Stuffed

Happy Turkey Day! I wasn't going to blog today, since it's a holiday, but I slept in today, and I'm all amped up to have tomorrow off again. I know I should be in bed, especially since I'm going Black Friday shopping tomorrow with my nephew (a tradition we've maintained for the last three years), but I simply had to share my wedding/Thanksgiving annoyance.

A.P. and I decided not to make the Thanksgiving meal this year (we did most of it last year - see pictures below). Instead we went to my mother's. Everyone brought something simple and my mother had the turkey made by this Chinese restaurant (which I know sounds strange, but was soooo delicious). It was a simple meal, and most of my family was there. It was low key, but exactly what I needed.

Since A.P. and I finalized our date last weekend and have our venue and our photographer booked, we figured we would start telling people the good news. It's been a big issue for a lot of people, most of all for my sister. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before (and I'm too lazy to look through old posts and find out), but I should preface this story by telling you all that in between my brother being in the hospital and my mother having surgery, and A.P.'s mother passing away, my sister dropped this bomb on us that she and her husband would be moving to Bangalore for two years. When she told me this, I was excited for her, and she kept asking me if I was freaking out. I didn't get it, but then it sunk in: she was worried I'd be mad because we'd be getting married next year. I was very honest with her; I told her I was happy for her and thought it was a great opportunity, and if she could make it back for the wedding, great, and if not, oh well. She swore up and down that it was important to her and she would make it.

Since she broke that news, I've had a lot more time to process her decision and while I'm still excited for her, I've realized that, like most of the decisions my sister makes, this decision was steeped in selfishness. When she volunteered to move for her work (note the word volunteered...she was never required to do this for work), she gave no thought to the fact that we were getting married, or that my father was turning 80 and is not in the best health mentally (we think he may be showing early signs of dementia or have some sort of memory-related disorder). She didn't even, in my opinion anyway, think much of her husband, who was just getting started in a career change. She thought only about how it was a great opportunity for her career, which is all she ever thinks, talks, or worries about. She's a workaholic. That's really not an exaggeration. And as further proof, I offer you this little fact, which is that since we announced our engagement she has only talked to me about the wedding on two occasions: 1. to ask when our date was so they could finalize their plans, and 2. to ask me "why i am getting married" (she was trying to convince me to buy a car instead of having a wedding, but that's how she started to make her point).

So, I suppose it shouldn't be a shocker that she kind of put a damper on our date announcement to my family, but it still sucks, and it caused some major tension. Here's how it went down: So my whole family is sitting around the living room, and I sort of get everyone's attention and say, "So we set a date...March 27th." And before anyone else can say anything, my sister blurts out, "Are you trying to kill me?" in this super dramatic voice. I think she was trying to be funny, but it came off really, really rude. So I replied, in a slightly bitter voice, "Well, actually it's not about you, so..." Needless to say she ignored me the rest of the night, and pretty much walked away shortly after I said that to her. After she did, I said to her husband, "Is it really that bad that it's on March 27th?" He told me that it would be hard for them to come back since they're leaving 5-6 weeks before, but that I was right, it's not about them. He told me they would really try, but that it might not happen. I honestly told him that because of work, it was either then or summer, and summer was a bad option for half of our guests. We have at least 1/3 of our guests coming in from out of town! If we had a wedding during the summer, not only would we have to pay more, but so would our guests flying in from places as far as England (and now Bangalore!). It isn't fair for us to plan a wedding around two people, and disregard 18 others.

I don't know...what do you all think? Was I wrong to snap at my sister? I'm not at all saying we're changing the date...we really just can't, but should I have factored her into our decision making more? I kind of feel like it's our wedding, and we should choose a date that works for us and makes us happy, not the other way around. Is that selfish of me? I'll let you ponder that while you check out these photos of our turkey day spread last year. Hope you all had a drama-free holiday!