It's Tradition

Growing up, I always loved Thanksgiving. Our family is large, boisterous, and amazing, and I have tons of cousins close to my age, so gatherings were always fun and something to which I looked forward. Looking back, though, I actually haven't been home for Thanksgiving since Sophomore year in college. That seems crazy to me!

In my recent post, I talked about new practices that Mr. Candy Apple and I were hoping to implement as we started our new family. With this upcoming marriage, not only are we rethinking certain traditions, but we are needing to rethink holidays as well. Who knew that one thing I love about Mr. Candy Apple - how close he is with his family - would come back to bite me in the butt?? We both are very family-oriented people, and we love going home for the holidays. So, it's going to be tough having to start the whole every-other-year thing for Christmas. Since we live on the East Coast, and both of our families are on the West Coast, it makes it holidays even more difficult! And my parents are divorced, too, which just adds a whole other level of difficulty!

One thing that we have started doing is celebrating Thanksgiving together. When we first moved to Cambridge, MA, we decided to just stay there for Thanksgiving, rather than going home. I can't remember, but I think this was probably based on a combination of finances (ie the lack thereof) and time (again, too little time off). Over the following years, Thanksgiving has sort of became 'our thing.' I love it! We cook way too much food for the two of us (yay, leftovers!) and drink copious amounts of wine. Mr. Candy Apple's last year in law school, we made an entire small turkey. Yes. It was fabulous.

After dinner, we have also started the tradition of our after-Thanksgiving walk. Basically, we just wandered around the beautiful neighborhoods in Cambridge, looking at all of the massive, gorgeous houses, and picking out the ones that we would want to live in. It sounds corny, but it was nice being able to just meander around, not having anywhere to go, and walk off some of the calories that we ate. Then, we would go home and have huge slices of pumpkin pie. I love this new tradition.

This past year, we actually spent Thanksgiving with Mr. Candy Apple's family in Palm Springs. I had so much fun, but I actually missed our quiet little Thanksgivings. I imagine that Christmas will get pretty tricky once we get married, particularly when we have children. But, I am really looking forward to continuing this tradition of Thanksgiving with Mr. Candy Apple. Just us. Sometimes, you just need to take time during the holidays for the two of you! (Okay, and maybe some friends)

What sorts of conversations have you had with your significant other/ fiance/ husband about holidays? What traditions are you hoping to start as your lives merge? Do you celebrate holidays with families, or just the two of you?