Holiday Hell

Well folks, it's officially November and that means it's time to start thinking about the holidays. This is the time of year I lovingly refer to as "holiday hell".

Why, you ask? Well, we have 3 sets of extended family thanks to 1 messy divorce on my husbands side. That means that we have to squeeze in time with his dad (and family), his mom (and family) and my parents. His dad lives an hour away, his mom an hour and a half away and my parents 2 1/2 hours away. That's if we don't hit traffic. Any amount of traffic will add 30 minutes or more to any of those trips. And those are 1 way!

To add to the fun, his mother is perpetually in school, which means she plans events on Sundays. For those who work Monday-Friday, getting home late Sunday after a long day of traveling with the holiday rush does not make for a fun work week. This point is completely lost on her when she plans things and picking 2 or 3pm for a party is not uncommon.

I'd like to add that we're the only ones that live this far away. My brother lives with my parents and my sister lives on the other side of the country, so traveling isn't an issue for either of them. My husband's youngest brother lives roughly 10 minutes from his dad, but isn't speaking to him, so never has to travel there and roughly 20 minutes from his mom. Not a long trip at all and they can completely do other things before or after traveling to her house for a party. Their other family lives in the same town as them too. My husband's other brother lives right there too - 10 minutes from their dad, 20 from their mother. He's speaking to both, but is gay and has no children, which makes traveling so much easier and also means less of a time demand during the holidays.

We're the odd man out living far away (we had to move closer to a city for jobs) and having a family of our own that we'd like to do more things with than simply putting the kids to bed after a long day of riding in the car.

So now I'm sitting here seething because I'd like to celebrate my daughter's birthday near its actual date (she was born on December 23rd), but we can't because the month is so overbooked that it isn't even funny. We'll be lucky if we can even finish Christmas shopping on time!

How does everyone else deal with excessive holiday demands? It's not just the holidays either - my mother-in-law wants to celebrate her new husband's birthday on a separate date and it just so happens to fall in December, so that's another "party".