Well, this holiday season was... uh... unique. In the past I've spent holidays depressed or overall just uncomfortable most of the time. This holiday season, I spent running around like a maniac, trying to see everybody and do everything as much as possible. Two important discussions had to happen. Surprisingly (to me) I didn't have a mental breakdown more than once, and that one wasn't even for very long. Someone emotionally suckerpunched me, but I might've gotten through the entire holiday tears-free if she hadn't. So a pretty good holiday by comparison to other years!
Getting There
We (Chris and I) left on Friday the 18th, a full week before Christmas proper. This was because we wanted to spend time with both his parents and mine, and also because it turned out he had more vacation days than we'd originally thought. So the 18th was full of driving. 14 or so hours of driving. Oh boy...
I used to just drive the whole bebolten trip myself, in one shot, with no breaks. It was miserable, but it got me there quickly. This year, Chris and I drove in shifts. 2-4 hours per shift, as equal as we could get it. His idea. It worked pretty darned well, and while both of us were quite eager to be done with the trip, neither of us were miserable at the end. Well, except for the backaches. We took his car, which has shoddy back support. We splurged on some fast food on the way. In my defense, I chose stuff that had almost no sugar in it. (You wouldn't believe how hard that is in fast food. Everything is chock full of sugar. I ate mozzarella sticks twice.)
The First Few Days
...weren't so bad. We opted to stay at my parents' house, which I feel more comfortable in than at Chris' parents. The real reason for doing so was Chris' lungs, which are asthmatic. The area itself annoys his lungs, but his parents' house in particular, being so old, makes him wheezy and miserable. So with his mother's blessing, we moved into my room and my brother's old room.
We spent some time in the morning recombobulating (opposite of discombobulating), got some foodstuffs for my morning smoothie, then went to see a mutual friend of ours. Several relaxing hours of hanging out (and much sugar, because his mother is serious about holiday sweets) ensued! It was a good time. I wish we could hang out with him more often, but we'll have to settle with gaming over the Internet. I've been trying to drag him to Michigan, but sadly he does not seem terribly inclined to do so.
The next day was Sunday, and it involved church, a handbell concert, and seeing the new Star Wars movie with Chris' family. All of which was fine, if travel-intensive. Won't spoil the movie here, but do go see it. It's not a flawless movie, but it was fun to watch and I think it's done some excellent things.
After that, the entire Monday save the early morning was spent with Chris' family. This was also the day I finally informed the family I'm autistic (Important Discussion 1 of 2), and passed his mother my business card for this blog. So it's probably safe to say she'll read at least a smidgen of my writing. I'd previous tabled this discussion because I prefer to be a person first, autistic second. I didn't inform Chris himself that I'm autistic until months after we'd been talking regularly and he'd asked me out. That was so he would get to know me for me, and then learn the diagnosis and what it meant as it related to me specifically. Autism is not a nice, well defined, simple diagnosis, and the people with it are vastly different. Also I hate being stuffed into a box labeled "mentally unwell." That box can also read "subhuman" depending on who you're talking to.
Chris absolutely hated that we didn't tell his family. Hated hated hated. He's usually pretty easygoing, but he didn't like having to be evasive about it. I was candid about pretty much everything else, including that I'm sensitive to light and sound, and I did talk about my volunteering at Puzzle Partners and my plans to write a book and educate about autism. Like Chris, neither of his parents are stupid. So his mother guessed, but didn't say anything beyond trying to pry the information out of Chris. Suffice it to say, Chris got very tired of making excuses for me. So now that's all over and it remains to be seen how the fallout will land.
The Flex Days (not as flexible as I'd've liked)
The next couple days weren't marked off for either family, sans that both dinner slots were taken. We were planning on taking those days easy, splitting them between the two families, or getting some shopping done, perhaps.
Well... we got the last one done, anyway... My uncles are both hard to shop for. So unfortunately, I spent a good portion of the time trying to find just the right thing for one of them. And mainly being unsuccessful. Also, nearly at the last minute, Chris decided we should go and see one of his friends from college, and visit "his old stomping ground" as he put it. I have mixed feelings about this friend, but given that Chris gave up living there to come be with me, I didn't want to say no. So we went, and it turned out to be pretty okay.
The first of the two marked off dinners was a nice dinner with my parents. My mother cooked, and she made some excellent bison stew. It was somewhere between stew and pot roast, in the end, but quite tasty and served with various sides.
The second dinner was with both sets of parents at the local fancy restaurant. We dragged them there to get the families together and also to get their blessing, because this (Important Discussion 2 of 2):
So technically Chris hasn't proposed yet, but because I'm vastly nontraditional and he's okay with that, we basically agreed that we'll be getting married sometime next year. The next step was to find a ring, which we did. It was annoyingly expensive, so we split the cost of the ring and decided that it would serve as my wedding ring. (Seriously, why would you buy something super expensive and then not wear it once you got another one? Bah.) All that was left was to get our parents together, see how well they got along, and ask politely for their blessing. I didn't really expect any objections, and I didn't get any. My father was the only one who actually remembered to formally bestow his blessing, once the subject was broached, but I got the feeling Chris' parents were pleased as well.
When the check for the meal came, I tried to ninja it (grab it stealthily) from the table so I could pay it. Chris and I aren't really well off, but it was a special occasion. I really thought I was going to get away with it, because my dad was distracted and he's the best at ninjaing checks. But in a stunning turn of events, my mother, who usually never involves herself in the antics, stopped my attempt dead by killing my check-stealing arm's momentum. Which sadly gave my dad enough time to notice the altercation. So I lost the check, which was then split between both parent sets. Someday, I will properly ninja a check from my parents. But apparently not this Christmas.
The Double Whammy
Which brings us to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve was spent with Chris' family. I managed to escape the decorating because I need to prepare for running a D&D adventure for Chris and his brothers. Of course, that meant that I had to run an adventure for Chris and his brothers. Lots of talking, lots of sitting still, and lots of face to face. I like both his brothers, mind, or I wouldn't have done it.
Also exhausting was the ever-present camera flash and the sounds of food prep. I'm light and sound sensitive, especially when tired, and their house is dark. So basically every photo (sans those with me in them) involved the flash, and that meant a lot of them having to warn me, and a lot of me hiding my poor eyeballs behind my hands. I hope there aren't too many pictures of me like that. It's not exactly a dignified posture.
The food, though, was delicious. Apparently Chris' parents raised a couple sheep previously, so then they had lamb to serve us. Also, during their work as large animal veterinarians, they acquired some frozen pheasants. I'd never had pheasant, and rarely had sheep, so both were treats.
We had birthday cake for dessert. Chris and I had planned to get his mother presents, but we also wanted to treat her a bit, so we planned to make a cake. As it turns out, we badly needed my mother's help to make the cake. Fortunately, she kindly made herself available despite not being able to taste the cake. It turned out well, and was enjoyable.
Christmas day was a whole 'nother animal. The morning was fine: presents and breakfast with my parents. Sadly, that wasn't even a third of the day. Most of the day was either spent at my aunt's huge party, or traveling to and from that party.
The party was... extensive. My aunt and uncle have a largish house, and they threw the party there. My aunt's entire family was there, some 25 people. Each of which we had to be introduced to. Thankfully they didn't seem to mind that we were basically poleaxed by the whole thing. I spent a portion of the first hour showing people the ring and announcing our (soon-to-be) engagement. Mostly the responses were "oh, congratulations!" which as far as I can tell is about par for the course.
The main festivities ended with a Yankee Gift Swap (like a white elephant gift exchange, only with gifts you might actually want. Mostly). Thirty-three people lined up to go through the wrapped presents. Chris' present (a massive box of Lindt truffles) got stolen four times, while my headphones/portable battery charger/gift card combo got stolen once. People were mainly good humored about the whole thing, fortunately. After that, my aunt's side of the family sort've drifted off, leaving one of the largest piles of dishes I've ever seen in my life. Chris took exception to this, and started washing the ones that couldn't go through the dishwasher. I was busily hiding in a back room, but he called me to dry the dishes he'd finished with, so I ended up lending a hand.
In the meantime, my mother and father broke out the piano and carols, which I enjoyed immensely. My parents are both trained musicians, and I don't get to hear them sing and play very often anymore. After they got through four or so carols, they quit to help with the dishes. I'd set up my tablet to play The Messiah, which I'd sung in the past and enjoy very much, and my father drifted over to listen and sing along. Even aging, his voice is still excellent, and listening to him enjoy the various difficult solos and chorus parts of The Messiah was really fun. It made drying the piles of dishes much less of a chore.
Well, until another relative broke it up, anyway. I guess The Messiah wasn't the Christmas music she wanted to hear. So I spent the rest of the dishes fuming over the loss of my sanity-restoring music.
My aunt practically fell over herself in expressing her gratitude about the dishes, though. I was initially really not pleased about drying a mountain of dishes, but the worse option would have been her having to do all of them herself. After thinking about it, I was reminded of a saying: "House guests enjoy themselves and then leave, but family sticks around to clean up afterwards." I was tempted to repeat the saying, but realized it might've been slightly insulting to my aunt's family (since they didn't stick around, after all).
After the dishes came presents, and after presents we all went home. Except Chris and I, who had to stop and see the two friends from previously. Both of them had missed the news of the ring and soon-to-be engagement, and we didn't want to miss telling them in person.
So at that point, we got back to my parents' place around midnight, just in time to hurriedly throw things into suitcases and the car. Around that time I checked my messages and email, only to find an upset message from another relative. She was very upset that I didn't call her with the news of my impending engagement, and the messages had the taste of passive-aggression to them (sucker punch 1 of 1). So on top of the exhaustion from the holiday and the whirlwind of everything, I now felt emotionally awful twice over. I'd emailed her and her husband with the news, and had talked to her husband earlier in the day (and told him the news), but I guess that wasn't good enough. So then there was about 5 minutes of carefully concealed crying, because my parents really didn't need me being upset around them to add to the stress, because... about 5 hours later, it was time to drive 11 hours to get to the last stop before home.
The Penultimate Destination
Detroit. While I saw one of my grandmothers at the big party on Christmas Day, the other had to wait until two days later. She's bedbound, so it was us visiting or not seeing her at all. Off we went. We also had the luxury of seeing my only cousin and her husband. I'd only met her husband about a month prior, at a funeral, so it was good to see them again. It was the second time in probably a decade, maybe more. I got the sense that her husband was trying to feel out the family some. Which is perhaps understandable. It's not like he'd really gotten to know us much.
Chris and I opted to get them presents. Nothing huge, because we're not well off and we didn't really know their preferences for presents anyway. Additionally, they're sorting through my aunt's estate, so they hardly need more knicknacks or things sitting around. We got them good quality hot cocoa and some cookie mix- tasty things, but easily consumable. They seemed very pleased with our choices, which in turn pleased me. Definitely money well-spent. I hope to see them again next year.
My grandmother in Detroit is doing as well as can be expected. She was a little vague, but still basically aware of what was going on. I find it a little difficult to be around her for long periods of time, as my awkwardness sensors have been finely tuned to keep me from sticking my foot too far down my throat. Unfortunately, awkwardness abounds when you can't tell if she's understood you or her attention has wandered or if she's just thinking. Also trying to think what to say is hard. She wasn't particularly surprised to see the ring, either. Apparently there were a number of bets going on both Chris' hat and the timing of our engagement. Go figure.
The Trip Home
After all that, we stayed one more night in Detroit and headed back to Grand Rapids nice and early (read: 6am). Chris had work on Monday, so I opted to drive so he could sleep in the car. This was vastly boring for me, but worked out. We got him to work at 9am, and he started in on his job like we hadn't been across the state on waking up. I went home and proceeded to unpack the entire car myself (it took 10 trips, I counted). Then I unpacked all the presents and my suitcase. Then a winter storm started, and I had to go pick Chris up from work. He worked from home after we got back, but it was still silly. Suffice it to say I slept pretty well that night.
And that was the Christmas vacation, at medium length.
Getting There
We (Chris and I) left on Friday the 18th, a full week before Christmas proper. This was because we wanted to spend time with both his parents and mine, and also because it turned out he had more vacation days than we'd originally thought. So the 18th was full of driving. 14 or so hours of driving. Oh boy...
I used to just drive the whole bebolten trip myself, in one shot, with no breaks. It was miserable, but it got me there quickly. This year, Chris and I drove in shifts. 2-4 hours per shift, as equal as we could get it. His idea. It worked pretty darned well, and while both of us were quite eager to be done with the trip, neither of us were miserable at the end. Well, except for the backaches. We took his car, which has shoddy back support. We splurged on some fast food on the way. In my defense, I chose stuff that had almost no sugar in it. (You wouldn't believe how hard that is in fast food. Everything is chock full of sugar. I ate mozzarella sticks twice.)
The First Few Days
...weren't so bad. We opted to stay at my parents' house, which I feel more comfortable in than at Chris' parents. The real reason for doing so was Chris' lungs, which are asthmatic. The area itself annoys his lungs, but his parents' house in particular, being so old, makes him wheezy and miserable. So with his mother's blessing, we moved into my room and my brother's old room.
We spent some time in the morning recombobulating (opposite of discombobulating), got some foodstuffs for my morning smoothie, then went to see a mutual friend of ours. Several relaxing hours of hanging out (and much sugar, because his mother is serious about holiday sweets) ensued! It was a good time. I wish we could hang out with him more often, but we'll have to settle with gaming over the Internet. I've been trying to drag him to Michigan, but sadly he does not seem terribly inclined to do so.
The next day was Sunday, and it involved church, a handbell concert, and seeing the new Star Wars movie with Chris' family. All of which was fine, if travel-intensive. Won't spoil the movie here, but do go see it. It's not a flawless movie, but it was fun to watch and I think it's done some excellent things.
After that, the entire Monday save the early morning was spent with Chris' family. This was also the day I finally informed the family I'm autistic (Important Discussion 1 of 2), and passed his mother my business card for this blog. So it's probably safe to say she'll read at least a smidgen of my writing. I'd previous tabled this discussion because I prefer to be a person first, autistic second. I didn't inform Chris himself that I'm autistic until months after we'd been talking regularly and he'd asked me out. That was so he would get to know me for me, and then learn the diagnosis and what it meant as it related to me specifically. Autism is not a nice, well defined, simple diagnosis, and the people with it are vastly different. Also I hate being stuffed into a box labeled "mentally unwell." That box can also read "subhuman" depending on who you're talking to.
Chris absolutely hated that we didn't tell his family. Hated hated hated. He's usually pretty easygoing, but he didn't like having to be evasive about it. I was candid about pretty much everything else, including that I'm sensitive to light and sound, and I did talk about my volunteering at Puzzle Partners and my plans to write a book and educate about autism. Like Chris, neither of his parents are stupid. So his mother guessed, but didn't say anything beyond trying to pry the information out of Chris. Suffice it to say, Chris got very tired of making excuses for me. So now that's all over and it remains to be seen how the fallout will land.
The Flex Days (not as flexible as I'd've liked)
The next couple days weren't marked off for either family, sans that both dinner slots were taken. We were planning on taking those days easy, splitting them between the two families, or getting some shopping done, perhaps.
Well... we got the last one done, anyway... My uncles are both hard to shop for. So unfortunately, I spent a good portion of the time trying to find just the right thing for one of them. And mainly being unsuccessful. Also, nearly at the last minute, Chris decided we should go and see one of his friends from college, and visit "his old stomping ground" as he put it. I have mixed feelings about this friend, but given that Chris gave up living there to come be with me, I didn't want to say no. So we went, and it turned out to be pretty okay.
The first of the two marked off dinners was a nice dinner with my parents. My mother cooked, and she made some excellent bison stew. It was somewhere between stew and pot roast, in the end, but quite tasty and served with various sides.
The second dinner was with both sets of parents at the local fancy restaurant. We dragged them there to get the families together and also to get their blessing, because this (Important Discussion 2 of 2):
 |
| Check the fingers if it's not making sense. |
When the check for the meal came, I tried to ninja it (grab it stealthily) from the table so I could pay it. Chris and I aren't really well off, but it was a special occasion. I really thought I was going to get away with it, because my dad was distracted and he's the best at ninjaing checks. But in a stunning turn of events, my mother, who usually never involves herself in the antics, stopped my attempt dead by killing my check-stealing arm's momentum. Which sadly gave my dad enough time to notice the altercation. So I lost the check, which was then split between both parent sets. Someday, I will properly ninja a check from my parents. But apparently not this Christmas.
The Double Whammy
Which brings us to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve was spent with Chris' family. I managed to escape the decorating because I need to prepare for running a D&D adventure for Chris and his brothers. Of course, that meant that I had to run an adventure for Chris and his brothers. Lots of talking, lots of sitting still, and lots of face to face. I like both his brothers, mind, or I wouldn't have done it.
Also exhausting was the ever-present camera flash and the sounds of food prep. I'm light and sound sensitive, especially when tired, and their house is dark. So basically every photo (sans those with me in them) involved the flash, and that meant a lot of them having to warn me, and a lot of me hiding my poor eyeballs behind my hands. I hope there aren't too many pictures of me like that. It's not exactly a dignified posture.
The food, though, was delicious. Apparently Chris' parents raised a couple sheep previously, so then they had lamb to serve us. Also, during their work as large animal veterinarians, they acquired some frozen pheasants. I'd never had pheasant, and rarely had sheep, so both were treats.
We had birthday cake for dessert. Chris and I had planned to get his mother presents, but we also wanted to treat her a bit, so we planned to make a cake. As it turns out, we badly needed my mother's help to make the cake. Fortunately, she kindly made herself available despite not being able to taste the cake. It turned out well, and was enjoyable.
Christmas day was a whole 'nother animal. The morning was fine: presents and breakfast with my parents. Sadly, that wasn't even a third of the day. Most of the day was either spent at my aunt's huge party, or traveling to and from that party.
The party was... extensive. My aunt and uncle have a largish house, and they threw the party there. My aunt's entire family was there, some 25 people. Each of which we had to be introduced to. Thankfully they didn't seem to mind that we were basically poleaxed by the whole thing. I spent a portion of the first hour showing people the ring and announcing our (soon-to-be) engagement. Mostly the responses were "oh, congratulations!" which as far as I can tell is about par for the course.
The main festivities ended with a Yankee Gift Swap (like a white elephant gift exchange, only with gifts you might actually want. Mostly). Thirty-three people lined up to go through the wrapped presents. Chris' present (a massive box of Lindt truffles) got stolen four times, while my headphones/portable battery charger/gift card combo got stolen once. People were mainly good humored about the whole thing, fortunately. After that, my aunt's side of the family sort've drifted off, leaving one of the largest piles of dishes I've ever seen in my life. Chris took exception to this, and started washing the ones that couldn't go through the dishwasher. I was busily hiding in a back room, but he called me to dry the dishes he'd finished with, so I ended up lending a hand.
In the meantime, my mother and father broke out the piano and carols, which I enjoyed immensely. My parents are both trained musicians, and I don't get to hear them sing and play very often anymore. After they got through four or so carols, they quit to help with the dishes. I'd set up my tablet to play The Messiah, which I'd sung in the past and enjoy very much, and my father drifted over to listen and sing along. Even aging, his voice is still excellent, and listening to him enjoy the various difficult solos and chorus parts of The Messiah was really fun. It made drying the piles of dishes much less of a chore.
Well, until another relative broke it up, anyway. I guess The Messiah wasn't the Christmas music she wanted to hear. So I spent the rest of the dishes fuming over the loss of my sanity-restoring music.
My aunt practically fell over herself in expressing her gratitude about the dishes, though. I was initially really not pleased about drying a mountain of dishes, but the worse option would have been her having to do all of them herself. After thinking about it, I was reminded of a saying: "House guests enjoy themselves and then leave, but family sticks around to clean up afterwards." I was tempted to repeat the saying, but realized it might've been slightly insulting to my aunt's family (since they didn't stick around, after all).
After the dishes came presents, and after presents we all went home. Except Chris and I, who had to stop and see the two friends from previously. Both of them had missed the news of the ring and soon-to-be engagement, and we didn't want to miss telling them in person.
So at that point, we got back to my parents' place around midnight, just in time to hurriedly throw things into suitcases and the car. Around that time I checked my messages and email, only to find an upset message from another relative. She was very upset that I didn't call her with the news of my impending engagement, and the messages had the taste of passive-aggression to them (sucker punch 1 of 1). So on top of the exhaustion from the holiday and the whirlwind of everything, I now felt emotionally awful twice over. I'd emailed her and her husband with the news, and had talked to her husband earlier in the day (and told him the news), but I guess that wasn't good enough. So then there was about 5 minutes of carefully concealed crying, because my parents really didn't need me being upset around them to add to the stress, because... about 5 hours later, it was time to drive 11 hours to get to the last stop before home.
The Penultimate Destination
Detroit. While I saw one of my grandmothers at the big party on Christmas Day, the other had to wait until two days later. She's bedbound, so it was us visiting or not seeing her at all. Off we went. We also had the luxury of seeing my only cousin and her husband. I'd only met her husband about a month prior, at a funeral, so it was good to see them again. It was the second time in probably a decade, maybe more. I got the sense that her husband was trying to feel out the family some. Which is perhaps understandable. It's not like he'd really gotten to know us much.
Chris and I opted to get them presents. Nothing huge, because we're not well off and we didn't really know their preferences for presents anyway. Additionally, they're sorting through my aunt's estate, so they hardly need more knicknacks or things sitting around. We got them good quality hot cocoa and some cookie mix- tasty things, but easily consumable. They seemed very pleased with our choices, which in turn pleased me. Definitely money well-spent. I hope to see them again next year.
My grandmother in Detroit is doing as well as can be expected. She was a little vague, but still basically aware of what was going on. I find it a little difficult to be around her for long periods of time, as my awkwardness sensors have been finely tuned to keep me from sticking my foot too far down my throat. Unfortunately, awkwardness abounds when you can't tell if she's understood you or her attention has wandered or if she's just thinking. Also trying to think what to say is hard. She wasn't particularly surprised to see the ring, either. Apparently there were a number of bets going on both Chris' hat and the timing of our engagement. Go figure.
The Trip Home
After all that, we stayed one more night in Detroit and headed back to Grand Rapids nice and early (read: 6am). Chris had work on Monday, so I opted to drive so he could sleep in the car. This was vastly boring for me, but worked out. We got him to work at 9am, and he started in on his job like we hadn't been across the state on waking up. I went home and proceeded to unpack the entire car myself (it took 10 trips, I counted). Then I unpacked all the presents and my suitcase. Then a winter storm started, and I had to go pick Chris up from work. He worked from home after we got back, but it was still silly. Suffice it to say I slept pretty well that night.
And that was the Christmas vacation, at medium length.
Congratulations on the marriage announcement! I like that you're being non-traditional. My wedding was a simple court wedding, with a grand total cost of $30. Much less hassle that way, and it turned out pretty great, especially the potluck reception afterwards.
ReplyDeleteI really like reading your posts, by the way. I've been a lurker for a while, not an active commenter, but I really appreciate reading your posts.
Congratulations! I'm so happy for you guys! I know the holidays can be stressful sometimes.
ReplyDelete