The Holiday Tug Of War

    Ahhh...the Holidays. A time for; family, friends, peace on earth, happiness, and playing tug of war over where to spend the holidays. This year in the Fishie household has been a particularly brutal battle.
    This will be FI Fishie and I's 3rd Christmas together, the last 2 have been spent with his family. This year, we decided that it was only fair to spend it with my family. Seems fair and reasonable right?
     Did I mention we'd also spent the last 2 Thanksgivings with his family too? As of this Thanksgiving I hadn't spent a holiday with my family since we'd gotten together. So we spent Thanksgiving Day with my family up north, where I spent most of the day cooking but that's beside the point, then the next day we traveled south to FI Fishie's aunt's house to have another Thanksgiving with his family. This is the Thanksgiving that I would like to forget, why you ask? Because it turned into a nice little battle between me and FI Fishie's family over Christmas and when would work for everyone. I almost wish I would've had some Rock'em Sock'em Robots for us to fight it out with, that way might've been a little more fair.

 

    Here's what happened, we'd already eaten dinner and our bellies were full. I was enjoying playing a rousing game of Spoons with a couple of FI Fishie's cousins and his aunt when FI Fishie came over and asked about Christmas. We'd already agreed to spend the 25th with my family and figure it out from there. Well, FI Fishie's family decided to get together on the 25th. I kindly reminded FI Fishie that we'd already agreed not to drive on Christmas as a rule. Well, that must've made some of his family members upset because next thing I know I'm getting the proverbial middle finger and being told that "Christmas is going to be on the 25th and if Fishie Bride can't make it then oh well." 

    Umm...excuse me? Way to make me feel welcome to the family huh? I stewed about it and then promptly forgot about it. Until today...

   So what happened today you ask? Well, I recieved a copy of an email that FFIL Fishie had sent to FI Fishie. 

This isn't the whole email but you can get the gist of what he's saying...

"Frankly I think you need to consider how you can  compromise more over your Christmas plans.   I have stated that I also don't want to travel on Christmas.  [T]raveling more that a couple of hours is hard since nothing is open.  The final reason is that I want to reserve Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to spend with [FI Fishie] and [FSIL Fishie] and your families.  None of these apply to you.  You don't need to be up late on Christmas Eve, and you don't need to travel that far to either family.
Both [FMIL Fishie] and I are rather hurt that you want to spend the weekend in [fishie bride's hometown] and only a couple hours with us.   We also feel like we are being taken for granted."

Ok...anyone else feel as disrespected by that as I did? I have a few things I want to clarify on this-1) on a good travel day, it's at least 2 hours from the Fishie Parent's to my dad's house; in winter this can take upwards of 3 hours, 2) over the last 2 years I've spent many holidays with them, while I was working 3rd shift so I'd either be working the night before and then going to there place for whatever or I'd be there and then go to work, this is the first year I am not working 3rd shift, 3) The original plan was to spend the 25th with my family and the 26th with his, this isn't "the whole weekend in [fishie bride's hometown] and only a couple hours" 

The solution we came up with? I'm spending the holidays with my family and FI Fishie is spending them with his, which made FFIL Fishie enormously happy since apparently he doesn't want to spend the holidays with me.

What do you think? Am I overreacting to be hurt and offended by FFIL Fishie throwing his weight around and insisting the the holidays be spent with that family? Did we come up with a viable solution or do you have a better one?

The Dress Saga Has Ended...

Since I know you're all absolutely RIVETED by the vast amount of drama surrounding my search for the PERFECT dress starting with my laid back approach here to the failed attempt at trying to involve my family and friends here and the latest installment here involving a love affair with a dress that wasn't destined to have a happy ending, unfortunately. I looked and thanks to my wonderful cousins' wifeys I found a store that had the dress I wanted but I just couldn't motivate myself to make the trip to the Twin Cities to go look at it-but I think that everything happens for a reason and I just wasn't destined to have that dress.

Wedding Dress Designers Should Be Shot...

Now, I'm not one to be prone to bouts of self-doubt and self-loathing. I have a pretty healthy sense of self-esteem, I'm not overly inflated with myself but at the same time I'm able to look in the mirror and say "hey, I'm one hot sexy girl". However, all that self-esteem flew right out the window when I started trying on dresses. I turned into a crying ball of self-doubting goo.

Not the Marrying Kind

My most recent Formspring.Me question got me thinking...I've never been "the marrying kind"...

I told you in the intro post that my Barbies NEVER got married, they pretty much lived together or at least Barbie would come over to Ken's (never the other way around)whenever she felt like it...yeah I was all for woman's rights even as a little 5 year old. Not to mention I didn't have the best role models for what a good marriage looked like. My parents and grandparents made marriage look boring, lifeless, and sometimes even loveless. I mean, my parents slept in separate rooms for pete's sakes! On the outside, marriage looked more like a prison sentence then a happy union of two people. My mother and Grandmothers, made it seem like they lost a part of themselves when they got married and had kids. My mom quit working to raise us and even though I respect her decision for that and I'm happy she did it, I knew I wasn't destined for that life, I didn't want to be June Cleaver, Carol Brady, Marion Cunningham, or any of the other "perfect" wives/moms.  And it seemed as though, Marriage = loss of self.

 So how did I get here? How did I get to a place where I actually WANT to get married, and have to live with the same person for the rest of my life and not just pop in and out whenever I feel like it. The short and simple answer is that I found someone who doesn't WANT me to be June, Carol, or Marion. I found someone who wants me to be who I am and not change just because we get married. Marriage no longer = loss of self, now marriage = maintenance of self.
I grew up, realized that I'm not destined to repeat my parents and grandparents mistakes. I realized that life is short and just because I'm married doesn't mean I won't be happy, and I deserve to be happy. I may be writing this blog about my "wedding" planning but, like I told FI Fishie last night-I don't want a wedding, I want a marriage.
Any of you ever feel like you weren't "the marrying kind" only to have an "ah-ha" moment?