With both Passover and Easter coming up this week, it’s only appropriate to tackle the “4Ws” that affect so many families at holiday time…. who’s going where and with whom this year.
If I roll back the clock to my first marriage, the answer was very simple. Every holiday, every year, was spent with my parents, usually at their house, with few exceptions. That policy certainly could have contributed to putting the “ex” in husband.
I believe, now, that my unwillingness to entertain the thought of going anywhere else stems, in part, from getting married at age 20 and from growing up in a family with two girls. My younger sister followed in my footsteps and spent most of her married holidays with our parents, and, she, too, has added an ex-husband to her portfolio.
Now I certainly don’t believe that this is the only reason that a marriage may fail, but I did re-examine my holiday “rules” when I remarried many years later. I learned the meaning of compromise.
When my mother-in-law was alive, we spent some holidays with her and some with my parents. Sometimes, we even invited everyone to our home. What a novel idea! The results of this approach were astonishingly better all the way around. Nobody felt left out and everybody understood how it was going to work well before the holiday was upon us.
Now that I am a mother-in-law, and I am the mother of boys, I look at this holiday dilemma much differently. I understand that my daughter-in-law is close to her mother and respect her desire to spend time with her. I don’t look at the holiday as the ONLY day in the 365 days in the year that means anything. So what if my son and daughter-in-law celebrate with us on a day that isn’t THE day. I’m perfectly fine with that approach.
So, readers, I ask you to tell me what works for you. How will you spend this upcoming holiday so that it is inclusive, rather than exclusive, to your family members? I’ll be sure to share your tips later this week.
Talk to you soon.
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