Hellobee

I loved the holidays when I was a kid. Although my mom raised me mostly by herself, she did have a long-term boyfriend when I was little. I remember spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with him and/or his extended family. It was great – exactly like the families I saw on TV or the ones my friends were a part of. After they broke up, my mom and I moved in with my aunt and my 3 teenage cousins. Thanksgiving still felt largely the same to me, although my cousins were usually busy with their lives to spend too much time with me. Christmas was slightly different, as my aunt is Jewish, but I enjoyed learning about Hanukkah and still felt very surrounded by family.

Things felt different when my mom and I moved into our own place when I was a teenager. We didn’t cook the traditional Thanksgiving feast because it was just the two of us, with the occasional visit from my aunt, and we didn’t really have any other traditions to fall back on. I remember thinking it was a holiday meant for big families and people who loved football. Mostly I just waited for the day to pass, like any other. Christmas was also odd. My mom and I would sit together and exchange presents – which was kind of one-sided those days (sorry, Mom!). We would order Chinese food and sometimes watch classic Christmas movies on TV, but I remember wishing that there was more to the day.

In college, I started a long-term relationship with a guy who had a large Portuguese family. I tried to angle myself to spend as much time as I could with them during the holidays. They had the huge Thanksgiving meal and the large get-togethers under the Christmas tree that I had always pictured and longed for. Their family was loud and fun and always did things together. I spent time with my mom at our house for each holiday, but selfishly (oh so, so selfishly) wanted to be a part of something more.

It wasn’t really until I started dating Mr. Oyster that I began to realize how differently all families celebrate the holidays. His big (huge, by my standards) family all gathered at his grandparents’ house on Christmas Eve for everyone to exchange presents, eat, and enjoy each other’s company. The first year that I was invited, I surprised myself by stating that I would go,  but that I had to spend Christmas morning at my mom’s house. So Mr. Oyster and I ended up spending Christmas Eve driving from his family’s party to my mom’s house, about an hour and a half away, so that we could wake up with her to open presents.

Things changed when I was pregnant with Scallop. I realized that I wasn’t really interested in traveling all over the place with a newborn for the holidays. I wanted to start our own traditions at our home. I wanted to cook our Thanksgiving dinner (although I had no idea how to…). I wanted to spend time volunteering our time or donating to local shelters when we could. I wanted to cut down our Christmas tree and decorate it in our own time. I wanted to wake up on Christmas morning at our home and create our own traditions. I was also more than happy to have anyone from either of our families join us for any/all of these events when they could.

And so that’s basically what we’ve done. For most of the time we’re at our house for the holidays. I’ve cooked 4 Thanksgiving dinners now for the family and loved it each time. There was even one year that we had no power due to 3 feet of snow and I cooked most of the meal for us and our friend-bors (friend/neighbors) on toaster ovens and camping stoves from Mr. Oyster’s work! We still attend family parties when it works with the kids’ schedules, but we spend most of the time at our house. I’ll admit that there’s still a part of me that longs for the rest of our families to be around for each part of the holidays, but for the most part I’m just happy that we’ve come to a place where our family has its traditions and spends our time making the holidays special for Scallop and Pearl. I can finally create what I was always searching for, for them – and that feels right.

Happy Holidays all!