The Holiday Battle

When you decide to get married, there are a lot of things to think about. Your mind is consumed by wedding planning, financial planning, and the euphoria of being a newlywed.

Never when I dreamt of my married life did I think about how much havoc holidays would wreak on our relationship. I dread the time of year that we have to sit down and decide where we're going to be on which holidays. It's a nightmare.

Every couple has the holiday battle, but I think we have a couple of weird factors that make it more complicated than average. First, Mike is an only child, so if we aren't with his parents on a holiday, they're alone. Get that? Alone. On a holiday. So with the decision to spend any holiday with my parents comes the guilt of knowing that his parents are going to be on their own. His parents aren't shy about telling us how much they miss us, so it just makes it that much harder.

Second, I have three siblings, none of whom are married and have in-laws to worry about. You would think that would make things easier, but you'd be wrong. Our nuclear family holidays are still intact and, I have to say, a whole hell of a lot of fun. My immediate family is going to get together on the exact holiday whether Mike and I are there or not, simply because they don't have anywhere else to be. So it isn't like we can just schedule a family holiday whenever. That would just mean my mom would have to host two holidays -- one with us and one without us.

Lastly, our parents live within driving distance of each other. Again, you would think that this would make things easier. Again, you would be wrong. See, if your parents live on opposite side of the country, you can simply go to one and not the other and that's that. Not when you live close together. When your parents live within driving distance of each other, you have to find a way to see both within the span of just a few days. But it gets worse. Our parents are within driving distance, but it's a four-hour drive. With a dog. Ugh.

We've come up with a rough plan of attack for the 2010 holiday season, but we both feel like we're getting shortchanged with our families. Maybe that's the best sign that it's actually fair. If neither of us is happy, we must have a least somewhat of a balance. I'm sure we'll change our plans again before it's all said and done, but so be it.

And as we slug it out, there's one thing that keeps coming to mind: If it's this bad now, what's going to happen when we have kids?