I remember the “normal” holidays. Thanksgiving with the aunts, uncles, cousins… everyone. More food than any of us could consume, horseshoes, football, and did I mention there was food? Christmas with my parents and grandparents. A small crowd, but we still managed to have too much food most of the time. Is that a holiday thing or a Southern thing? I never did figure it out.
After eight years of the normal routine, I left it behind. My family moved to Guam and our holidays became a three-person affair. We still made memorie
s, shared love and laughter, and had enough food to feed the entire island.
When I tell people I spend holidays with two people, they act like it’s a bad thing. They apologize for what has become my normal. The truth is, I miss my extended family, but I wouldn’t trade our trio holidays for anything in the world. We took our Southern family foundation and we made Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and other holidays all our own.
On Thanksgiving, my mom gets up early and puts the ham in the oven. We flip on the TV and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We’ll laugh at the balloons and sing-along to the performances, or just ooh-and-ahh over the city skyline. Instead of Thanksgiving dinner, my family eats Thanksgiving lunch. With the TV on in the background, we eat and talk. It isn’t a formal affair by any means, just a time to remember how special our little family unit really is.
Christmas Eve is our night for movie magic. Elf, Holiday Inn, White Christmas. As many movies as we can get in before we’re all asleep in the living room. There’s no big party, unless you count my mom and I quoting Buddy the Elf as a party. I think it’s the world’s greatest party, and I’m proud to be in attendance.
On Christmas we don’t get dressed up in fancy dresses or suits, we spend all day in our PJs. Presents and, you guessed it, food. There might be a movie or two.
My holidays probably don’t look like yours and my family definitely doesn’t look like your family. We’re dysfunctional, but after moving halfway across the world to stay together, we’ve learned a thing or two about making things work. We fuss and we fight, but somehow, at the end of the day, I look at the two crazy people I live wi
th and know that life would be awful without them.
Enough about me… I want to hear about you! Comment and tell me, what’s the best thing you do with your family? Is it a weird holiday tradition? A weekly occurrence? Simple or extravagant, I would love to know!
When God placed us on this earth, He knew the kind of family we would need. He knew I would need a crazy, loving, adventurous, faithful, and slightly insane family unit. He knew I would need a house full of laughter and a life full of travel and adventure.
He knew I would need two parents who loved me more than the world, and He knew they would need a daughter to keep them on their toes.
Don’t you love how God always gets it right?
