…Family and Us.
Since we have now broken into the Advent season, I thought it would be appropriate to take a break from our cruise through Ephesians to make some more relevant observations about this holiday season. Oh, Merry Christmas by the way!
Our early years were quite good and the holiday seasons were generally easy to cope with since, by design, we remained childless for the first 8 years of our marriage. We fell into a rather easy and comfortable rhythm, knowing where the other one was, what they were doing and what they would like. I was in seminary and part of the deal was that we would not have any children until my first graduate degree was finished. It was huge joke when graduation eventually rolled around and probably a full 30% of the graduates wives were all pregnant, and my wife was one of them. It was this following Christmas season that things really changed for us. This was going to be our first Christmas with a child…their grandchild, and all of a sudden the time clock was started. It became important to both sets of grandparents (they only lived about 5 miles apart) that they got their fair share of time with the first granddaughter. I remember it being so difficult trying to calculate the equal division of time between both households. It put a lot of stress on us as new parents to try and negotiate this division, so much so that it created a lot of division between us as we defended our respective views.
We have an acquaintance couple who related to us several years ago that they make a mandatory practice to take at least a few hours during their summer holidays, when it is easier to carve out some time alone, while the children are playing in the water, to look at the calendar for the year coming up, and start asking some hard questions and having some serious conversations. Questions and conversations about where do we want to invest our time; what ministries do we want to be involved in, both separately and as a couple; and for the purpose of this post, when is Christmas this year and how are we going to spend our holiday time. By being proactive in this regard, as a couple you come pre-prepared to volunteer for what is important to you, both inside and outside the church; this pre-preparation gives you the ammunition you need to be able to say a respective “No” when you are asked to get involved with something that doesn’t fit your combined program; you are pre-prepared to submit your calendar and schedule to your respective families, notifying them of when you will be available for family functions. If the larger family functions do not fit with your schedule, then this is when the “leave and cleave” hits the road…are you going to be mature and adult enough to build a hedge around “your” family holiday time and stick with it as a couple or family?
Am I speaking from experience? Unfortunately…No. I wish we had been made privy to this kind of strategy and thinking when we were first married…back in the B.C. days…that is, before children. However, like most early 20 something marrieds, we were just to young and in love and horny to think about planning for tomorrow, much less next week, month or the coming year. It is a plan that should be discussed, and it is not too late to have this discussion with your wife this month, in order to alleviate some of the stress of the coming holiday season.
Btw, it is also a decent time to talk about a little bit of financial planning, ie., how much are we going to spend on gifts this year as well. After all, you don’t want to ruin your whole holiday.
Blessings, K