Losing Control and Finding My Way

All the rituals that formed the backbone of our lives for 60 + years have changed, as if overnight. With the blessing of our son’s wedding came the reality that vacations and holidays would no longer be as they were.  If you are lucky and live in the same area as the new in-laws, the families may agree to join together to move forward as a newly shaped extended family.  But it is uncharted territory and finding out how best to maneuver through that potentially fraught environment takes patience and thick skin.

As a planner by nature, I need to know well ahead of time whether my children will be joining us for holidays and vacations.  Should I make a VRBO booking for our traditional trek to Palm Desert for New Years with my sister and her family?  Or perhaps we should visit my husband’s family in Flagstaff this year instead. Should we develop an alternating plan where we trade off each year?

Growing up, my parents never seemed to have to address these quandaries.  Celebration of holidays was always at our house, and their parents were invited.  They came, or they didn’t.  But there did not seem to be any discussion of whether to go to one of their houses instead.  Perhaps that did not arise because the grandparents did not have large enough homes, or because they simply did not have the inclination to host anything.  (My children don’t have the ability or time to host anything at their places yet, so who knows what will happen when that changes.)

My parents, after we were grown, started a tradition of hosting all of us and our spouses and children on vacations and holiday trips. It was such a wonderful experience for the sisters to be together and for all our children (the cousins) to get together for intense bonding during these events. It made my parents so happy to have all their family members together surrounding them, so much so that they invited each of our spouses’ parents to join us on some of our trips and at our holiday celebrations. That really reduced any conflict and created this broader extended family.  Of course, that could only occur if the in-law families were willing and able to unite in this way, which they seemed to be.

My hope has always been that this tradition of uniting with families of my children’s spouses would continue.  But figuring out how to achieve that when all the families have the ability and desire to host these events is something entirely new.  The complexities expand when there are multiple families with multiple children. How does one join all such disparate families who each have their own life-long traditions? I certainly don’t know the answer to that, ha!

But, as a planner, I cannot simply sit back and wait as the holiday season approaches to see what may unfold.  That would be torture to me. So as crazy as others may think it, I need to plan the new year vacation now, in September, so that I can find appropriate lodging and make reservations for travel. Is September too early for such planning?  It certainly does not seem so when I start to look for rentals and see that many have holiday slots blocked or booked already.      

But this means approaching my sister about her plans, my brother and sister-in-law about their plans. Does anyone plan to be at our house for the holidays? Are we invited to theirs? What are the plans for my newlywed son and his wife?  Is her family willing to spend Christmas with us at our house? Or do they have their own traditions that they want to maintain for their family unit, including their other daughter and her in-laws?

Even though I am an anxious hostess, I love nothing more than having a full house for the holidays.  It was how I did it in the past and as children grow, move away, have families of their own, that is so much harder to maintain.  But I certainly want to make the effort now to lay the groundwork for that to potentially happen again, in a newly constructed extended family. 

Retirement has only intensified my planning obsession.  I have so much more time now to think about locations for vacations, types of activities we might like, menus for holiday meals I might cook.  How can I not start searching on Pinterest for holiday meal ideas!

Luckily, I have firm commitments for our New Years vacation and have booked a rental and air travel. I can relax a little knowing that we will have a large extended family gathering at that time. The rest will have to remain more flexible.

Planning for these wonderful times for sharing celebrations with family is such a relief from the daily onslaught of reading and worrying about the challenges facing our Country and the World right now. I suppose I can plan for all eventualities. Why not! I certainly have the time.