Keep Your Circle Open This Holiday Season

We had been dating for almost two years, so I knew it was coming: holidays with her family. 

Last Thanksgiving, my girlfriend Carol (now wife) and I drove from Kentucky to spend the weekend with her parents in South Carolina. My own parents missed having me around, but they understood. Carol and I were investing in a potential new life together. 

When you marry a person, you don’t just marry them. You also marry their family. So this was a threshold we had to cross.

We spent several days in South Carolina. Me and Carol and her parents sat around their living room and talked. We prepped a turkey, mashed potatoes, and oyster casserole (one of my own family’s traditions) together. On Thanksgiving morning, Carol’s brother and I ran the annual “Gobble Wobble” 5K through the historic streets of downtown Charleston. Later that afternoon, her brother and his wife hosted around 20 people for the big meal. 

When you’re getting to know new people, when you’re out of your normal element, it can be exhausting.

I tried my best to engage her family members in conversation and get to know them. I tried to prove to them that Carol hadn’t hooked up with a crazy person she met on the Internet. Overall, everyone was friendly and accommodating, and it was a good weekend.

Before we left her parents’ house for the drive back, her mother asked if they’d see us again at Christmas. Carol broke the news that, since we’d spent Thanksgiving with her family, we would be spending Christmas in Kentucky with mine.

A look of disappointment washed over her mom’s face. Her mom understood, of course, but hearing it wasn’t easy for her. This was the first time in decades she’d be spending Christmas without her daughter. 

Genesis 2:24 says: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

It’s the natural course of things. 

The man or woman leaves their family of origin to start a new union. But, assuming the parents are still alive, they don’t just go away. 

The Bible doesn’t mention what happens afterward: coping with sadness over changes, learning to adjust to a new family dynamic, learning to compromise and negotiate schedules about who spends time with which family and when.

God is in the business of making things new, and a healthy, budding romantic relationship is a good new thing. But that doesn’t mean it’s never without a little pain, struggle, and awkwardness. But that’s just part of the cost of investing in love.

A dear friend of mine said when she got married, she and her husband decided to “always keep their circle open.” They welcome people to stay in their home, host meals, and engage in activities with others. It might be tempting to just stick close to your new partner, edging others out of your lives.

Sometimes this is healthy, for instance if certain people are toxic and their influence might hurt your marriage. But in general, it’s healthier to open up to others around you—family members, friends, new acquaintances. We all live in community, so there's really no way around it anyway. 

Maybe you’re thinking about meeting your beloved’s in-laws for the first time.

Or maybe you’ve already met them and you’re dreading seeing them for the holidays. Whatever your situation, try what my friend said: Keep your circle open. 

Practice showing interest in new people. Practice showing grace, patience, and love when necessary, knowing others may have to do the same toward you. Enjoy the great blessings that new family and friends can be. As Colossians 3:14 says: “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

Carol and I just got married in time for Christmas. No matter where we spend the holiday this year, we have decided to do our best to live out the lyrics of the song “Crowded Table” by The Highwomen:

The door is always open

Your picture's on my wall

Everyone's a little broken

And everyone belongs

I want a house with a crowded table

And a place by the fire for everyone.