Every once in a while, especially this time of year, my daughters will joke about wanting to marry an orphan. Not because of some noble desire to serve the plight of the orphan – no it’s much more devious than that. With one sister already married (Alyse), they are learning about her struggles to juggle the Christmas schedules of two different families. They kid about how much easier it would be if they simply married someone without a competing family. Of course they are joking, but it does speak to a reality many of us go through. If spouses come from somewhat healthy families, then likely they each have their own set of family traditions. Often, there is a strong desire to continue those traditions. The problem is, sometimes it’s impossible and more importantly eventually you have to begin establishing your own family traditions.

I remember when Kelli and I were first married. We thought it was such a blessing to have our families living only thirty minutes apart. We could spend Christmas with both families. It actually started at Thanksgiving. We spent the early part of the day with my family, eating a giant (have you ever been to a Samoan Thanksgiving?!?!) Thanksgiving meal and then hanging out with the Pritchard clan. Then right when everyone was settling down to play games and socialize, we jumped in the car and rushed down the road to join Kelli’s family for another (not quite as giant) Thanksgiving dinner. We survived that experience, but it was just a precursor of things to come. Christmas was more involved than just a meal. On Christmas eve we hung out with the Pritchard family going to church and then (as was our tradition) opening presents as the clock struck twelve. After hanging out for a couple of hours we jumped in the car and drove to the Miller’s. We jumped in bed for a couple of hours of sleep and in the morning (as was their tradition) got up, had breakfast and opened presents. After hanging out for a couple of hours we drove back to the Pritchard’s for Christmas dinner (need I remind you about the size of our Samoan feast). After hanging out for a couple of hours we drove back to the Miller’s for their Christmas dinner (thankfully a little smaller). By the time we went to bed – we were exhausted having enjoyed and truly loving a great day with both families. The next year was even crazier because Alyse was born and it was no longer about David and Kelli joining the family, it was about a grandchild! You get the idea!

 

We quickly realized a couple of things. Number one, we were grateful for our own families – so appreciative of the traditions and legacy passed on to us. Second, we knew we wanted to keep a link to that history. But, we realized it would be impossible to keep that pace up (eventually Kelli’s folks moved to another state which made that possibility moot) and we knew at some point we wanted to start our own Pritchard family traditions that we could pass on to our kids. So, like we had done regarding many other things in our marriage Kelli and I talked about what WE wanted to do. There are some important principles whenever you have these types of conversations in your marriage. When talking about each other’s family history, speak in terms of “different” rather than “better”. It’s important to recognize just because you grew up doing things differently doesn’t necessarily mean its better. It’s hard to separate our emotional attachment to a family tradition from the actual value and validity of that same custom. For example, I grew up opening presents at midnight when returned from our midnight candlelight Christmas service. After all that is a much “better” way of tying Christmas to Jesus – go to church, celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, drive home with your candle still burning, and continue the celebration of Christ’s birth by opening presents. But, did I want to keep doing that because it was “better”, or because emotionally it took me back to being a little boy and opening presents with my parents? Somehow you must do your best to keep the emotional attachment separate from the real issues. Try hard to talk about what is best for your new family. Obviously it’s hard to not feel like one side won and the other side lost. Don’t let the enemy use your family history against you. Differences are good in a marriage – as long as you don’t let them divide you. Desire the best solution regardless of each spouse’s own family customs.

By the way, we don’t recommend compromising on everything. Often times you end up settling for a solution that is worse than either of the two options you start with. Go into the discussion determined to find the best solution for your new family! We did end up with a compromise of sorts with our present opening dilemma. We do go to a Christmas eve service as a family, then at midnight we let our kids “open” their stockings, and then on Christmas morning we wake up, have a special Christmas breakfast (which the kids love!) before opening presents. The truth is, we must live in the tension of creating our own family traditions while maintaining a connection to our past. Someday our kids will be grown. Unless they do marry orphans, they will wrestle with the same questions. We want to model for them a healthy way to deal with these differences. We want our kids to grow up with fun and meaningful traditions and memories. But we also want them to see us reaching back to our parents – so that someday when they are working through the tension with their new families, they will reach back to us!