That we're going to your mom's for all the holidays."

Man! As sweet and sincere as Ryan was being at the time, I wanted to slap him upside the head. I was pretty dang concerned with the way his family viewed me at the time (probably more-so than I needed to be), and I knew that his telling them such a thing wasn't helping me any. The next time I saw his mom, I set things straight: I told her we'd be spending Thanksgiving with them, and Christmas with my family.

We did wind up getting to spend Thanksgiving with his family, and I had a good time, but I wound up going alone to my mom's house for Christmas because Ryan had just gotten a new job and had to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I was really glad to be going "home" over Christmas, but it was really weird not having Ryan around. And I got all paranoid when I went to church for the Christmas Eve service and imagined people thinking that Ryan and I had split up or something. (I know they were ridiculous thoughts, but I still had them.)

For New Year's Eve, we went to Lindsay and Ben's cool night wedding (I was a personal attendant/reception singer and Ryan was an usher). As a matter of fact, here's a picture of us on that night:


Aren't we scary? They had a photo booth at their reception so people could clip off a picture of themselves and paste it next to their guestbook signatures.

This post is getting to be mondo long. Now let's see...I already wrote about Valentine's Day in a previous post on this blog, and Easter hasn't happened yet, so I can't exactly write about it yet. What I can say, though, is that Ryan's going to be working Easter Sunday (why do they always have to make the newbies work the holidays?), and the vehicle I drive isn't reliable enough to make the 5-hour trip to my mom's, so I'm probably gonna be spending the holiday with his family. Just me and his fam. No Ryan. I don't think that's ever happened before.

This should be interesting. I think it'll be good, though.