Which family will we be dining with!?

With Halloween over and done with and Christmas decorations lining hte aisles of my local CVS, it can only mean one thing: holiday season has begun.

But along with the amazingness that is Thanksgiving and Christmas, comes with one big question:

Where the heck am I going to spend the holidays this year?!?!!

With my awesome boyfriend came an awesome family, and they’ve really welcomed me as one of their own. Fortunately, his mom made the question of “Where am I spending Thanksgiving?” easy. She got tickets for herself, her older son, Matt, and myself to go see the Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving day! It’s our early Christmas present and it’s a dream come true for my boyfriend. I mean come on, he’s a guy who grew up in Texas; going to see his favorite team in the new behemoth that is Cowboy’s Stadium is the best Christmas present ever.

So now that I have one holiday checked off my list, what to do about Christmas? While it might seem like a simple answer – we’ve already done one holiday with his family, now it’s time to do one with mine – it’s actually quite tricky. With Matt’s parents divorced we have three options: spend it with my family, spend it with his dad and his family, or spend it with his mom and her family. All 3 are in different states, all three would mean missing out on others, and most would involve one of us meeting the other’s extended family.

Yikes.

So what’s a girl to do? This is all new territory for me and anyone who’s in a serious enough relationship to want to spend the holidays together and adopt one another into their families. I never thought that when I got myself a long term boyfriend I’d have to start sacrificing my holiday traditions or missing out on major family time. I love Matt and his family, but part of me wants to go back to being a kid and go home to my traditions – eating dinner with my family, opening presents with my family, actually seeing my family for the first time in months…

I know this is all just a part of growing up, but I’m really torn. I’ve never spent any major holiday away from my parents, but flying back to see them would cost the two of us almost $600! Is it worth it when we have the option of going somewhere cheaper? But then again, is it fair to keep visiting the BF’s family when mine hasn’t seen us?

Is it time that Matt and I both move past our childhood traditions and start our own?

I’m not sure what to do, but I’m going to have to figure it out fast. It’s already November and the cost of plane tickets just keeps creeping higher and higher. And the fact that Matt and I couldn’t even figure out what to do on Halloween (his friends were having a party, my friends were having a party…) isn’t leaving me much hope that we’ll come to a conclusion anytime soon.

Sigh.
Who knew holidays with a boyfriend would take so much work?!

Anybody else out there with fuzzy holiday plans?