Home for the Holidays

As a family lawyer, I often hear stories of how a couple’s first fight was over where to spend the holidays. The holidays can be such a fertile ground for fights – ones that are remembered for decades and that sometimes are the beginning of the end of the relationship.

Many of us, when we marry, somehow assume that our family will be the family and that the other spouse’s family is simply an inconvenience. In order to be the holiday winner, one partner will sometimes insult the other’s family with comments ranging from “Your father never really liked me” to "Your mother is a terrible cook” or “Your uncle is a drunk” or “How long do we have to stay?”

While some or all these things may be true, none of us like to hear the sad truths about our family spoken by the one we love. Our families, our traditions and our holiday idiosyncrasies are sacrosanct, and woe to anyone outside our family of origin who questions them. Because the holidays are such a microcosm of our entire childhood, we are wounded by any objectivity.

Whose Home for the Holidays?

Walking that fine line between spending the holidays the way you want and the way your partner wants is a necessary relationship skill. An easy solution lies in the court's decision on where children will spend the holidays with divorcing parents. The judges alternate either the entire holiday season year by year or alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day either annually or assign them to each parent each year.

Obviously, the same “negotiated peace” can be used by a happy couple who wants to stay happy. However, once you have divided the holidays to each of your semi-satisfaction, the real challenge starts.

What Kind of a Holiday Is It Anyway?

How do you fit in or at least not trample on traditions that predate your spouse’s birth? What do you do to avoid being accused of being either too silent or too animated?

The best way to start out in someone else’s holiday traditions is slowly. Try to get hints from your beloved about what really matters in their family. Is caroling or cooking required? Are touch football challenges or cross-country skiing part of the routine? Do you need to dress to cut down your own tree, or will you be dining at the Club in a little black dress? Whatever it is, try not to criticize even in your heart – but certainly not out loud.

There's No Right or Wrong Way to Celebrate

Be a good cheerleader even if snowmobiling is not your thing or board games have been a long-standing joke in your own family.

If you really love your significant other, you have to adjust to traditions that may seem foreign and unappealing. You may have always opened presents on Christmas morning, but they tear everything apart on Christmas Eve. Thanksgiving for them can be all about televised sports and drinking, and only a little about dining. They may spend the majority of the holidays in sweats while your family has dresses casually elegant even for breakfast.

And I’ve not even touched on all the issues about how religious or secular the holiday may impact someone else’s family. They may focus more than your own tradition on Advent wreaths, the Nativity and the "true gifts" of Christmas, while you, candidly, are more comfortable at the mall.

Conversely, Christmas may not be Christmas to you without Midnight Mass, yet you find yourself going alone, leaving behind your spouse who is overflowing with the other kind of Christmas “spirits.” If your beloved is from a tradition for whom Christmas has no religious significance, prepare for Chinese food and a Christmas Day movie.

The only solution is to hold tight to our beloved’s hand and go along for whatever is their family’s version of the holiday story. After all, next year they may have to do the same for you. It’s all part of the art of being home for the holidays.

Tagged as: relationships, marriage, family, relationship advice, commitment and holidays

Share:

Gemma Allen is a partner in Ladden & Allen, Chartered, and has practiced family law for most of her career. Ms. Allen has written more than 50 articles and lectured on topics that include divorce, child support, maintenance, mediation, cohabitation, women and money, and reconciliation. She helps you navigate modern relationships in “Relationship Gems.”