Merry Married Christmas: Tips for Handling the Holidays as Newlyweds

My daughter recently got engaged! She will be the first of my children to get married, and it has me looking both backward and forward this Christmas season. 

Looking Backward

I remember those first Christmases that my husband and I had together before our children came along. Kevin and I lived in a tiny rental house that we filled with handed-down furniture and decorations from our college dorm rooms. Most of our first Christmas tree ornaments were given to me by a friend during a week of Secret Santa at the high school where she and I taught. We took our first Christmas card photo with our two red-eyed, floppy-eared Basset Hounds – our “children” at that time. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we made the most with what we had. We also had to navigate how to split/share our time with both sides of our families.

I think back, too, to all those Christmases when our children were little. The firstborn – the one who is now engaged to be married – had a BIG first Christmas, since she was also the first grandbaby on my husband’s side of the family. We just couldn’t help ourselves. It was so much fun to buy gifts for her! (Still is.) There was something extra exciting and magical about Christmas when our kids were young.

Looking Forward

As I anticipate my daughter’s last Christmas with us as a single young woman, I have mixed emotions. There is a tinge of sadness, to be sure, as yet another season of life falls behind us. I don’t want to ignore that feeling, but I also don’t want to get stuck there. I want to join in her excitement of starting a new family of her own – one that will have their own way of doing things and will create their own set of Christmas memories. If they are living more on love than on money in the early days, just like Kevin and I did, I’ll need to remember that those early days of planning, learning, and even struggling a bit together are what helped us build a strong foundation in our marriage.

There are so many things to learn, compromise in, and work through in those early years of marriage. If you, like my daughter, are in a season of preparing for marriage or are still in the early years of your marriage, I would love to offer you some encouragement and maybe a little guidance in a few areas as you enter this Christmas season.    

Expectations

Great marriages are made up of great communicators, so get to talking! Don’t assume or just hope that your spouse knows what you would like this season to look like. Talk about it. Ask each other questions. Get specific about your likes and dislikes. Talk about what each of you expects in terms of schedules and family time and then communicate clearly with your extended families about what you are planning together as a couple. It might be that you have different plans for how you will handle time with extended family before you have children versus after you have children. That is totally fine! Just be clear with each other and with the rest of your family about your intentions. Everyone appreciates clear communication, and it is always helpful to know plans for the future rather than having surprises sprung at the last minute… [Click here to read the full article on Family Christian.]