In past years Craig and I have been used to spending Christmas day with just eachother. With working in claims for a few years I developed, I guess you could call it a fear of traveling on holidays. I dealt with so many awful accidents surrounding traveling on the holidays that I never wanted to take that chance, let alone have family travel to us on holidays and have them risk it.-Paranoid, I know. But in past years it hasn't been that bad because typically my family has a giant family christmas party with all my aunt's, uncles, cousins, etc. and it usually is two weeks or so before Christmas so I am ok with traveling then. Its great because all of the family lives in Missouri, and every year we change the location. so its either in Kansas City, or St. Louis. Since my parents live in KC and thats only a four hour drive for us, its very easy to go up on Friday and if we have to travel to St. Louis its only a few more hours and so its nice. We usually use this time with my parents to do Christmas. Since Craig's family all live in Indiana, we typically have to settle on ordering gifts via the internet and having it shipped or giftcards. So with my family we actually get to wrap gifts and give them to eachother.
Well this year we didn't get to do that. Since I am so far along in my pregnancy they did not recommend I travel especially anything over 2 hrs. so we didn't get to go. Luckily from what my mom said, it really was a disappointment this year and because of poor planning a lot of the family didn't get to make it, so althought that is sad it makes me happy, that the one I miss is the "crappy" one.
Nonetheless not having a family Christmas party to attend this year made everything feel empty. Craig and I really like spending time alone on Christmas but at the same time not having a Christmas party really made me think. It made me realize that times like this it sucks not having family close. Although my parents have already said that from now on they will come down for Christmas because of the twins and they want to be there for them, it just makes me sad that our kids wont have a lot of interaction outside of the holidays with family, especially Craig's side. I wonder what is in store in the years to come in regards to his family. I am not overally concerned about his dad because he comes out to visit roughly twice a year. Since he is retired he can come out more if he decides, but for one person driving 12 hrs can take a toll on your body. And yes I know what you all are thinking, there are other ways to travel that wouldn't take as long but long story short he will only drive. But his sister and her family is what I wonder. Times like this I wish we had bigger families with his sister being the only sibling and her only have one child, our twins only have one cousin that they will rarely see since. Luckily we have an adoptive family that have two girls, 6 and 3 and a 6 month old boy, and they have a lot in common with us, so we plan on taking family trips with them, and that will give the twins more children and family. My brother is younger and isn't married, so there is no rush at all for him to start a family, so there isn't much additional family on my side. The twins seeing their cousin is my biggest obstacle, since we normally go to Indiana once a year for a week they would have time then, but the next two years it will be tough because Craig only has so many vacation days as well as I and we need to take an actual vacation just Craig and I which we haven't done since we got married, so we have that planned for 2010 and then in 2011 is our 5 year anniversary and Craig's best friends wedding that he is a part of so that takes a lot of vacation time as well. so as of right now it looks like the first time we will be able to go to Indiana isn't until 2012 and our twins will be 2 years old then. I know they wont remeber much before then, but its the principle of seeing family that bothers me.
Ok I am sorry to ramble, but I just wanted to get it off my chest, because holidays always make you think of family and its just sad to me.
On a more positive note I cant believe 2009 is coming to an end, it has been a wonderful and eventful year with 2010 bound to be a huge adventure and an important chapter of our lives.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year, with many blessings for 2010.
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I haven't read your blog in several weeks because I just realized the way I was "following" wasn't working :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I can really sympathize with your post. I had many of the same thoughts this Thanksgiving and Christmas, even though I was with my family on Christmas. I think I was just worried about future Christmases, because this was a rare time I actually got to see them. You are not alone, I think everyone who lives far from family has these same thoughts/concerns. It has been especially hard for me lately, as I have been longing to start a family and getting into that mindset. My kids will be 13 hours away from Grandma Kate and Poppie - haha. Really hard to swallow and accept that fact.