How do you handle the Holidays

Sorry, I know I’ve been away for a while. Life just gets in the way sometimes.

Well, the topic that always seems to come up around this time of year; came up again last week. The topic of “Just how do you handle the holidays?”. It’s probably the second or third most popular question I get.

Why, do people ask you that, you might be asking yourself?

Actually, the answer is very understandable. Not only are we an unusually large family but we are a multicultural, multi-religion family. So, it is a question I tend to expect once people get to know me and know that I’m not offended by such questions.

Just to bring everyone up to speed, I am a typical mid-westerner with blond hair (thanks to my stylist) and green eyes who is from a small town in Ohio. I am often told I’m not what people expect if they have seen my name before meeting me. The reason for that would be my last name. To help build a good relationship with my husband’s family I took his last name when we got married. I didn’t legally change it for many years and four children later, but that’s actually a whole separate story that I’ll tell another time. However, it is a name I’ve grown into and have come to have fun with. Not to give away to much personal information on the internet, my last name is not only an obviously Middle Eastern last name but it’s obviously Muslim. So, when blond hair, green eyed, very pale me walks in the room people are a little confused. I’ve actually had a mechanic at the body shop look at everyone in the room but me calling my name. I later realized that he had walked right past me and looked outside first for some who looked more like he expected. It’s kind of humorous. Preconceived notions always make me laugh.

For many years I had a lot of fun confusing people with my name. My first job out of college I was Technical support representative for a software development tool. There would be time while we were waiting for the tool to finish its task that we’d make small talk with the customers. You know, “What’s the weather like there? Where are you from? etc.” The “where are you from question” came up most often with the foreign engineers and they just made it too easy to have fun at their expense. This is how the conversation would go:

Engineer: “So, where are you from?”
Me: “Ohio”
Engineer: “Where are your parents from?” Smugly, thinking he’s figured it out.
Me: “Ohio”
Engineer: Now a bit confused sounding: “Where did your parents grow up?”
Me: “Ohio”
Engineer: Now really perplexed: “Where did their parents grow up?”
Me: Trying not to laugh “Ohio”
Engineer: Always being polite “Not to be too personal, but aren’t you Muslim?”
Me: “Not a problem; no, actually I’m not.”

This is generally where I’d let them off the hook because they are so thoroughly confused and explain that my husband is from Iran. In 5 years of working phone support only one person ever actually figured it out on their own. That person was another American woman who was also married to an Iranian. They lived in Chicago. Maybe it’s something about women from the mid-west.

Well, not only is Hubby from Iran but he is a Shi’a Muslim. Now here’s where I start blowing the stereotypes out of the water.

1. Hubby is obviously very open minded (he married me didn’t he? See my religious beliefs above and read any of my other posts).
2. He’s also extremely supportive of my career. He knew I was not the Susie homemaker type when he met me and he's okay with that. When we met I actually used to refer to marriage as the "M" word and actually never planned to marry or have children kind of ironic, huh?
3. He cooks and does laundry (again see some of my other posts).
4. He also cleans and changes diapers.

We approach our marriage as a team. What one of us can’t get to the other will. We also play to each other strengths – He’s a better cook than me, so he does most of the cooking (I get to make breakfast on the weekends). I love to shop and actually enjoy running errands, so I most of the grocery shopping and the running around that needs done (with and without a child or two in tow).

I digress, as usual, so, how we handle the holidays is to celebrate both the Christian and Muslim holidays. We approach the time more as a time for family than a time for religion but have taught the children the stories of both Jesus and Mohammed. We will leave it up to kids to choose which religion they follow when they get older. We do stress our morals and acceptable behavior to them but that’s about as far as it goes for now.

We’re in luck, since we live in a very diverse neighborhood, it all works. This is how our street looks. Next door is a family from India who is Hindu, across the street is a Mormon family and another Muslim family lives next to them, who are interestingly enough from Chicago. The Mom from that family is fairly religious (but not pushy) and wears a Hijab (which is the scarf to cover her hair and she’s always in long sleeves and long skirts or loose fitting pants). She and I always have a good laugh when people compliment her English. She’s American born and raised. Those darn preconceived notions again.

Where was your last date?

I was sitting at my desk last week when my new boss came over to the Admin Assistant, who sits across from me, and asked her if she was single. At first she did not know how to answer this question since my boss has only been with the company a few weeks. Seeing her hesitation he said “Just come here for a minute. Michelle, you come too you should hear this too.” Not sure what to expect, we followed him over to the desk of the Manager of our Technical Support team (let’s call him MTS).

Boss: “Now tell them what you just told me.”
MTS: “Well my in-laws are in town for a few weeks and my wife and I took advantage of them being here Saturday and went on a date.”
Boss: “Tell them where you went.”
MTS: “Well, we had some things that we needed to pick up, so while we didn’t have kids along we decided to stop at Target on the way to dinner.”
Boss to the Admin Assistant: “Now if your boyfriend looked at you and said we’re going out to dinner and then took you to dinner how would you react?
Admin Assistant: “Well that depends, is he buying something for me?”
Me: “Now, wait a minute are you saying you’ve never had a date with your wife that started out with running some errands.”
Boss: “No. My wife would never go for that.”
MTS (a little apologetically): “Well it was my wife’s idea.”
Me: “Don’t feel bad my last date with my husband started off at Wal-Mart then moved to Burlington Coat Factory to buy some shirts for my son. Only after doing some shopping did we stop for dinner.”
Boss: “You’re joking, right?”
Me: “No. Actually we have a running joke about a Christmas Eve date we have a few years ago. My parents had taken the kids, so we left to go out to dinner. On the way out we decided to check for one last gift. That stop took longer than expected, so rather than go to a restaurant we stopped at a carry out for dinner. We ended up eating subs sitting in the car in the parking lot that night.”
Boss: “And you’re still married? For how long?”
Me: “Yes, 14 years. But we were out without children and that’s what matters right?”
MTS: “Yes. I’m with you. It’s not about where you go, but that you go there together without children.”
Boss (to the Assistant): “Agreed, but if your boyfriend looked at you and said let’s go out on a date to Target; how would you react?”
Admin Assistant (laughing): “Well, after this conversation with two people who have been married for a while, I think my answer should be: Sure! Apparently that’s how happily married people start their dates. Maybe I’d become one of those happily married people”

I don’t know about that, but most of our dates the last few years start off with some sort of errand or school meeting first. I hadn’t realized that till this conversation took place … I think I’ll repeat this conversation to my husband. See if I get a date that is just a date out of it or if he just laughs and says “See it’s not just us.”

Funny on the way to work this morning

Ok, So I’m listening to the listening to one of the local Baltimore Rock stations this morning on the way to work and I hear “…this week in Goshen, Ohio …” well of course my ears perk up…that’s my home town…on the radio...in Baltimore. Maybe someone there has found the cure for cancer!!!

So the new cast goes:

“This week in Goshen Ohio the high school cheerleading coach is arrested for posing topless with a 15 year old cheerleader at a party. Andrew Emerson, a Teacher at the school, has also been fired for hosting the party and serving alcohol to underage students.”

Oh, my GAWD!!! Andrew Emerson, a man I know as Mr. Emerson (who was a teacher there when I was in high school ... he must be pretty old by this point), has been fired and the cheerleading coach posed topless with minors!!!! Glad to know my home town is working its way into the history books somehow. Excuse me while I try not to run my car off the road laughing... oh I mean in shock.