Candy Mickels Mejia
Traveling in December is the worst. When I was a teenager, it's basically what ruined Christmas for me. After all, it's hard to get excited for the holidays when you spend your entire break from school bouncing back and forth between multiple households and celebrations, some at the homes of extended step-family you hardly even know. But this was life as a kid of divorced parents in the 90s.
Even once I was a real adult, my husband and I felt obligated to continue the pattern of bouncing from family to family during the holiday season. We didn't even have a Christmas tree since we'd never spent a Christmas at our own home. For us, Christmas became an expensive obligation instead of a joyful celebration.
For our first child's first Christmas in 2006, no plan felt right. From where we lived, it was a 10-hour drive to my family, and a 4-hour flight to my husband's. Traveling with an eight-month-old didn't seem fun, but we'd also have to pick which set of grandparents would get to experience our daughter's first Christmas morning. The guilt and anxiety of my teenage and young adult years bubbled up and took over; instead of thinking about which age-appropriate toy would catch my baby girl's fleeting interests on Christmas morning, all I could think about was how much I hated it all. When I imagined telling my daughter sometime in the future about her first Christmas, I cringed. Did I really want to pass down my tradition of hating Christmas?
So, instead of mapping routes and checking flights, instead of asking any of our parents who else was coming in for Christmas and if they'd have room for us, instead of making lists of all the things our baby required that we'd have to pack in order to travel anywhere, I made a decision: we were staying home.
And so it came to pass that my first baby's first Christmas was my first peaceful Christmas in a very long time.
What I didn't realize at the time was that I was giving myself a gift: I was learning to set boundaries. As a young parent, it's hard to know what advice to follow or ignore, especially with so many voices vying for attention and so many issues that need attending to. But by staying home and ending the cycle of chaotic Christmases, my husband and I set a boundary that let our families know we were our own family now. We could create our own traditions and have our own ideas of what was important to us.
Our decision to set boundaries was a gift that keeps on giving. I can see now that by establishing a precedent of not traveling for Christmas, we gave our children a dependable and safe place to land during their breaks from school. We gave them the gift of waking up in their own beds on Christmas mornings, even if "morning" is a little later than it used to be now that they are teenagers.
It was difficult to break the news to our parents that first Christmas, but once we made the decision to not travel for a holiday that is stressful in the best of circumstances, we knew it was the right choice for us. Ultimately that boundary set a precedent that we would visit our families when we could make the most of our time together. One tradition we've started is driving to see my family just after the school year is over. It's been great because the weather is still mild so we can spend time outside, and we have the flexibility to stay longer or take a detour on our road trip if we want to.
What's also great is that my children don't hate Christmas like I did. It's possible their attitudes rubbed off on me a little. After all, I am the one who has purchased matching Christmas pajamas for us for the last few years. For me, that truly is a Christmas miracle.
