Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for everything in your life. For your parents, your siblings, your friends, your significant other. Thanksgiving is a chance for people to stuff their faces and spend time with those they love. One of my favorite traditions is to watch the National Dog show so I can point out all the breeds of dogs I would love to own and so I can take notes on how my dog, Abby, matches up to the number one Chesapeake Bay Retriever in the sporting group. Sometimes Thanksgiving rolls around and you must chose where you go to eat lunch or dinner that day.

This Thanksgiving, though it wasn't the first Thanksgiving that my fiance and I were together for, challenged us to make the decision of where do we eat. We've been together for nearly 20 months at this point and we've been engaged for almost a month. Yet, picking a family to see for Thanksgiving was a decision that neither of us really wanted to talk about. I'd never missed Thanksgiving with my grandmother, dad, uncle and brother and he'd never missed a Thanksgiving with his family.

In the end we decided that it would be okay for us to split up for the holiday this year so that we could be with our families. I went one way and he went the other. It was weird though, to not spend such a family-oriented holiday with someone I plan to start a family with in the next few years and who I'd seen every day for over six months. It was strange to not share laughs with him when my dad said something funny or when my grandmother scolded my uncle for cutting the turkey incorrectly. It was peculiar to not drag my dog down the driveway trying to get her to go for a walk with him by my side, picking on me the whole way. It was sad to show off my engagement ring without the one who gave it to me there to share the congratulations with.

The night before Thanksgiving we went out with some friends. I found comfort in knowing that I wasn't the only girlfriend saddened by the idea of splitting up for the holidays. In my drunken stupor, I confessed to a friend that while I wanted my fiance to come with me, how could I ask him to split from his family to spend time with mine. It was a sentiment that was shared by a girl who I was fortunate enough to become friends with once I moved down here. She explained how rough it was that she and her boyfriend would be splitting up to. We jokingly decided that next year we would cook Thanksgiving dinners wherever we lived so that all the families could come to us and we wouldn't have to choose.

Traditions are hard to break. It will be a challenge that my fiance and I will have to overcome as a couple. Christmas is only a few weeks away and that will be another holiday where we have to figure out who gets us Christmas Eve and who gets us Christmas Day. It seems as though his mom and step-dad will help us make that decision as they've already offered to do Christmas Eve so we can head 80 miles north to do Christmas with my family on Christmas.

My advice for anyone who may be experiencing the same situation I am is to understand that family is important to pretty much everyone. It's okay to split up for the holidays. Though my family was disappointed not to see my fiance they understood that he needed to see his family. When he came to pick me up after and to stop and see everyone for a few minutes my grandmother even offered him more food. The car ride home was full of stories of funny things that happened at our respective Thanksgivings, such as his grandmother having him and his step-dad clean the gutter or the Jehovah's Witnesses who drove door to door(out in the middle of nowhere Belgrade even) to pass out religious pamphlets while I tried to hold off the dog from running at them as they'd invaded her yard. When we got home that night, we put away all the leftovers that our grandmothers had sent us home with. We sprawled out on the couch and watched reruns of Whose Line Is It Anyway? until we went to bed at ten since he needed to work the next morning.

I'm interested to see how the holidays will play out once we are married and then once again when we have kids some day. Perhaps having our families come together in our home wouldn't be a bad idea in the next couple of years for the holidays or at least for Thanksgiving. We are looking into buying a house soon so we will have plenty of space to host Thanksgiving. My grandmother even offered to come down early and help me cook everything(though I think she may be getting tired of cooking for everyone and is really just excited for someone else to do all the cooking and cleaning).

And with Thanksgiving in our past, I can finally start decorating for Christmas! Happy holidays everyone!