Oh, there's no place like home(s) for the holidays...

Even though GG and I have been dating for over eight years and we have this whole "being together" thing pretty much down pat, we still occasionally get thrown a curve ball that forces us to re-consider some things and come up with a new "normal," so to speak.  This month presents exactly one of those curve ball moments: the holidays.  We've celebrates eight holiday seasons together, but we've never celebrated a Thanksgiving or a Christmas together.  Instead, we usually bunker down with our own families and have significant other time on the days immediately before/after the actual holiday celebration.  Usually when people find this out about us, we're greeted with a face similar to this:

Source

Don't get me wrong, I get it.  We've been together forever and yet we haven't crossed this bridge yet.  But, it worked for us.  It always seemed like a good compromise to have a mini-Christmas celebration on the 23rd and then focus on our own families for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, since holidays are about families, not significant others.  I also think neither one of us wanted to surrender our sacred time with our families, immediate or extended.  So, we had relationship black-out dates, and we made it work.

Personal photo of us at PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Christmas 2009

However, now that we're engaged, that system is officially defunct.  We've gone from being a solid boyfriend-girlfriend relationship to being an official, committed unit.  Where one goes, the other pretty much follows.  So, for the first time, we're doing the holiday circuit together.  This whole "dividing-the-holidays" thing is slightly complicated by the fact that GG's family now lives in Pittsburgh, as opposed to Johnstown.  Admittedly, not that difficult of a drive to make, but it's still one extra hurdle to jump over to make sure all of our fam feels the love.  Thus, we're dividing our time between the two western PA cities for all of the holidays for the foreseeable future.  It'll definitely be different, but different doesn't have to be bad.  Sure, it will be kind of a bummer to sacrifice some specific moments or traditions with my own family, like our annual game night on Christmas evening, or opening pajamas from our parents on Christmas Eve.  But, at the same time, it will be really nice to spend the entirety of the holidays with GG and to learn about his family's holiday traditions in-person.  

Fortunately, we split the holiday pot pretty easily this year, making the entire ordeal totally stress-free.  For turkey day, we're doing Thursday and Friday at my place and then Saturday and Sunday at his.  For Christmas, we're spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at my house and then trekking over to GG's extended family's celebration for Christmas afternoon, and then celebrating Christmas "morning," part deux, with GG's immediate family on Christmas night.  Sure, it's a decent amount of time in the car, but I figure that we should be happy that our respective sides of the family live close enough to make it feasible to split a day or a holiday weekend !

So, as the holiday 2010 season comes upon us, here's to new traditions and new holiday experiences!  Please let me know I'm not the only who who delayed dividing the holidays for as long as humanly possible, or am I...?