Not a good, old-fashioned Georgia Christmas for me this
year, but a (probably) stressful New York Christmas instead. It is with some trepidation that I agreed to
go to New York, my husband’s home territory, for Christmas to visit his
parents. It may sound odd that someone
like myself who has been to several foreign countries and within the U.S. has
traveled as far away as California, should be nervous about going to New
York. I feel like Dr. McCoy who still
refers to himself as a “simple country doctor” even though he’s light years
away from Earth on a spaceship exchanging witty banter with an alien. It isn’t just New York that gives me cause
for worry. It’s where we’ll be staying
while we’re there…with the in-laws…whom I’ve never met. Yep, two and a half years into my marriage
and I’ve never met my husband’s parents or siblings. I feel like I’m some sort of embarrassing family
secret.
In reality it isn’t that my husband’s embarrassed because of
me. He just has no sense of proper
social convention and customs and has neatly compartmentalized his married life
as separate from his “other” family life.
In his mind, these bubbles don’t overlap. If it weren't for me he'd probably wait to introduce me to his parents at our child's high school graduation (and we don't currently have children). It hasn’t helped that I was in the Army for the
entirety of our engagement and the first year of our marriage and not always
available to travel whenever he went to visit his parents. Still, it makes for an awkward time of things
now. Not only am I meeting them but I’m staying in their house for several
days. I wouldn’t even want to spend
Christmas sleeping over at my own parent’s house, much less someone else’s. I’m weird like that.
There’s a reason the in-law situation has a bad rap in most
families….it’s true. In-laws see their
child’s spouse as not being good enough and are often more critical of them
than they are their own children. In
return, the spouse resents interference from the in-laws because “They’re not
my parents” and any advice is considered (either correctly or incorrectly)
meddling. This makes for a tense
situation. This is precisely the type of
situation I hope to avoid. So, all I
have to do is make a good first impression, smooth over any hard feeling his
parents have about never having met me before, get in good with his siblings,
carry on conversations with everyone over the course of several days, chip in
around the house by helping to cook the Christmas meal, take care of my two
pets that are coming with us, keep myself busy and occupied during the
inevitably long periods of time my husband will be sleeping, and enjoy my
Christmas. Sounds easy….I got this.
