It's Christmas morning at my mom's today (so more of us can be together) and as I was lying in bed last night, full of anxiety, I couldn't help but realize that our family holidays have become very much like a bad holiday movie.
I think everyone has seen at least one terrible Christmas movie about the family that can't get along/goes to 4 Christmases/everything seems to go wrong/etc etc etc. and they aren't very funny. Now don't get me wrong, hubby and I do enjoy being able to see our family and friends this time of year (yay free holidays at work) but sometimes the burden of travel/gifts/time makes me want to stay home in my pajamas and skip Christmas altogether.
With family members not speaking, opinionated grandparents and the last minute meal preparation our holiday has become much like a movie. I never really know what to expect when I visit and while some moments are hilarious and memorable, others leave me feeling angry and hurt. Sometimes I don't understand why I wanted to grow up so quickly, adulthood comes with a lot of unexpected drama. I guess it's true what they say, enjoy your childhood as long as you can because you can never go back.
It seems that no matter how much time we spend with certain family members we leave hearing loathsome guilt trips about how they wish we could stay longer/visit more/call more often. If this had started AFTER we moved over 500 miles away I could understand, but these little guilt trips have been going on for years (and we get it on both sides of our family). I would much rather just enjoy the time we do have to spend with each other than have it filled with guilt trips about how you never see us. Hubby and I make a lot of efforts to see as many people as we can as often as we can but it is to the point that I have to say "the phone and visits work BOTH WAYS". If you want to see us more, come visit us! If you want to talk more, pick up the phone! We have been blessed with a lot of visitors since we moved and we absolutely love having our family/friends visit. As most people know, I rarely don't answer a phone call/text right away. I love keeping in touch with people and I make a lot of efforts to do so.
I've had several conversations with various friends/family/coworkers about how stressful the holidays are and how we all wish we could just sit around and enjoy time with our families without having to find the perfect gift for everyone in our social circle. I'm not going to rant about the commercialization of Christmas because in my lifetime it has always been this way. Christmas was about going to church, homemade cinnamon rolls and presents under the tree. Sometimes finding the perfect gift is great and is a lot of fun, other times it becomes an overwhelming challenge. At some point, as adults, we generally purchase the things we want throughout the year as opposed to making a wish list. I think a secret santa is really the best way to do it in larger/extended families. With four kids in my family (two with spouses), grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, great aunts and step-families the shopping list gets a little out of hand. Hubby's family has a secret santa every year and it really is ideal. I've tried to get my side on board with it but with no success.
I know lots of people feel similarly about the the holidays and I used to try to get them "in the holiday spirit". As guess as I have gotten older I have realized some things just can't be fixed and that's okay. Despite my frustrations ( rants) listed above, I do look forward to the holidays and I have a lot of fond memories of times with family/friends. I guess no matter how straining it gets, it still feels like a typical holiday season.
Well it's time to go make my grandmother's homemade cinnamon rolls, because it just wouldn't feel like Christmas if we didn't have some traditions. :-) Happy Holidays everyone!
11/21/13
Holidays and Traditions
I still remember the first time Christmas didn't feel like Christmas anymore. It was four years ago and when I got to my mom's house Christmas eve all of the unwrapped gifts/wrapping paper were strewn across the living room. The house was empty and it felt cold in every way.Christmas had become a chore, strewn with the stress of trying to see multiple families in the same day and trying to get everyone the "right" gift. As my siblings and I have gotten older, moved away and started families of our own our regular "traditions" seem to have fallen by the wayside. It is a part of growing up and I get that, but part of me misses the old times when loved ones were still with us and we could be together as a family.
I think the cool weather and holiday season are always a time to reflect and focus on what you want to accomplish in the future. I am, by nature, a pretty nostalgic person and the holidays are especially hard for me sometimes. I miss my family and the way things used to be: opening stockings Christmas Eve at my grandmother's house, staying up late wrapping while watching Christmas movies, homemade cinnamon rolls and coffee in the morning, "Santa" gifts laid out in the hallway and having one whole side of the family together. At the same time I love my life now and the idea of creating new traditions with my own family someday excites me. There is a delicate balance of yearning for the past and the thrill of the future.
Part of adulthood is learning to change and adapt to various things in life. Holidays are no exception to this and I love being able to see family/friends whenever possible even if it is not the same as it used to be. Luckily I married into an amazing extended family and things like Cards Against Humanity and my MIL trying to get me tipsy are quickly becoming new traditions. And of course baking rum cakes and watching Love Actually/Harry Potter movies are my own personal traditions throughout November and December.
I have to say one of the best parts of Christmas is seeing the joy on my nieces face when we get to see her. Sometimes the best present is your presence :)
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? Or traditions you miss from childhood?
I think the cool weather and holiday season are always a time to reflect and focus on what you want to accomplish in the future. I am, by nature, a pretty nostalgic person and the holidays are especially hard for me sometimes. I miss my family and the way things used to be: opening stockings Christmas Eve at my grandmother's house, staying up late wrapping while watching Christmas movies, homemade cinnamon rolls and coffee in the morning, "Santa" gifts laid out in the hallway and having one whole side of the family together. At the same time I love my life now and the idea of creating new traditions with my own family someday excites me. There is a delicate balance of yearning for the past and the thrill of the future.
Part of adulthood is learning to change and adapt to various things in life. Holidays are no exception to this and I love being able to see family/friends whenever possible even if it is not the same as it used to be. Luckily I married into an amazing extended family and things like Cards Against Humanity and my MIL trying to get me tipsy are quickly becoming new traditions. And of course baking rum cakes and watching Love Actually/Harry Potter movies are my own personal traditions throughout November and December.
I have to say one of the best parts of Christmas is seeing the joy on my nieces face when we get to see her. Sometimes the best present is your presence :)
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? Or traditions you miss from childhood?
11/5/13
My Vicious Sleep Cycle
Lack of sleep causes anxiety, anxiety causes sleep deprivation. It's a vicious cycle as illustrated in this article on anxiety and sleep. It seems like every few months I get into one of these cycles. Some random occurrence (insert any reason for not sleeping here) causes a bad night of sleep which aggravates my anxiety which causes me to not sleep.
This Reddit Post is the most poignant piece of collective information I have read on the subject. As someone who has struggled with chronic sleep deprivation since adolescence I can attest that one or two days of extra sleep does not nearly make up for weeks/months of poor sleep. My memory is terrible and as I have gotten older more of the "long term" affects of sleep deprivation have seem to arrived. It is so frustrating to know that my lack of sleep can cause a myriad of problems.
People ask "why don't you just GO TO SLEEP"?. I try. I spend at least 6-9 hours in bed attempting to sleep everyday. Some days I sleep for 2 hours and wake up, some nights I wake up 20+ times and fall back asleep, some nights I just stay up. It's not to say that I don't sleep AT ALL, I just don't sleep well or for any decent amount of time. Eventually I will miraculously have a good night's sleep and those are nights that I cherish dearly because it is only a matter of time before the cycle starts over again.
Clearly I'm just ranting about my own frustrations on the subject. Luckily doing a quick internet search on chronic sleep deprivation you can see that I'm not the only one who deals with this. There are plenty of ongoing studies on how sleep affects our brain.
/end rant
This Reddit Post is the most poignant piece of collective information I have read on the subject. As someone who has struggled with chronic sleep deprivation since adolescence I can attest that one or two days of extra sleep does not nearly make up for weeks/months of poor sleep. My memory is terrible and as I have gotten older more of the "long term" affects of sleep deprivation have seem to arrived. It is so frustrating to know that my lack of sleep can cause a myriad of problems.
People ask "why don't you just GO TO SLEEP"?. I try. I spend at least 6-9 hours in bed attempting to sleep everyday. Some days I sleep for 2 hours and wake up, some nights I wake up 20+ times and fall back asleep, some nights I just stay up. It's not to say that I don't sleep AT ALL, I just don't sleep well or for any decent amount of time. Eventually I will miraculously have a good night's sleep and those are nights that I cherish dearly because it is only a matter of time before the cycle starts over again.
Clearly I'm just ranting about my own frustrations on the subject. Luckily doing a quick internet search on chronic sleep deprivation you can see that I'm not the only one who deals with this. There are plenty of ongoing studies on how sleep affects our brain.
/end rant
11/4/13
Marriage, Life & Ramblings
So clearly the whole wedding blog thing did not work out so well. My attention span for updating went by the wayside in the final few months of planning. Needless to say despite an epic storm flooding our tent and preventing us from doing any decorating/setup the day before, our amazing team of friends and family pulled everything together the day of and the wedding was a huge success. It still feels like it was yesterday though it has been over 18 months now. It was an epic week full of many, many great memories.
Married life is pretty much the same as when we were dating. I think because we had lived together for so long prior to getting married there weren't any of the "usual" first year marriage issues like dividing chores, setting up home, etc. Our day to day life didn't change much, but it was very exciting to start talking about the next chapter of our lives: buying a house, having kids, etc all became very real after the wedding. I guess for me the wedding was just the beginning of our adventure together.
The biggest challenge in our first year of marriage was definitely my job situation. Shortly after the wedding my compensation plan changed and cut my earning potential in half (yay for commission based plans!) and I had to find a new job. Long story short, the new job included an abusive boss, insane hours and no redeeming qualities at all. And as anyone who has ever been bullied can attest, it's hard to keep your own $h^t together let alone be a good partner to someone else. Luckily I married an amazing man who is patient and thoughtful enough to help me through it. Needless to say, it was a rough year for me and, by extension, us but thankfully I was able to find another job in July 2013 and things are getting back to normal.
The bright side of my terrible job was that Hubby also got a new permanent job and with our combined incomes we were able to start saving for a house. So despite the oh-so-terrible-job, being able to focus on the excitement of a new house helped give me something to work towards. We closed escrow on our home in May and are very happy homeowners. We enjoy having the space to have guests over regularly and being able to host our friends/family when they visit. We do have some upgrades planned for the future but thankfully our place is pretty great already.
So that's a quick update on life. I hope to make this a semi-regular update but as anyone who knows me can tell you, don't hold your breath ;)
Cheers!
Married life is pretty much the same as when we were dating. I think because we had lived together for so long prior to getting married there weren't any of the "usual" first year marriage issues like dividing chores, setting up home, etc. Our day to day life didn't change much, but it was very exciting to start talking about the next chapter of our lives: buying a house, having kids, etc all became very real after the wedding. I guess for me the wedding was just the beginning of our adventure together.
The biggest challenge in our first year of marriage was definitely my job situation. Shortly after the wedding my compensation plan changed and cut my earning potential in half (yay for commission based plans!) and I had to find a new job. Long story short, the new job included an abusive boss, insane hours and no redeeming qualities at all. And as anyone who has ever been bullied can attest, it's hard to keep your own $h^t together let alone be a good partner to someone else. Luckily I married an amazing man who is patient and thoughtful enough to help me through it. Needless to say, it was a rough year for me and, by extension, us but thankfully I was able to find another job in July 2013 and things are getting back to normal.
The bright side of my terrible job was that Hubby also got a new permanent job and with our combined incomes we were able to start saving for a house. So despite the oh-so-terrible-job, being able to focus on the excitement of a new house helped give me something to work towards. We closed escrow on our home in May and are very happy homeowners. We enjoy having the space to have guests over regularly and being able to host our friends/family when they visit. We do have some upgrades planned for the future but thankfully our place is pretty great already.
So that's a quick update on life. I hope to make this a semi-regular update but as anyone who knows me can tell you, don't hold your breath ;)
Cheers!
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