Yesterday was Thanksgiving day in the US. The day traditionally set aside for visiting or entertaining family and friends, eating boatloads of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy and all the foods that oddly enough, I don’t find appealing at any other time of the year. For some, it also means watching football all.day.long.
For the last three years, we have been spending Thanksgiving with a family from our church. This family are good friends of ours. We have also celebrated other milestones together. They have graciously been hosting our Thanksgiving get-together for the last three years, opening their homes to us and to two other single mother families in our church. There have been other families on and off through those last three years but the three of us single moms have been there pretty much consistently.
So yesterday,we set about getting ready to continue the tradition. My son was excited as he has been looking forward to this. I don’t think he quite grasps the concept of Thanksgiving yet. I think he was even confusing it with Christmas as that’s what he kept on mentioning. But as long as he’s happy, I’m all for it.
Everything went well until we got to their place. They moved in the last couple of months and this is our first time in the new place. Funny, my son was even telling me where to turn on the road because he remembers how to go to their old house. Anyway, we were the last ones to get there so everybody was already waiting. I think the excitement of being there finally, the new environment and all the people (there were easily more than 20 people in attendance) got to him. He started jumping and running and was just “hyper” (as everybody was saying yesterday). I did my best to calm him down and for the most part, he was okay. Or maybe I am just so used to him that to me, that was normal. I did have to watch him closely though, make sure he did not get into any trouble.
This brings me to question whether we should continue with this. As grateful as I am for their graciousness in hosting us, I’m wondering if we should start with new holiday traditions, ones that would be easier for my son and me. I have another year to plan the next Thanksgiving but I’d like your input. How do you deal with the holidays?
That’s interesting, we had the same problem this Thanksgiving also. My mom likes to have a whole house full of people for the holidays, but Teddy has a hard time with large groups of people. He got “hyper” also, was running & laughing like crazy & I had to try to calm him down about 4 times that night. I think overall it went OK, but I was wondering the same thing–do we need to start a new tradition of small gatherings?
I guess I don’t have an answer for you, but as you can see I certainly understand where you’re coming from!
I wish I could tell you what’s worked for us but there hasn’t been a clear solution
Thanksgiving is usually at my mother and father-in-laws and it usually includes my parents and anywhere from 10-20 people. At this dinner, it’s all adults except for my son & his cousin who is older. So he jumps (startles) from all the noise but we have an area where we retreat to for quiet time. Christmas that’s another story…my husband’s family party is about 40 or so people. we still have our retreat place, we’re not always in the “family” picture with santa as it’s just too much for him. You have to do what you have to do. I still go, because their family, but also I hope that one day one of those cousins will take an interest and want to play with my son and I hope my son will grow out of it, but when you’re only exposed at certain times of the year…what can you do???