First off Happy Halloween!!!!! As I sat down over a month ago to look at our blogging calendar, I decided that today would be the perfect day to share about how we handle the holidays, especially with both of our families being within 15 minutes of each other. Let me give you disclaimer before you keep reading this, I don’t think there is a right way and wrong way to do the holidays!! I think you do what works for you and your family. I know that for the season in life we are in right now, this is what works for us! Someday the way we do things now won’t always work and we will readjust our holiday plans when we get to that point. Also, we are NOT perfect at this. I don’t know if you can ever be really perfect at splitting time and making sure that everyone gets equal time!

Even though we live within 15 minutes of both families, when it comes to Christmas and Thanksgiving, we stick with our one family for that day. On even years, we do Christmas with the Peterson’s and Thanksgiving with the Fowler‘s and odd years its opposite. It’s been really nice that everyone in the Peterson family is on the same schedule and in the Fowler family, most of us are on the same one. Christmas and Thanksgiving are such crazy, fun days that I think it would be so hard to split time. I wouldn’t want to miss what was going on at either home. This gives us a chance to be fully present and intentional with our time at both homes by giving them each a year to have us there for the entire day. On the off years for our families for Christmas, we have done a few different things like getting together on a different day for present exchanges and dinner, but that kind of just changes year to year!! This holiday schedule has been AWESOME! It also makes me feel so much better because both families are understanding and so loving about allowing us to be with the other family. That has been a huge blessing and comfort in my life, especially with all the stress of the holidays!!

As important as it is to us to be with our families on these special holidays, we also love the days of those months where we can celebrate just the two of us. We REALLY love the month of December. It’s magical!! In the past few years, we have always put up the tree together and decorated our home with each other. Logan loves driving around to look at the lights and that has become something we like to do together, just the two of us on a snowy night. We also have had an annual friend Ugly Sweater Party that we have hosted the past couple years that I always have looked forward too, it might not happen this year because December is looking a little crazy for us right now with Logan’s graduation, weddings, and birthdays. Traditions are really important to me in our big Peterson and Fowler families, but especially in our little family unit of the 2 of us. It’s been so special to grow closer to Logan in the holiday seasons as we make these traditions are own and find the time to do them together. What are your traditions? Anything Logan and I can adopt?

We are truly looking forward to the upcoming holiday season and hope you find time to create some traditions of your own to help you and your spouse grow closer!