I LOVE holidays. I am THAT person who blows every holiday out of proportion and I hold no shame. I love family gatherings and the togetherness during the holidays. Its beautiful. My dearest memories from childhood are those of holiday gatherings. As an adult I hope to give my kids the same experiences I had. My family dynamic is different than that of when I was a child. My parents are not divorced and as a child we went from point A to be B, together. My significant other and I both have children from previous relationships and that makes holidays a bit trickier. As a blended family we try to keep them on the same holiday schedule so that the boys are with us on "designated" holidays. Now that Camila is part of the mix it is that much more important, not that it wasn't before. For myself this is all new territory, I remember feeling a sense of guilt when the boys would be absent during a holiday. I felt like I was missing out and it drove me insane. At one point I was so busy worrying about holiday schedules that I didn’t enjoy the season. It took a while for me to be ok with the fact that we’re not always going to be together. The boys have other families and the only thing that means is that they have other people who love them as much as I do, well maybe not as much, TOTALLY KIDDING! Eventually I let go of the illusion of control. While I was busy trying to control things I was also making myself miserable. Eventually I let things flow and made the best of the situation. When we don’t have the boys on certain holidays, we simply celebrate another day. It’s no big deal. I’m sure that as the boys grow older, they will appreciate that we take them into account and we don’t expect them make 5 stops in 1 night, what fun is that? This Easter the boys were not with us. Camila was a lone egg … hunter? (Ha!) Although I did give the boys their Easter baskets before they went off for the weekend, I still wanted to celebrate Easter as a unit. We did Easter on a Tuesday after school, I know it sounds off, but it was a lot of fun. After the boys got off school we grabbed pizzas and went off on an Easter picnic. The boys painted canvases, they did the annual egg hunt, and of course we couldn’t forget a nerf war! I’ve come to realize that a day isn’t what makes something special, it is the meaning behind it. A day is a day, we give it value, for the most part. Having a blended family isn’t always easy, but we make it work and it's truly wonderful.
