Returning

The arrival of the holidays reminded me that I created this blog last summer. It's a classic WNFH time of year when my little family gets tugged back and forth between our extended families. This year has been especially frustrating. We originally planned to go to my sister's house, about an eight hour drive away. We haven't seen each other since last Thanksgiving, which means that my kids haven't seen their cousins for a year. My daughter, who recently turned five, was especially looking forward to getting to see her cousin Isa, who is now eight.

Well, it's not going to work out. My sister and her husband are both primary care physicians, and one of their partners has H1N1 and serious complications. This means that my brother-in-law will be on call all weekend, and my sister will probably have to go in to work as well. We could still go, but it would be very stressful for them to have guests while they're so busy. I can understand, but I'm very frustrated, and I'm bummed out for my kids who want to visit their cousins. Who knows when we'll be able to organize another trip to see them.

We'll be heading south, about a five hour drive away, to see my parents instead. My dad's health is not very good, so they haven't been able to do much traveling themselves lately. We see them semi-regularly, which is why we hadn't planned to see them at Thanksgiving, but at least we have a back-up plan. Of course, staying here at home wouldn't be so bad either, but that's not really an option when you're not from here and you have families pining to see you at every holiday opportunity. We've had my wife's family come here before for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that was great. I really enjoy hosting people in our house. It's not a huge house, but it's just big enough to handle visitors, and it's fun to have a lot of people around.

I also grew up in a WNFH family, and the strange thing is that we NEVER traveled on the holidays, and it never seemed strange. We always went back to see family for a couple of weeks in the summer, and that was that. I loved it. Our holidays were always very traditional and completely wonderful family experiences. I'm feeling a little unmoored trying to find my own way as an adult with a family. I think my parents both sort of ran away from their families and were happy to relegate the visits to very discrete summer trips. That's not the case for my wife and me. We want to see our families, but it's so hard to keep up with all of the visits when we're all so scattered.