I’ve heard of wedding planners, but what I need is a holiday planner.
It used to be simple when Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around.
When I was a kid, we’d pile in the car (OK, so it was only my brother and me, so it wasn’t really a pile) and go, not over the river and through the woods, but down a two-lane northeast Arkansas highway to Granny’s or Nano’s house, who lived just a few miles from each other.
Christmas morning was usually at our family’s house, or my Nano’s, and the relatives came later. There weren’t many because my mom has only one brother, and my dad has one sister.
Simple.
When I got married, it became a little more complicated. My husband is one of four children. We had to share, but we usually had Thanksgiving at the in-laws because my late mother-in-law’s birthday was in November. Christmas was there every other year.
I remember once when my mother-in-law asked what we were doing for Christmas, my husband joked that my family took a vote, and we were having it there.
She thought he was serious, and neither she nor I was amused.
When I had kids, it got a lot trickier, but the hardest part was packing all the presents to take with us, but that was in our minivan years, and we managed. Every other year — my family, his family.
One time I decided that we were staying home. It was the most boring Christmas ever.
Now, my little boys are men (I’m writing it but not accepting it), and they have girlfriends. My younger son is in college; the older one is assistant manager at a store, which means we have to wait to see his work schedule to plan things.
My brother got married and has a kid and in-laws.
We have to work around his call schedule as a surgeon, so that’s one of the first things to figure out.
Then, my sister-in-law and dad have birthdays the same day in December.
So, this year, we have been in negotiations for weeks about how to work in Thanksgiving, birthdays and Christmas and make everybody happy.
Well, that’s impossible, I can tell you right now. I needed mediation.
We’ve taken food orders, too, something else a holiday planner could help with. We’ve got three strong pro-mashed-potato people (and really, who isn’t), but two like creamy, and one son asked for lumpy “like Jane’s,” my husband’s sister, who mashes hers by hand.
We just last week got Christmas with my family figured out, at least for the moment. There is just one weekend in December that my sons and at least one girlfriend can be there.
I think we have it worked out to where if we get everyone in the house Saturday night, up by 7 a.m. Sunday for breakfast, start opening presents at 9, eat lunch at noon, take two short breaks — one bathroom, one water — and then start in on birthday celebrations, we might get it all done.
I’m having Thanksgiving at my house, with both sons and their girlfriends (yea!).
My kitchen table seats four, six crammed. I’ve started looking for a used one that can expand with my growing family.
A holiday planner could do something creative, like set up card tables and make them look like the Mayflower.
I’ve invited my parents, who are going to be alone this year, so then I thought I’d set up a long folding table in the “dining room,” which is now a computer room. I don’t even own a tablecloth.
I was looking at the house this morning, thinking of how much I need to clean, and I noticed I still have a Halloween spider-web runner under my pumpkins on the entryway chest, and my mum outside is dying because I forgot to water it.
My college-teacher husband said many of his students majoring in public-relations want to be event planners. He doesn’t think the world needs that many.
I have two words: holiday planners. I’ll let them intern at my house.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.