Holidays, A Time for Family

This past holiday weekend, I got a chance to spend time with my family, but I didn't want to.

At first.

For the past two holidays, I've tried to have a Father/Daughter holiday.  We would sit, watch movies, and he'd do some repair work around my house in return, all while my mom cooked.  Last holiday, July 4th, was a disaster.  My brother got wind of our get-together and conveniently showed up right as we sat down for movies, with his wife and newborn little boy.  As soon as the baby arrived my dad went nuts over him!  There I was, arms folded, pouting, sitting in front of the tv, subtitles on because I couldn't hear over everyone's cooing.

This time around, I kept our Father/Daughter holiday secret from everyone.  But even more siblings got wind of it, and by the time I realized, I had my mom, my dad, my two sisters, my brother, his wife, his stepson, and of course, the infant.  Grumpy at first, I realized that it had been a long time since all the family and I had really gotten a chance to get together.  Although we live no more than 40 minutes from each other, our schedules and lives are so different that we rarely see each other, or, if we do, not all of us are there at the same time.  When I joked with my sister I remembered how our senses of humor are identical, when I saw my nephew I loved how much he reminded me of my little boy when he was that age, and when my dad put up pictures on my wall, I knew that I can still have that time with my dad and still have a better time with my expanding family.

So if you have family close by, I challenge you to invite them over!  If you don't, then give them a call or videochat!  Now's not the time to be caught up in our own lives to forget about those we grew up with.

I'll be seeing them all next holiday!

DeAnna

Photo Credit: jjay69 via Compfight cc