Well, this year Thanksgiving dinner was hosted by my parents. In attendance was my own family of origin and a few friends, both of my daughters, my ex-husband and his wife, my ex-husband’s parents, and the father of my second child. I like to think we’re a pretty good example of a unique-but-happy modern family.

I could write Paul a BOOK about the things my MIL has pulled in the past and what we’ve done to keep her relatively happy while sticking to our own traditions and what makes sense for our kids.

Let me just say that I am so happy that I married a guy who will not force our children out of bed at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning just so his mother can give them stockings from her house! She can get some of her own kids if she wants to play Santa, as far as we are concerned!

Sorry, too harsh? There’s more . . .

Send my name over to Paul. For the past three years, my family and I have traveled to see my in-laws for Christmas. Did you know that females openly cry more in the Midwest? Especially at Christmas!

I did a phone interview with Paul yesterday. It was fun…and we’ll see how his article comes out!!

For many years we have travelled abroad nearly always using Manchester airport sometimes 2 or 3 times a year. On a recent occasion, we just got in the car and travelled to Flypark an off airport car park which I co-owned. They always check the the tickets for the return flight details and I heard one of the reception staff say to my wife, you are at the wrong airport these tickets are for Stansted airport. At first I thought it was a joke until I saw the look on my wife’s face which was a mixture of pure confusion and horror. The tickets were indeed for Stansted some 300 miles away. We decided to travel onto Manchester airport and to see if we could arrange a flight to Rhodes from there. A flight was leaving in 3 hours but was fully booked according to their records but we were advised that if someone did not turn up, we could for £100 each transfer to this flight and return from Rhodes via Stansted. By this time my wife was an emotional mess and I had virtually resigned myself to having to returning home. We just sat there waiting seeing the queue for this flight getting ever longer and with 5 minutes to go only 2 people had not checked in. By this time my wife was asking any one coming through the doors where they were going and nearly kissing them if they said anywhere but Rhodes. We eventually got on the flight and my wife much to my embarrassment relaid the story to anyone who would listen . I now check all tickets.
By the time we returned from holiday everyone knew what we had done and my wife was known as Stan short for Stansted.