For most of my adult life, my holidays have been filled with some sort of crazy family drama. Before remarrying, I was basically adopted into my ex's family. It's an odd sort of dynamic to see, when I would be the one hanging out with his sisters and brothers and such when he wouldn't even go near them. But for my son, and his love for being around his cousins, I didn't mind. They were a great support system for me, oddly enough, and it was nice to have something.
They are a large family, 6 siblings in all, so of course with a large family comes the family type things you expect for the holidays. Sometime around 2007, the oldest of the sisters stopped talking to me. Like legit wouldn't even say hi to me. No one knows why. She would even exclude me from gift giving and such. For years, YEARS I ignored it. I would even make sure my son had a gift to give his aunt, despite her blatant hatred of me.
This is not to say I'm perfect and everyone should love me and all that jazz, I have my quirks. I annoy myself sometimes. But I also always felt on the outs. I have a deep love for my home-state and am not shy about it. Apparently this also rubs people the wrong way when you joke about it. I also have a dry sense of humor.
Anyway, fast forward tome getting engaged. And not like they never met him or anything like that. He had been with me at all family functions, played with the kids just like every other uncle, participated in everything, sometimes more than core family members and all that. Anyway, so we get engaged. And most of the family is congratulatory. They know I had a super rough time with my divorce. That it wasn't something I banked on. But for one, the congratulations went to "wait, you're leaving" in 2.5 seconds. Which then went to another sister not speaking to me. Well, sort of speaking to me, but mostly giving me the cold shoulder. Thus upping the awkward family meter.
Jumping ahead once more to now, 4 holiday seasons later. As we are now states away, and I am not a fan of living in snow, we have carved out our own family traditions. They are much smaller now and much lighter. My planning and shopping seem to be much less stressful and actually enjoyable, which is super nice. I know many people living the military life find the moving and being away from family during the holidays hard. They miss the gathering and being around everyone. I think it's okay to be the opposite of that though. It's okay to enjoy just being together, especially when your spouse is able to get the days off. So while we may not have a house filled with 25 or more people, our family of 4 is still having a very happy holiday season.
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