Deciding Where to Spend the Holidays

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Jesus all the time. He was the epitome of love. Would put up boundaries and walk away when people had expectations for him that didn't fit with his mission. They would say, oh, Lord, stay here. Stay here three more days and heal more people. And we've got this plan for you. And he would say, no, I've got to go. I've got other stuff to do. I gotta go preach to these people over here. I've got these things. And so here he's the embodiment of love and was so available to people. But at the same time, he would leave the crowd and go off by himself and pray. He would leave the crowd and say, no, I've actually got this other aspect of my mission I need to do over here. And this is all the time I can give you. And I'm sure they were disappointed. Oh, yeah. You know what? That's how life works. People are gonna get disappointed. And you don't try to disappoint people. But sometimes you're gonna have to make decisions that are gonna be disappointing.

Well, I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving with your families. Those of you who are Americans, we love that holiday. For those of you who don't know what, thanks. Basically where we are thankful and we eat a lot of food and we get with our family. So it's awesome.

Most American holidays are really about gluttony.

It's about. Yeah, it's a reason to eat too much. Right? And we love it. Like, we especially love it. We live in Georgia, which is away from our family, and our families are in Kentucky. And so we take the entire week because in our school district, our kids get the entire week off. And so we take the whole family make the road trip to Kentucky, and we spend time with our families and we love it. And so we're coming off of that. And it's one of our favorite times of year.

We record in Texas just to get more fun and interesting at the marriage capital of the world.

Let's not forget South Lake, Texas, and.

Our brand new building. XO headquarters is almost finished. And that's something I'm thankful for this year. We are so thankful for that. And if you guys want to learn more about the building, go to xobuilding.com Many of you have prayed for that. You've even donated because this is a donation driven nonprofit ministry and you've helped build this and going to help marriages for generations to come. And I'm just, I'm thankful for your generosity and your support and the dream's finally coming together.

It's coming to fruition. We love it. And so we know for a lot of us, you know, we have family and in laws on the brain. So we thought we'd do an episode talking about navigating in law relationships because not only, you know, do we do that around Thanksgiving time, but for all of us all across the world as Christians celebrating Christmas, many of us are getting with our families around Christmas time. We're kind of looking forward to that or maybe dreading it. So we wanna talk about, you know, when, you know, you're navigating in law relationships, some of the pitfalls many of us experience and also the major blessing they can be. You know, I think a lot of times whenever we mention in laws, people, they feel mixed about it. Right. Because there are parts of it that we find to be a blessing and there's parts of it that have been difficult. And so we're going to talk all about that.

Yeah. And it's, I'm so honored to have this conversation. And we love our in laws. Just, we love them kind of like put that out front. We just had a great time hanging out over Thanksgiving week. You know, both families there in Kentucky host us. We make great memories, we laugh, we eat. It's a wonderful time. But I will say that there have been different seasons in our marriage, especially in the early years of our marriage where there was tension in these relationships.

Yeah.

And God has brought a lot of healing and he's carried us a long way since then. But we just, we say that just to let you know if you're in a tense place and this is a difficult season for you to navigate with your families. We understand what that feels like.

Right.

In a very real way. And I'm thankful that God has done a lot of healing there. And now we're to a place where we truly do just enjoy all of their company and hopefully they enjoy ours as well. But we get it if it's a place of tension right now. And I know what that feels like. I remember praying desperate prayers and feeling helpless and unsure of how to navigate the situation. And that's why we've written a whole book about this. This is going to be coming out in a few months. But we just want you to know we can relate. I don't want you to feel like we're talking about this topic as folks who, like, well, they've never had any tension at all in their families. What do they have to tell me about it? No, we're, in a very real way, do. But we've also, in a very real way, seen that God can bring healing to any situation. And that's the hope that we want to give you right now. And also, if things are already good in those relationships, this isn't just for people in crisis. We want to talk about ways to keep those relationships strong and then just to navigate some of the nuances of, like, well, how do you. How do you navigate just expectations with kids and grandkids? And there's a lot. There's a lot to it.

So we're excited to be able to talk about this because I think that a lot of times we think we're the only ones. Like, that's just a lie of the enemy, really. In any part of life, when we're struggling, he wants to convince us that we're the only ones. But you guys, even the best in law relationships, as different seasons change of life, they can have some stressors, you know. And so I know in the early part of a marriage, you find out real quickly, or maybe even when you're dating and engaged, you find out real quickly that the family that you're marrying into isn't necessarily like your family. Like, on the surface, there's probably some commonalities, something you have in common, something you share, you know, like maybe your faith or maybe you grew up in the same part of the country, or maybe you enjoy. You all enjoy going to movies. You know, like little things and big things. And so you see all these commonalities. But then when you start planning a wedding together and you all of a sudden are married and you're planning for the holidays real quick, you find out there's some different personalities that you're dealing with and many different expectations. And probably my best advice for young couples, even engaged couples who are listening right now and watching, I would tell you you need to talk through this earlier rather than later. And this is something we did not do, and it threw us for a loop. Right, sweetie?

Yes, you got to talk through it because a lot of assumptions get made that, oh, well, your family's like mine or mine's like yours.

Yes.

Or my family's way of doing things is the right way in any way that your family diverts from that, they're wrong. And we feel that, I think, the most at the holidays because people have very specific traditions and ways of doing things and times that it happens in places.

Yes. Expectations and expectations.

And if you miss it, then there's all this tension and hurt feelings. And so it can be a lot to navigate, especially in the early years. And I know that was. It was just a minefield for us two, trying to tiptoe around and trying to make things like they were when we were living at home. But now we're married, and then once you start having kids, then it's even more complicated.

Yes.

And so we finally got to a place just to skip ahead a little bit, where we said, listen, here's how it's going to have to look for us. We're going to come home Thanksgiving, and we're going to be there an extended period of time, and we're going to.

See everybody, see both sides.

And Wednesday night, we have Thanksgiving with my family. So not even on the day, but that's Thanksgiving for us. Wednesday night, Thursday, late lunch, we have the big meal with Ashley's whole extended.

Family, because my entire extended family lives there.

Right. So we try to, you know, give them that day because they've got all the family in town. And it just. That flow has seemed to work. And then we try to share time back and forth with both families during that week. But then at Christmas, we had to make the hard decision years ago that, like, listen, it's too hard for us to come back a month later with all these kids. Like, we're going to have Christmas at home. We're going to do our.

You are welcome to come to us.

You're welcome to come. We've always said that anybody in the family that wants to come, you guys come. But just know, like, we're going to do Christmas, we're going to do Thanksgiving your way at your place and honor those traditions as best we can. We're going to make some traditions of our own at Christmas, and you're welcome to come be part of that.

We wanted our kids to be able to wake up in their home on Christmas morning.

That became important.

I know in some families, the tradition is to have it at the grandparents. And so you gotta do you. You gotta do what works for your family. But one big mistake Dave and I made, and our families even made in, you know, in the beginning of Our marriage. Now, granted, we got married when I was 20, Dave was 22. So we were some real young people there, had young, you know, siblings at home. So the dynamics were a little bit different. It wasn't like they had all adult children yet. And so I realized that that's probably why they had the expectations they had. But I know that in my family and even in Dave's, there was almost this expectation that nothing would change and we would just somehow bounce back and forth like a pinball.

Because we were the first in the family to get married.

Yes.

And I don't think anybody was prepared. No, wait a second. Now we're have to share our child at the holidays because there's another family involved here.

Exactly.

And so both families, as the first in each family to get married. It was an adjustment.

Yes. And we ran ourselves ragged.

We tried to be those pleasers bouncing back and forth and we felt exhausted and we still felt like we were letting everybody down.

We were letting everybody down.

We were. Yeah, we were. They kind of let us know.

They let us know. We were like, I just remember about two years in this is even before children, we were like, we are killing ourselves and we're still letting them down.

I know.

And we were also in youth ministry at the time too. And as many of you know, if you are, you know, vocationally a pastor or even a volunteer in any kind of ministry around the holidays, there's all these things going on. And I remember. So we had all the different youth activities and then Dave is a staff member, had all the activities for church and church around Christmas time. There's a lot going on. I was on the worship team, literally. So if we're not at the church, we're literally at one of our parents houses. And it was just. I was like, I don't feel like I'm even ever home.

Right. And it took the joy out of the holidays for us because we started entering into that time of year, which should be a time of celebration and Thanksgiving and peace and joy and all these things. And for us, it was stressful and it was anxiety.

We were just getting through it. I mean, I remember looking at you and said, private.

And we finally just kind of had a wake up moment where it's like, this isn't sustainable or healthy. And we had to say, especially when the baby started coming, like, guys, listen, we're gonna have to do this differently. And then when we moved away, obviously 15 plus years ago, that's when it really turned. And we said, we're gonna have to just redefine what this looks like. Because that first Christmas after we moved away, we made all that effort and we drove. I had to be at a Christmas Eve service.

I think it was for several years.

After we drove through the night on Christmas Eve, you were already in Kentucky to wake up and have Christmas morning at your family's house. I drove through the night, like, Christmas Eve into Christmas morning. I'm driving on the road, like, away from my family, thinking, this is nuts. This is not healthy, or this doesn't even make sense. And so that's the last year that we did Christmas in Kentucky. After that, we said, guys, listen, we love you. You know, we love you. But our kids are gonna wake up in our house on Christmas, and we're gonna start creating our own traditions. And I'm sure there was disappointment and.

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Visit burlington.com coats for details. Oh, I think there was. But I do think, guys, you know, setting boundaries is never easy, but eventually everybody kind of, you know, it's like you're tossing up everything, but then it kind of settles into what it should be, you know what I'm saying? And feelings catch up. They do. And I think that, you know, our families now, I mean, they know, they get it. They get it. Time helps with these things. They're great. They adjust. It's been really so much healthier over the last decade. Plus, it's been a lot better. But it did take. It took some getting used to for everyone involved. And that's really what it is with in law relationships. It's just often really kind of year to year, really praying through it, really talking openly. But the most important part of this is, first of all, you and your spouse getting on the same page with this. Because if you're not on the same page and you feel like your family's over here in one ear, and then your spouse is over here, and you're both being pulled in separate directions, that's where you see the madness and you see a lot of breakdown in communication. And, you know, in law, relationships are complicated because there's so much love here, right? We love our families. We Love our in laws, we love our spouse. We want all of this to work well, you know, if we didn't, we wouldn't try so hard. You know, that's why we end up almost killing ourselves trying to make these different things. But I think that with our families, with our in laws and with our spouse, we all need to recognize that we're all gonna have to give a little and sometimes a lot in different seasons. And we all need to give so much grace to one another. And this is something that is often easier said than done. But I think that when we talk openly and say, listen, we are doing the best we can, this is what we can do in this season. Like, I do remember when we first moved to Augusta, Georgia, from Kentucky. We had one toddler and a baby on the way. So I literally was eight months pregnant when we moved to Georgia. The first time. We've moved there three times. It's home. But, you know, we were. It was kind of, you know, we're trying to. It's the first time anyone in my family had moved away. So my family's very accustomed to everyone being there. Like, I'm literally still the only person who's ever moved away. It's very interesting. For literally generations.

So you're like an alien.

I'm an alien.

And we moved away.

And they're so sweet about it.

They thought, well, they'll be back in a year.

No, they really did think that.

Everybody thought, well, yeah, this is just like, get this out of their system. And we didn't. We didn't know how long.

No, we had no idea.

And we didn't know that where God moved us would ultimately be where our family created a home and found roots. And I'm so thankful for that because it has been the perfect home for us. But it's difficult navigating that from a distance when you're trying to have a great relationship with your family. And we want that, and they want that too. Like, I'm thankful to have parents on both sides and siblings on both sides that. That want to be in relationship with us and make the effort to travel with us, to come see us, to meet us for vacations or that host us when we come to town, but it does take a lot more effort.

It does. When we first moved, I remember there was an expectation that we would be coming home every six weeks. Do you remember this? With two young children.

Yeah.

And we did, you guys. We did. We did it. And so, like, you know, and again, Dave was a pastor and still is a Pastor. So that meant we had to, you know, I think you had Fridays off, so we would, like, leave Thursday after work, drive, try to get there and, you know, right before we go to bed, put the littles to bed, wake up in the morning, spend time going back and forth. Friday, spend time going Saturday morning and then drive back so you could be there Sunday morning.

Yeah.

And it was just crazy. And I remember we just reached a point within very quickly, and we said, listen, you know, really, for about the first year we did that, and then we were like, we can't. We just can't do this. Like, we can't keep on coming every six weeks. You know, maybe you could come more. You know, and at the time, we. I think we did have. We had to. We put both boys where they shared a room. And so we did have a room where I think we, I don't know, got. Got a bed at some used place or something and, like, made a guest room, but. Cause we wanted to be able to host our parents. But it was something that we just, you know, had to monitor and adjust constantly. And it was never just like, oh, this is easy. Completely. You know. And so I feel like if you're watching this and listening and you're like, man, that sounds so complicated. It's. Because it is. I mean, it is, but it's still worth the effort. You know, we need to make effort to see our family. We need to make effort to also make sure we're not making each other go crazy by.

You have to find something that's sustainable.

Exactly.

And you have to put up boundaries if there are expectations put on you that are unhealthy or unsustainable. Sustainable.

Exactly.

And that's a tension. It's a moving target of what that looks like. And so what that looks like this year, it might be totally different two years from now. And so everybody involved has to be flexible. I mean, you have to just believe the best in each other, make effort, but also give a lot of grace. When somebody just can't do something, don't roll your eyes and say, well, they should do this or they should do that. Like, you know what? You're not in their shoes. Just give them grace. And that's gonna bring a lot of peace to your holidays.

It will. But now I wanna shift the conversation to talking about, well, what if they don't give you grace? Like, maybe you're watching and listening to this and you're like, this all sounds. It does sound complicated. But, like, my family member or two or three they don't give that grace. They look at us and they basically say, well, if you love us, you'll come when we say you should come.

Well, and for those complicated situations, I'd say check out our upcoming In Laws book. It's going to answer all those questions and more. And I'm really excited about this resource. Not to turn it into a promotion, but it is more nuanced than we can address in a few minutes. That's why we felt like it needed a full book.

Yes.

And I'm really excited to share this. But to give a few kind of quick things on this episode. I think that you lead with love. You know, you try to. The Bible says as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. It doesn't say live at peace with everyone because sometimes you'll do everything you can and they choose to still not live at peace with you. But as far as it depends on you, that doesn't mean be a doormat. That doesn't mean that you've got to just subject yourself to abusive behavior. It means be willing to lead the way with love, make the effort and humbly serve when you can. But also be willing to put up boundaries and lovingly walk away. Jesus, all the time, he was the epitome of love, would put up boundaries and walk away. When people had expectations for him that didn't fit with his mission. They would say, oh Lord, stay here, stay here three more days and heal more people and we've got this plan for you. And he would say, no, I've got to go, I've got other stuff to do. I got to go preach to these people over here. I've got these things. And so here he's the embodiment of love and was so available to people. But at the same time, he would leave the crowd and go off by himself and pray. He would leave the crowd and say, no, I've actually got this other aspect of my mission I need to do over here. And this is all the time I can give you. And I'm sure they were disappointed. Oh yeah, you know what? That's how life works. People are going to get disappointed and you don't try to disappoint people. But sometimes you're going to have to make decisions that are going to be disappointing even to the people that you love. Even Jesus own disciples were like, no, we should. This doesn't seem right. And he was like, no, no, I've got to do this and you're going to have to deal with it. And he wasn't rude about it. He's Jesus. But I think we look at Jesus as being this pushover that just said yes to everybody about everything. And that's not at all when you read the Gospels, that's not at all what he was doing.

He was not a people pleaser.

Not at all.

No.

He was a people lover, but not a people pleaser.

But not a people pleaser. I mean, that's not why he came. He didn't come to please man. Right? He came to save man. And so. And he came to please God. You know, he knew that God had given. You know, he is God, obviously, but it's his mission that he's fulfilling as the son of God. And so, you know, I think that we can take a cue from that. And you guys are listening to two natural people pleasers, right? Like, we don't like to rock the boat. We don't want people to be mad at us. We wanna make people smile. We wanna make people like.

We want you to like us.

Yeah, we want you to like us. And it's just kinda how we're wired. But let me tell you, if you constantly make it your goal to please people, you're missing it. Like, you end up really hurting your relationship and also your own mental health. And let me tell you, I know I went through years of therapy and part of it because of this. And I'm telling you, a lot of times, my counselor, she gave me the book the Search for Significance, which has been around forever. The author is McGee. Look it up. It's awesome. And part of it, it talks about different ways that as human beings we often try to search for significance. And that is one of them where your approval from, man. You're just trying to please people. And I was really caught up in that. I really had a hard time disappointing my parents. I was always the kid. I was the oldest, very much type A. I feel like the older I get, the more type B I am. I don't know why, but anyway, I was at the time your type. Very type A.

Well, you're type A if A means awesome. You're type B if B means beautiful.

Oh my God, that's just silly. Anyway, I was so used to just being the one that didn't rock the boat. And so when we, you know, as these newly married, very young, you know, people all of a sudden are having to put boundaries in place, it felt unnatural to me. And I just remember though, a counselor really saying, this is healthy. Like, this is healthy. And if you don't want to completely just loathe the holidays or any visit, then you need to put boundaries in place because your family, ultimately they really, all of us, because we love each other, we want it to be enjoyable. Right. We don't want it to be something that is filled with dread. And again, in the book, we go into detail about some different personalities that are extra hard to deal with, but just. And generally speaking, I would say at the heart of most families, you know, it's a longing to want to be together and to enjoy that time. But how we go about that is everyone has their own opinion, including us. Like, we all have our own opinion on how this should look. But as a couple, remember, you're adults. You get to make some rules for yourselves, right?

Yeah. In fact, you need to have that responsibility. Right. It's an actual responsibility for the safety and sacredness of your own marriage, your own family, your own children and your own sanity. Like, you have to be the advocate for your marriage and your mental health for that matter. And not everybody might get it, but you know, you're going to have to sometimes put those loving boundaries in place and talk to your spouse about what that looks like. Pray for wisdom in it, Be as kind and compassionate as you can be to everyone involved, but also firm of what it needs to look like. And I really do believe that in time, God will, he'll guide you and bring healing. He certainly has for us. And I'm so thankful for that.

Yes, we're so thankful. And I wanna tell you there's so much we could go on and on about. And we do in the book, we go into more detail. I think you could have very peaceful, fairly easygoing relationships with your in laws and all of a sudden you have children and it completely reshuffles the deck. Like it can completely bring out some different expectations you didn't know were there. You can have in laws that want to be more of a parent to your kids than a grandparent. You can have in laws that you thought would be really involved grandparents. And they're not at all like, I mean, there's all kinds of things and appointments.

Every single season is gonna bring new challenges, new surprises.

It will, it will. And it's too much for us to go into today. But I do wanna say this. If you come to a place where you're like, okay, Dave and Ashley, we are showing grace. We've put boundaries in place. It's still a tumultuous relationship. And I just feel like we're all letting each other down here. And when we try to talk about it, whether as a couple or as a family, we just really end up hurting each other. That's when you need to bring in a family mediator, a Christian family mediator, a Christian family counselor. I cannot reiterate this enough. You need to approach it that way. Because what they do, and I love it when they give it the title mediation. You guys have heard us talk about marriage mediators, that's mediating between a couple. But family mediators, what they do is they really try to hear from each and every family member. A lot of times they'll meet with a couple alone first, and then the parents alone first, and then they'll bring you all together. But they really have this objective, look into it, where they can say, okay, this is what you all really want, and here's where the rub is, and here's what we need to work on. And they help you all in a very structured, calm, productive way to talk.

About this, to find common ground and clear expectations that everyone's willing to meet. Because a lot of times it's unclear, unspoken expectations. And that mediator can help you find the common ground. We've known families where this has been.

A life changer, a game changer. Yes. So definitely think about that. You can look online in your area, Christian family meteor, make sure Christian is in the title. You can also put biblical because you wanna make sure they're coming from the same worldview. And not counting God out, because I don't know how you can do counseling without having the Holy Spirit in the room. Because he's always. They always say, like, he's the main counselor in the room, you know, so you wanna make sure that you have that kind of foundation. But guys, the bottom line is there is hope. And in laws can be such a blessing. So don't count them out, right? Don't count yourselves out.

No. It's God's design and desire that your family be a thriving, healthy, multi generational family where you're all a gift to one another. And that takes work and time and effort and forgiveness and lots of other things. But it's worth the effort. So we hope this conversation today has helped you take another step in that direction. And we hope that the start to the whole Christmas season is a beautiful one for you. Or if you're listening to this and it's the middle of July, we hope you're having a great summer too. But these principles hold true all year round. Thanks so much for listening. God bless, guys. We'll see you. Bye, guys.