Compromise

There are so many times that I want to blog about things that I have been going on in our life, and I actually have started several posts, only to save them and think that I'll finish them later. This has resulted in me not posting for a very long time and has left so many topics swimming around in my mind. I'm finally going to take a few minutes this morning and write down the one that happens to break free from my mind.

It's about marriage and compromise during the holidays. R wasn't raised with a strong family unit. He has so many aunts, uncles, and cousins and barely knows them. They stopped getting together at holidays when his grandparents passed and some his parents don't even get along with. It's just weird to me because I was raised the exact opposite. We got together for every holiday and everyone was pretty much always there and got along. There were no fights or people crying, etc.... So we're running into a problem with Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is R's holiday. It's the one that he waits all year for because he makes dinner every year. He loves cooking and there's just something about Thanksgiving that brings him such joy and happiness. I can't even fully understand and explain it to others. The Thanksgiving when we first moved up here we did go down to my aunt's house and he didn't cook so in the past there have been times that we've compromised.

Fast forward to this year....he really wants his day. He literally plans out his next years dinner and reflects upon the dinner he just prepared the minute he's done cooking. He thinks about it for days afterwards and spends many hours preparing for the upcoming year. I find it special because I know it's so incredibly important to him. I just wish that my family would understand. I tried to have my mom explain it to my grandma and ask if R could cook for the whole family. He loves cooking for large numbers of people and he's perfectly capable because he used to prepare dinner for a whole sorority of girls singlehandedly. She told my grandma that she's making the turkey and the dressing and whoever wanted to could bring any other dishes, just to let her know. So yeah, that didn't satisfy R because he wanted to cook everything and the turkey and dressing are two of his signature dishes. So this past weekend I tried e-mailing her and explaining it (mainly because talking on the phone to an older person is kind of difficult because I feel like I'm always yelling) So I got a response back and she thanked us for the offer but said she would feel bad if he cooked everything while everyone else sat around. He absolutely loves that part and I love it to because I get to assist and help and it's a day where I get to work with him cooking which I totally miss out on pretty much the whole rest of the year.

So anyway that's where were at...I guess we've decide to stay home and he's going to make dinner for just us and then we're going to go down there on Friday to hang out with everyone or even Thursday night if our dinner gets done with early enough. I feel like people are going to be mad though that we're choosing not to be there with all the family. I really have to get in the shower because I'm late, but I'll try to write more again soon!