BOJARSKI

Who’d have thought that one 22-hour period could be so filled with stress?

This Christmas will be the first holiday that my fiancee, Valerie, and I will have to split between our two families.

Sure, we’ve been together for a while, but we just never got around to actually splitting the holidays.

We didn’t even think about it at Easter. Memorial Day, July 4 and Labor Day are sporadically celebrated in our families. Arbor Day isn’t real.

Traditionally, Thanksgiving as well as Christmas in her family is spent at her aunt’s house. However, her aunt is moving to a different house and had the audacity to cancel both beloved holiday events, tossing them aside like a David Coverdale-era Deep Purple CD.

We spent Thanksgiving with my family.

So, we really have to step it up for Christmas if we want to pretend that we are a real couple.

My home base will be at my mother’s Shaler Township house. I need to make sure my brave Kia Spectra is set up to actor Jason Statham mode with fresh oil and good, red antifreeze.

Valerie gets off work at about 3 p.m. Tuesday, but she will have to be back at work at 3 p.m. Christmas Day. This leaves us with less than a day to go everywhere.

Christmas Eve for her is spent at her cousin’s house, and that is where we will start. Coincidentally, this is when many people seem to have dinner. We likely will finish at 6:30 or 7 p.m.

Following that, we will spend the rest of the evening at my aunt and uncle’s house in the swanky hills of Franklin Park. We likely will leave there no earlier than 10:30 p.m. and no later than midnight.

A pleasant period of sleep is the only thing I can wish for. Hopefully, Santa’s sleigh doesn’t have a jake brake.

Christmas will start with a delayed rise after 8:30 a.m. Gifts will be opened at my mother’s house. We may also make an attempt to go to Valerie’s mother’s house in the morning to open more gifts.

We’ll follow this up with the main event for my family: dinner at my grandmother’s house in Etna. My grandmother is about 85 years old, 4 feet tall and cooks all of the food. Most people find this adorable.

This will take Valerie up to the point where she has to leave for work, roughly 2 p.m.

Of course, this is just the plan. Will it go just like this? There are too many variables to be sure.

What if there is unforeseen of snow? Will NBA basketball lull us to sleep and cause us to blow a departure deadline?

But next year will be different because Valerie’s aunt will have a new house for her Christmas celebration. And there will be other holidays to split up over the year.

Perhaps a nostalgic viewing of “Rugrats” will convince us to try to celebrate Hanukkah, too.

I am comforted by the fact that by the time we get all of this ironed out, we may end up hosting the holidays ourselves. It’s a new day and a new generation.