When I was home in Pennsylvania this past Thanksgiving, I was thinking — not for the first time — how different holidays are these days now that we have a few small children in the house. Not my children, of course. I’m still a childless waste of good genes over here (KIDDING, kids are cute but scary).

Here are a few ways our family holidays are different in a post-apocalyptic child-filled future. Sound familiar to you guys?

• You don’t fight with your siblings and/or parents as much. You’re too focused on keeping small children alive! Unless these are your kids and the fam is questioning or overriding your parenting. In which case, you spend the whole holiday mean mugging and muttering under your breath.
• You don’t go out to a single holiday movie. Not one. Holiday movies used to be a thing your family did together. Now they aren’t. Get over it.
• You don’t really sleep past 5am-7am, unless you’re the baby of the family (hi!) and these aren’t your damn kids. 😉
• You MIGHT sneak in a midday nap like you used to, if you’re lucky, like during a kids show or Tangled. But generally, bye naps.
• You go from sitting around staring at football on TV to sitting around staring at a baby.
• Once that baby can walk but before he learns to be reasonable, you spend a good chunk of your time making sure he doesn’t accidentally destroy himself.
• You get sick as soon as you’re back from the break — almost always. Kid germs better werk.
• You don’t ever* have to sit at the kids table again because the kids table now is 2 feet tall and populated with actual kids. (*Except when your mom invites too many people over and they have to break out the folding plastic table, which is now for 30-year-olds and offbrand dinner guests.)
• You get to rewatch favorite movies from your childhood and unapologetically sing along while the kids wonder if you’re a wizard because you already know all the words to The Little Mermaid somehow.
• You occassionally wonder WHY you’re childless … until you remember that kids are a beautiful and terrible responsibility and wake up at 5 am. Then you crawl under your comforter and sleep till 11.

There are moments when I look back on pre-kid holidays with a LITTLE nostalgia, but only for a second. Holidays are all about family, and they only get better with the next generation. And I wouldn’t want to go back for anything in the world.