Less than a year after we started dating, my husband brought me home to meet his parents during the winter break. Ever since that year, we have been spending Christmas at my in-laws in Maryland. The fact that my folks are not in the U.S. simplifies things since we don’t have to fight over which set of grandparents to visit. And in all honesty, even if my folks were here, I would have supported the idea of celebarting Christmas with my in-laws because they are the Christian and this is a holiday that holds a special meaning for them, especially my mother-in-law.
It does get a bit claustrophobic whenever I am here because we do not do anything. We sit around the house and enjoy each other’s company. We read and we watch movies on DVDs. This is all fine and dandy for the first three days. After that, I would get myself a severe case of cabin fever, knowing that Washington D.C. is only a 45-minute train ride away.
I do lobby for a visit to the Smithsonian every year. This year we did the tour of the White House, finally, and I even managed to force the husband and brother-in-law to have lunch in Dupont Circle. Can you believe it? I have been coming to Maryland since 1995, and this was the first time I had eaten there. If not for Dufmanno, I would not have known a place as cool as Adams Morgan existed.
Yes, I know every guidebook mentions all the cool neighborhoods. In my feeble defense, when your in-laws LIVE so close to D.C. you kind of do not feel the need to pick up a tourist-y guidebook…
I have never been to Georgetown. There. That should settle how pathetic it is. I am. We are.
I love them dearly but these people are homebodies.
Example 1: When we visited my husband’s grandmother and aunt in a Boston suburb in 1996, I found out that my husband and his brother had only been to Boston once. ONCE. They had been visiting the grandmother EVERY SINGLE YEAR and the aunt’s house is a mere 10-minute drive to a T station.
Example 2: The family gets together for one week every summer at the Outer Banks. We go to the beach and read. That’s it. The highlight will be having Chinese take-out one night and going to the 4-screen movie theatre one afternoon.
What’s more: they make me feel so guilty, like there is something wrong with me, for wanting to GET OUT.
On the third day of our trip here, I volunteered to go to the store, perhaps with too much enthusiasm. My mother-in-law, let me preface with this, a very kind and gentle person whom I get along famously well with and from whose mouth I have never heard of an ill word of others, jokingly commented, “You are itching to get out of the house, aren’t you?” “No. Me? Noooo. I just thought I’d go to the store for you.” “It’s ok. We don’t need anything right now.”
I don’t even feel comfortable saying, “I am going to Starbucks” because why do you need to go spend that money if you can have a perfectly good cup of coffee at home? Unless you are a spoiled spendthrift. And why do you need to leave the house when you don’t need anything? Unless you dislike the company of the people around you.
So that’s what I have been doing so far ever since we got here last Tuesday. RELAXING. There were days when I did not see the sky at all. It seriously stresses me out to no end. I feel so restless.
I am just a bad case of spontaneous combustion waiting to happen.
I hope I don’t trigger the alarm when I go through the airport security tomorrow.
When our kids were little, and the in-laws were still
alive, we spent every Christmas with them because my family was
close enough to see whenever. Too damn close, actually, but
anyways… I once asked my MIL to get FIL out of their own house
before I carried through on my threat of harikari; she ran him
outta that place like honey off a bear’s elbow. My MIL was awesome.
I’m a new reader, glad to have found AA and looking forward to
following. My annual blogroll update is in the works, AA will be on
it. I’d be tickled pink if you one day have time to drop on by
Venom, Secrets, & Lies. 😉
Oh my god, you’ve opened some sort of vortex into another dimension by striking through my name in the post! I tried clicking on it and I ended up in 404 land where a friendly cyborg guided me back to civilization after warning me about drinking too much mulled wine during daylight hours.
Hope you are home safe and sound and curled up under a blankie in your jammies!
dufmanno recently posted…Good Intentions
OMG. I have no idea what happened! I just corrected it. From my dashboard panel thingy, it was a hyperlink and the URL was totally correct. But then it showed up as a strike-through. It probably had something to do with my bragging about how I never proofread and edit before I hit the PUBLISH button. Hybris got me once again!
I feel your pain. When we visit my in-laws, which we did over Christmas this year, we watch so much TV that I start to get nauseated. No exaggeration. The “big screen” TV is never NOT on. And it is never at a low volume.
The Sweetest recently posted…I Realized I Am Not the Best Parent Ever
As you can probably imagine, I’m not what you’d call a “homebody” (unless, of course, there are Spaniards and pinot at home and then…), so I feel you.
I feel you particularly strongly this holiday, however, as I’ve been ill with the flu since the Monday before Chrstmas until right about…now. I’m actually still fecking ill and it SUCKS and I am beginning to hate the inside of my new flat.
Hope you made it home safely and have a brilliant 2011, sugar plum.
– B x
The Barreness recently posted…Resolve This
Wow, I really got stuck on the “never been to Georgetown” part. There’s only so much enjoying each others’ company that’s even good for you. No matter how much I liked everyone, I’d get cabin fever pretty quickly. Like maybe after a day.
secret agent woman recently posted…Ready for 2011
Love it. RELAXING. Yeah, right. Glad you did get to see a little more of the area this time. Hey, that is called compromise. Happy New Year.
TechnoBabe recently posted…New Year 2011
Those little sparkling water bottles work well for clear booze. Just mix with soda and relax. Glad I’m not the only one that gets tortured by the TV their in-laws watch. Ever have to sit through a video of that place known as “The Villages” in Florida? Pure hell.
Meg at the Members Lounge recently posted…I Can’t Help Myself Friday The Year in Review
Hi Lin:
I’m so with you on this…I like to leave my house at least once a day, even if it’s just to go and buy a newspaper…I’ve always been like that. Jim doesn’t get it at all…he thinks I hate being home (I’d probably enjoy it more though if the kids weren’t there!). I need to talk to people, even if I don’t know them!
Happy New Year, Lin! Happy I found you in 2010!
Hugs,
Wendy
Isn’t it a pity that your chances of visiting something are inversely proportionate to the distance you are from that particular thing? 😀 Actually, T gave me a guide from our home town for Christmas this year, and we’ll be “playing tourist” next week ;). I’d say – try to relax as much as you can during those days, and if you feel like getting out, get out – no guilt needed! You’ve appreciated the fact your in-laws are insiders for many a year now, time for them to appreciate you need to get out once in a while ;). Do keep us posted whether or not you made it through airport security safely ;).
Lies recently posted…Christmas Eve the scientist way
: ) my Grammy was like that too. I need sky : ) I am glad youi got to spend time with family. Super excited ypoui got to go into the city.
Your post is a perfect description of claustrophobic hell. I’m two miles from G’town. Next time you visit, tell them one of the bloggers who stalks/follows you will be heartbroken if you don’t meet her face-to-face for even five minutes. Get to the train station, with or without the kids. I’ll be there waiting. We’ll have coffee on M St.
lifeintheboomerlane recently posted…Happy 2011- Via 1960 and 1963 and 1975 and…
I am pretty good at sitting around the house- to a point. And once I reach that I have to get out or I’ll lose the final shreds of my mind.
Jack recently posted…Goodbye 2010
I don’t blame you for wanting to go do something. My grandparents expect that whenever anyone comes over, everyone will be content sitting around and reading the paper. I don’t understand how such people think.
westwood recently posted…Illogical logic of dangerous dichotomies
I would never survive. My wandering soul would shrivel up and die! Just think of Dufmanno Island.
Everywhere we’ve lived, we’ve known people who had lived there their whole lives and never experienced their city. It used to bug me to no end. I was constantly piling the kids in the car and doing touristy stuff or ANYTHING rather than stay home and watch TV. I think some people think it’s excessive to always be wanting to go, go, go. I think life is too short. “You can sleep when you die.”
Diane Laney Fitzpatrick recently posted…Our Summer of the Spider
If I’m alone, I could easily sometimes spend days and days not really leaving the house for much of anything (sometimes if I can arrange my weekend to involve no social obligations, the only time I leave the apartment is to go get coffee and wander down to the market to buy produce and bread or whatever) — it’s less that I don’t enjoy wandering around a city or having tea somewhere cozy and watching strangers or whatever, and more that sometimes I just really do not want to have to talk or interact with another human being at all, period. But I would claw my own skin off if I was trapped in a house _with_ other people — alone-alone is great, or alone-in-public-around-strangers is great. But in close quarters with people I know for any length of time? Gah. The horror. (And this, you see, is why when I travel, I will only travel alone. Seeing friends and acquaintances in cities I visit is lovely…but I won’t stay with them, either, because if I am spending all day with people I need somewhere to go back to by myself at night. I’m like a hermit with social skills. Such as they are.)
Miss B recently posted…Quenched
My parents are TOTALLY like your in -laws. They are all about sitting around, visiting and drinking coffee. I can only do that for so long and I start to get snappish.
I want to shake them and say, GET OUT AND SEE THE WORLD! you’re not going to be alive much longer!
but, I cannot change who they are, try as I might 🙂
gigi recently posted…My Apologies- LG Appliances
Take up jogging. With a credit card in your pocket.
I still shudder at the memory of those can’t-go-anywhere visits with my in-laws–TV blaring on the Golf Channel, the room blue with pipe smoke.
Mary Lee recently posted…No Whine Before Its Time
i can sooooo relate. my husband and his family are homebodies, too. it’s not that i don’t enjoy their company or a little downtime (little being the operative word) but i need external stimulation. i need the energy of people and hustle and bustle. i need restaurant food and cocktails. i need to look at beautiful people. i need to get my shop on. see art. hear music.
i’m antsy.
pattypunker recently posted…shit i like from 2010
My parents resemble your in-laws. They are up at the crack of dawn and in bed by 8:00. They are perfectly content to watch old movies on the TV, Nascar and football. Can you hear my loud sigh? It was okay when they lived in the city, we could visit and take off all day, come back in the evening, and we did. Now, they have moved to the mountains, to a place where nothing has changed since the 1950’s( I am sighing louder) with kids in tow, it worse, it’s boring .
Booze? Cocktail hour begins at 4:00, that’s a positive.
Grab the kids, jump on the train and go enjoy the day. What’s the worse reaction that you would get?
Happy New Year!
Velva recently posted…Pomegranate-Champagne Punch
But the Outer Banks?!? There’s so much to see there too! When are you going again?!? I’ll sneak down and whisk you off to Kitty Hawk.
Elly Lou recently posted…Anansi Boys
Now that you’ve done Adams Morgan and U Street corridor you can tell the family that they need to see Georgetown with you on the next trip!
Have a safe trip home to snowy Chicago.
Xo
We usually stay in at my in-laws too. We play a lot of Scrabble, which sometimes makes me want to blow something up. I get to read though, and that is more difficult in my own home. My in-laws are great people, but one quality I have always loved about my f.i.l. is he always says, “Andrea, ready for a drink?” and then passes me the rum. Hell, yes.
Andrea recently posted…Thats Not My Name
I’m getting ready to head to my inlaws in Wisconsin for the weekend. I know exactly what you are talking about. I love my inlaws, but I somehow managed to marry into the only family in Wisconsin that aren’t alcoholics. So I have to be sober for 3 days while they sit inside and play cards and domino’s. Thankfully we are bringing the dogs, so every 4 hours I can jump up and announce that I need to go walk the dog.
Perhaps I should worry, but I am seriously thinking of hiding a flask in my coat. Maybe Vapid could give me some advice on booze smuggling?
Tom G. recently posted…Here we go a wassailing…
I get this too. Maybe the relaxing can be good for you too? Hope Santa was good to you 🙂
I understand this more than you can possibly know. It’s how I’ve felt since moving from NYC to the ‘burbs. It actually feels like something is pressing down on my chest, constricting my breath. Some people are made for this kind of living. I just can’t wait until I can get out. For good.
I wish I was there with you. I could help. I smuggle booze everywhere.
A Vapid Blonde recently posted…I Wonder What Santa Wanted For Christmas…