I wanted to do something different this year for the Thanksgiving Holiday. I wanted to travel to Virginia and have it with my family. I wanted to change it up this year, so I proposed this idea to my family. I think they went into shock. We have celebrated Thanksgiving exactly the same way for the past 15 years. I thought it would be nice to break out of our annual routine and do something different for a change. Boy, when I suggested that we travel to Virginia instead of staying home you would have thought that I just asked my family to stand on one leg next to a major highway in turkey costumes waving to cars as they pass by. At first I was irritated by their reaction, then I got mad, then I said forget it, and finally I just said “Screw all of you this is what we are doing”.
After I made the decision for all of us to get away, the stress set in. Do you stress like I do when you have to travel? My 18 year old daughter was the one who had the most resistance to the idea of leaving the area for 4 days. She thought she was going to miss out on what her friends were doing. I had to remind her (more like argue with her) that her friends had family too and they were all going to be doing what we were doing and that was try to have a nice family Thanksgiving holiday! My husband was the next biggest irritant in expressing why we shouldn’t travel over Thanksgiving. His argument was just as lame as my daughter’s but I listened to him anyways (at least I pretended to). He couldn’t imagine us changing our routine of driving 20 minutes to where his parent’s house is and having dinner with them and then driving home afterwards. This is pretty much what we have done over the last 15 years since we moved away from my family. I am not complaining about it or disrespecting his family in any way here, I love Thanksgiving with them, but I simply wanted to spend the Holiday with my family this year.
Now that the shock and arguing is over – the stress starts (for me mostly) because everything pretty much falls on my shoulders. My big stress sets in when trying to make the arrangements and take care of everything for our trip ahead of time. There is a lot of preparation that goes into planning a vacation. I am sure like many of you women out there, you also take care of the majority of the preparation. There are just so many details to take care of like work, newspaper, mail, bills, medicines, electronics, clothes – the list is long. Pets are a biggie. We have pets, a dog and a cat and I have to make all their arrangements also. My husband helps out with getting our dog ready to take over to his parents, but I have to make sure there is enough food and treats. Same for the cat. She stays at home but I have to clean her litter box ahead of time and put out a couple of bowls of water and food. When we are home, she acts like she can’t be bothered with us but gets mad when we leave her over night. She’ll turn over her bowls of food and water to spite me. My in laws check in on her – never see her because she hides from them. They make sure she has food and water and that she hasn’t destroyed my home.
Vacations are great but it’s important to not have them end abruptly by throwing yourself instantly into stress mode when you get back home. I do try and prepare to not have stress right when the vacation is over. One thing I like to do before going away is clean my house. It’s a nice feeling to walk into your home after being away and missing it and it’s clean and all you have to do is the laundry from the trip. It makes the transition of vacation mode to the daily grind routine easier. It’s hard to fit in a good cleaning before going away, but if you haven’t done this before, try it and you’ll love the feeling of getting home all the more!
Well all my pain and suffering pre-trip was worth it because our Thanksgiving vacation turned out perfect. We had a great time seeing everyone and I loved seeing my family smiling, happy, relaxing and having fun. Mission accomplished!! A change in our Thanksgiving routine was a success and good for everyone.
Sometimes demanding what I want is really something that I want for my whole family, even if they don’t get that right at first. That’s OK, they can thank me later, especially my kids when they have families of their own and look back at what we did as a family. I hope they remember these times and realize that what I wanted for my family is what they will want for theirs and that is to simply enjoy the holidays, be happy and be thankful for our time together.
OK – onto Christmas!!!! We are spending it at home so everyone can relax.
Shari – I Want It All
