Trying To Revive A Dead Holiday

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Thanksgiving is coming upon as once again. And once again my wife and I get into the annual discussion of where we are going to spend this Holiday of giving thanks. In the 16 years we have been married, this has been by far at the top of the list of my least favorite topic of conversations. And I guess it is something that needs to be address on a yearly basis. If memory serves me correctly, and it probably does not, we started off in our marriage rotating Thanksgiving destinations. One year, we would visit her family, the next mine, and so on.

This is where my memory gets a bit sketchy. Many years or so ago, we were to partake of the bird and all its fixings with my family. For one reason or another, maybe I was feeling overworked at the time, I didn't want to make the drive. This in turn upset my wife’s mother in law. Blame was pointed at my wife as the reason we weren't going. I was unsuccessful convincing my Mother, that it was I that didn't want to travel, and it had nothing to do with my wife. Many regrettable words were said, and Thanksgiving has never been the same since. It seems the entire Holiday would be better swept under the rug and forgotten about completely. But that would be impossible. Each year to follow I knew the inevitable topic of the Pilgrim Buffet would arise, and that there was no way around it. Sometimes we’d go to here family, some mine. One year we actually had it at our own house and invited a few from both parties, the In-laws and the Out-laws.

The holiday became so stressful; I think we lost sight of why we celebrate thanksgiving. I’d like to think we still had much to be thankful for…but egos in the way, we never were able to express it.

Anyway, this year…when the discussion came up. I decided to just say, “Whatever you would like to do, I am good.” My wife insisted that I tell her what it was that I really wanted to do and she did not want to hear what I thought she wanted to hear. I said again, “Really, whatever you want to do, I am good with.” I think that even upset her more. The thing is, I have grown tired of this. Bottom line, it just did not matter to me anymore. All I want is for the tension around Thanksgiving to cease. To me, it does not matter where I am; I just want to be with my wife and kids.

So…the conversation continued. My wife pressed further, I finally said…”Sure, I’d like to see my family…blah, blah, blah…” What she was waiting to hear was not what she wanted to hear…and I had begun to fear of the response I was about to get, and I quickly had to interject, “But honestly sweetheart, it really does not matter. I just want to be with you and the kids.”

And from the sidelines, the flags were thrown onto the field. The referees, our two children quietly, sounded off. “Let’s just stay home, and do some things together.” My wife had always said she wanted to start our own traditions. I have always agreed. But we had never taken the time to begin…because we spent so much time talking about where we were going to go.

So this year, we are staying home. We are going to cook a turkey with some funky glaze my wife found on someone’s blog. We are going to eat heartily and finish it off with some pie. Possibly we will put up a tree and some Christmas lights. This year we are going to be home for Thanksgiving, as a family.

We do have plenty to be thankful for…we have each other.