Sharing the kids for the holidays.

Now that Brittany and Dan are engaged I guess it was inevitable that we’d have to figure holidays out. His parents live on the opposite side of the state and Dan usually only gets a couple days off at a time so it would be tough for them to come to both parents.

We started talking about it before Thanksgiving; a holiday we spend in Chicago with my family. Brittany hasn’t joined us for the past two years due to work and her two dogs, but so far we’ve always spent Christmas together.

Maybe it’s because I was thinking about that that Thanksgiving seemed so sentimental to me this year.

John had business in Louisville and a Chicago suburb the couple days leading up to the holiday so he drove and I tagged along. Checking into the hotel room the first night I saw the laundry/dry cleaning lists hanging in the closet and had a flashback of Brittany playing office at hotel room desks. She’d line up the phone, collect all the little pads of paper and pens and then pretend she was taking orders on the laundry lists and leaving messages for co-workers on the pads.

I also remembered that no matter where we were for Thanksgiving we’d try to be home Saturday night so we could roast our own turkey Sunday (for leftovers), decorate our house and then after dinner give one gift to “kick off the season”. (Usually something we could use during the holidays.)

At my sister’s house I saw Brittany running around as a little girl in my niece, Madison. My mom had Christmas ornaments with Brittany’s name on them. When Brit was little and I was working full time we’d send her to see my mom and sisters for two weeks in the summer. The first time she flew by herself at age seven I was still standing staring at the jet way she had walked down when the pilot opened his window and lifted her part way out to wave to us. I hadn’t cried up to that point, but then I couldn’t stop! It didn’t get any easier over the summers sending her off, but I loved that she grew up knowing my family on her own; not just when I was there. She has a wonderful relationship with all of them.

When we got home we discussed Christmas again. Brittany offered to come see us and have Dan go see his folks. But this is their engagement year and I would never want to do that. Instead John and I offered to drive to Charleston a few days before and come home Christmas Eve morning when they’ll drive to Dan’s folks.

I’m convinced that we’ll try a few things that will work and others that won’t, but we’ll eventually look back at these next few years as fondly as we do the past ones.

And what more can one hope for the holidays?