Ever since I moved away from our families, holidays have been kind of a let-down.
It all started with our first "married" Thanksgiving. I was very excited to cook my first Thanksgiving meal for my new husband. I spent days planning what I was going to make. Then, he came home sick from work on Wednesday. It wasn't your garden variety type of sick, either. The man had fluids escaping from every possible place fluids could escape from. I thought I was going to have to call him an ambulance. He was so sick that he could barely walk, and wouldn't have made it to the car. And, me carrying him? Well, that wasn't going to happen. So, our first thanksgiving was a bust. I made dinner on Saturday, but he was barely well enough to eat it, let alone enjoy it.
The holidays after that have been hit or miss. Christmas and Thanksgiving, we've either had family visit or have gone home every year, but the rest haven't been so memorable. Some holidays have been blown off completely. The others, we've tried to make a big to-do, but have always felt let-down by the end of the day. This Independence Day was no different.
We got up, and went to the grocery store because we were out of milk. Apparently, there was only one grocery store open withing 100 miles, because the entire Central Coast was there too. We spent $7 on a gallon of milk, because ALL of the other milk was raining from the cartons. We got sandwiches from Subway for lunch.
We then taught Little Monster how to throw pops and stomp on them to make them go. After nap time, the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped to about 55 degrees. We grilled hot dogs despite the cold weather and played outside, but something was still missing. Little Monster was in bed long before the fireworks. We were in our jammies watching Tivo'd re-runs of How I Met Your Mother when we heard them go off.
What a holiday, huh? I've always thought that when we had kids, the holidays would get better. We'd have a reason to do them up big. But, having a kid hasn't changed our holidays much at all. I think what is 'missing' is the fact that holidays were always big family affairs. Food and family, friends and games, and fun. So, the thing we're 'missing' here is the massive amounts of people. I think I'm going to start making holidays special. We will not do yard work or laundry. We will make a big deal out of them, and play and have fun. We will invite people over and have food and conversations. Because it isn't the DATE that makes the holiday memorable, it's what you do with it.
What do you do for holidays without family around? Do you blow them off, or do you do them up big anyway?
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I completely understand. What makes the holiday is when I am surrounded by either my family or oodles of fun friends. We decided to make the 4th a party this year because normally we whoop it up like you did this year. :0) So, we invited tons of people over and had a good time. So, I say go for it!
Well, we don't normally do much for any holidays, such as the Easter the DH asked, "What do you want for dinner?" And I replied "Ham and scalloped potatoes." Him: "We don't have any ham." Me: "That's because you didn't want to buy it when we were at the store." Him: So what do you want for dinner?" Me: "I don't care, I'll just eat this can of pears." Somehow, Easter just isn't the same without ham and scalloped potatoes.
This last weekend we did nothing. We had a couple of friends over for dinner, and I was in bed by 9:30. I had a horrible sore throat and couldn't swallow, I was in a bad mood, and just wanted to see some fireworks. It didn't happen. Oh well. There is always next year.
Post a Comment