Wedding Blog

My friend and foe - Mr. Turkey

This weekend, almost a month and a half before Christmas, SIL Hummingbird and I whipped out our calendars and began organizing The Trek, the annual holiday ritual which sees us traveling across the Golden Horseshoe to various family functions.

It requires time, it requires patience and it requires a level of planning so meticulous that it usually takes several people to coordinate the whole thing.

The holidays weren’t always this way. They used to be no big deal, just one small dinner with my small family. Every year, we would gather in the same place, eat the same meals and tell the same jokes and I took comfort in the regularity, knowing it would be the same every year.

And it was, until I met Mr. Hummingbird.

In the beginning, even though I heard Mr. Hummingbird mention the names of other relatives, I almost fancied him as a lone wolf, and I managed to maintain this illusion until our first holiday season together, when I became aware of just how many people he was actually connected to.

Coming from a larger family than I did, and with divorced parents, his holiday celebrations were spread out over several days at several different locations.

Our first Thanksgiving together was pretty tame. We kept it to immediate family and although it left me feeling fatigued and fat from three different meals, it seemed okay.

However, little did I know those meals were only a primer compared to the gigantic gorging fest that was planned for Christmas, which required us to eat not one, not two, but six separate meals one after the other (in five days no less).

It started off simply, eating small meals with our small immediate families but when we merged with larger sections of family, the meals got larger too, to the point where I found myself pounding back pounds of poultry in one sitting.

Some relationships are trial by fire; ours was trial by turkey.

Not only was the food daunting, but the family was daunting too. Dealing with the eight members of my family was a piece of cake, but here I was faced with almost three dozen new faces with names to learn and questions to answer.

Nervous as hell, I gripped onto my dinner plate for dear life, praying I wouldn’t say anything stupid. But, thankfully, with each event, I got calmer and more relaxed to the point where things were actually enjoyable.

Looking back now, it seems funny how anxious I was about visiting Mr. Hummingbird’s family and how silly I was to think there was such a great divide between his family and mine. Sure, it was an adjustment and, of course, there are differences, but, over time, I’ve begun to notice how similar they are in some ways and how both of our families have changed since we started going out.

This year, we’ve managed to scale it back and spread things out slightly (four holiday meals in over three weeks) which my stomach is grateful for, but I have to say that I’m actually really looking forward to spending the holidays with my family. With both my families.

I know we’re not the only ones doing The Trek this year so I’ve got to ask – how are you and your significant other dealing with the holidays? Do you split the time or alternate families? How have your traditions changed to accommodate one another?