Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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Can't Come Over for Turkey, Baby. My Mommy Says No.
Talks of Thanksgiving this year were giving me some serious nausea... and not just because I despise the smell of roasted turkey.
Over this past summer, my boyfriend of four years and I made a pact that we would start spending some holidays together. We always miss each other on these most special days of the year like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and being that we've been together so long, we figure it's time to start making our relationship play a role on those days.
Christmas is easy: split it evenly between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But Thanksgiving is trickier, especially because our families gather about 2 hours away from one another.
So last night, I made the call: "Sorry baby, we can try again next year. I can't do it to my family this year. I'm not coming over."
My boyfriend promised to help his mom cook this year, so he couldn't make the first move here. What made it so hard for me to hold up my end of the bargain?
I'm not even close to being the oldest person in my family. I have tons of cousins who are older than me, and I never thought I'd be the first one to be in a serious adult relationship. I just never thought I'd be the first one to transition our family from always together to breaking apart on the holidays.
I'm 24 years old, and I understand that as an adult I can do what I want in this situation. And of course, this day was inevitable. But let's get real-- the reason we love the holidays are the traditions. Having everyone gathered around the table together, especially as we get older, is a special thing, and all I could think about was being the killjoy that ruins it for the first time.
When I mentioned our idea for the new holiday arrangement to my family a few weeks back, they must have sensed my reluctance for change. They laughed, saying that we're not married, and there was no reason to mess up what we have so soon.
I let the issue drop, not because I necessarily agreed, but because as much as I love him and want to see him for the holidays, I don't want to rock the boat at my house or his when it comes to Thanksgiving.
Besides, upsetting our families is not exactly what the Pilgrims and Native Americans had in mind when they feasted. At least, I doubt it was.
Have you ever spent the holidays with an SO's family? How did your family react to your first absence from their traditions?
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About the Author
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- From: KerrSull
- About Me: I'm a 24 year old serial monogamist who oddly thinks she knows everything while continuing to have tons of questions about that crazy little thing called love.
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Comments (24)
I've had a girlfriend spend Christmas with me and my family before. My family is always welcoming and they've accepted with open arms. A few times, I would go and spend a weekend with the girlfriend and her family skiing in the mountains or during the summer at a beach house. But, both of us would understand that holidays are a time to be with family, and that is what's most important.
i've had the same problem with my boyfriend - except that his mom hates me, so i never go to their family gatherings because i'm not welcome. he spends time with his family thanksgiving and christmas eve, and he spends the day with my family (who love him to death) on Christmas Day. Eh, we've just learned to accept it and you'll probably have to also until you get married.
i've missed the last 3 thanksgivings with my family and this is about to be the 4th. my husband is a marine, and the 1st one we were together, i chose to go visit him instead of stay home with family. that was hard enough, but i hadn't seen him in months and that was my only vacation time. the other 2, i've been living here with him in north carolina and we can't afford to come home for thanksgiving and christmas, so we choose christmas. and we both come from split families, so we do two different family things on christmas eve, and two different ones on christmas eve. it's a hassle, but it's the only way we can compromise everything now. i have no idea what we're going to do when we have our own kids. then we'll be suuuper busy. my family already misses me so much and his family misses him so i feel like we can never make everyone happy all the time.
My fiance and I have spent about every holiday together for the past 3.5 years. We just plan to VISIT with everyone and not necessarily eat two times.
this year we're splitting the day in half doing mine earlier in the day and his later in the day. christmas is going to be harder especially because both of our families are steeped in tradition around that time. this year isn't such a big deal but once we have our own house we'll make our own traditions and will probably just end up hosting thanksgiving for both our families at our place instead of us doing the running around!!!
we're just very lucky. both our families love us and love each other! so it makes it easy. also we're only twenty minutes away from both our families. but like i said, we're very lucky.
last year he came to my thanksgiving, i went to his xmas eve. this year, we're swapping. we've been together for 2 years, idk how long we're going to be together, but it's nice.
My Ex came to our thanksgiving when we were still together and i spent christmas eve with his family. It was funny cause neither of us expected it to go over so well with our families.
At some point you CAN break tradition because one day you're going to be a grown up and have a family of your own with someone (probably not this guy). Families are allowed to separate for holidays, especially when the kids get older and start their own families. Whats gonna happen when you get married? Divide between houses? Why wouldn't you want to spend your holidays with your boyfriend? Holidays are for sharing, not for locking into some old sentiment. For this I can take you never seee your friends either. I could see if u were 19, dating a guy for 6 months. but 4 years at 24, you show a huge lack of commitment to your guy and growing into your own adult.
I don't get this post at all. Do you want a pat on the back that you are unable move forward as an adult and incapable of starting your OWN traditions? Or are you trying to make it okay that you went back on what you and ur guy previously agreed on?
My family doesn't really do anything that special for the holidays, but it's just me and my parents, so if I were to go home with a guy for the holidays, I would be leaving them alone. Then again, I am going home with a friend this year since I can't make it home for Thanksgiving. I'm sure my parents don't mind too much, but only because it's not a boyfriend. If I were dating someone and we were serious, I would expect the invitation to extend to my parents.
not Thanksgiving but we go back and forth on christmas. spend some time at my house and his.
@Kayla - Haha, I've never written anything for Datingish with the intention of a pat on the back. I guess what I'm saying is that for my experience of the holidays, I can't imagine being away from my family. I don't think that shows I am not committed to my boyfriend. We are about as committed as it gets without being married. I simply mean that it's a shame we can't split the day down the middle and spend the day with both families like some commenters here are able to, because I will miss my family a great deal the first time I'm not with them for Thanksgiving.
My hubby and I have been married for 5 1/2 years. Times before we split things up. Thanksgiving at his family's and Christmas with my family. Then the next year we would switch. But, the last two years it's just been too much stress and traveling with two young kids to travel for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Did I mention hubby's in the Navy and we live 9-10 hours away from all our family?!) So now we're just doing Christmas with family and we flip who we go to each year. Thanksgiving is at home, just our little family, building our own traditions. It's kind of lonely on Thanksgiving, considering I have, like, 12 cousins I'm usually hanging out with, but we're getting used to it.
My bf and I are spending the entire holidays with my family..because he doesn't want to spend it alone and I can't stand to be around his mother.
I'm really lucky that my mom HATES Thanksgiving. She's more of the Christmas and Easter person. My mom was actually out of the country for Easter so I spent it with his family. Thanksgiving is being spent at his sisters house and there's gonna be like 30 people (from his side and from his sisters husband side.) Christmas eve is being split between 3 families. Christmas Eve we're having lunch at his parents house because they like to go to bed early. Christmas Eve Dinner is at my mom's house because my mom likes to do everything late. And then we're spending a couple of hours at my dad's so it's like Christmas Eve dessert time is being spent at my dads. And then on Christmas, we're going to my cousins husbands moms house. This is how we will be spending our holidays until we get married. Then Christmas Day will most likely be spent at our house and most likely Easter
This year will be the first time where I will be spending Thanksgiving away from family. I do feel bad leaving my family home because holidays are the time where family should be together, but I also know that my mom didn't really have plans on wanting to do anything or making tons of food. I know for sure I'll be at home for Christmas for most of the day and then will spend some time with my bf afterwards.
Both of our families don't mind. They understand that we have two family now since we're married. We always try to make it to one or both if time permits. Shrugs. Ain't a big deal.
Have a thanksgiving breakfast with him, then go to your respective families for dinner. Then, if you're not stuffed to the Netherlands, go for dessert :)
I spent most of the holidays at my boyfriend's house. This year my family expects me to be at his house, and I won't say no because I prefer their family.
I've been married for 3 years and every year my parents and my in-laws fight over where we should spend the holidays. Since the time we started dating back in 2003, we would spend Thanksgiving at both houses. Christmas eve was spent at his parent's house and Christmas day at my parents house, then onto my grandparents house after lunch. (This will never change. I like how we do that). This year, we are going to hubby's parents house for Thanksgiving on Wednesday and my parents on Thursday. His dad is a pilot for Life Flight and will be flying on Thanksgiving, so it worked out perfectly. I'm looking forward to when we have our own children so we can start our own traditions. However, I will spend Christmas day with my grandparents as long as I possibly can.
I've spent one Thanksgiving and one Christmas with my SO's family, during 2 different years of our 4 together so far. Our families are in totally different parts of the country, so there's not much chance of splitting holidays anyway. It wasn't a big deal, we let everyone know ahead of time and all that. He's never spent Christmas with us, but he has stayed here in FL and split Thanksgiving between my family and his grandparents before. Everyone is in college or working in our families, so I guess everyone just accepts that we're adults and free to do as we please for the holidays.
My reply to your article: http://vintagefashion88.datingish.com/735762956/just-do-what-your-soul-tells-you-to-go/
Last year I finally had my (now ex)boyfriend over for our thanksgiving, since last year he had gone to his first then showed up when it was all over at my place. He also spent the night for christmas eve and stayed till noon on christmas day. It was all lovely and wonderful, but then we broke up about a month later, after over 3 years of being together. So now that the holidays are coming up again, it's hard remembering last year... I've only been with him and he kept becoming more and more apart of my family than his and now that it's over it really hurts... but aside from that...
So I'm not sure what I feel about trying to come together or not... I've never had anyone else who didn't want to come on over so I guess it's up to you! If it's not a problem to be separate and then hang out later, I would just do that. That's what we did the first couple years.
4 years sounds fairly "serious," and you've still never had any holidays together with your families? I find that strange, no offense. I'm quite a bit younger, been dating someone the same amount of time, and we've been switching off Christmas dinners and stuff the whole time, since our first Christmas dating. I don't get why it's so hard.. so what if you aren't married? You can drive, can't you? Do what you want.
I was invited to go to Georgia with my boyfriend's family for Thanksgiving last year, but I did the same thing you did. I really did want to spend the holiday with him and his family, but I didn't want to break tradition. We have talked about what we're going to do for holidays though. Christmas surprisingly works out really well. My family celebrates in the morning. His celebrates in the evening. So we just split the day in half.