Family culture and holiday rituals
Here it comes, the holiday season, filled with portents of delight and/or dread. Families are small cultures, steeped in common, as well as idiosyncratic and strange, rituals. Some of these traditions may be clearly defined, anticipated and apparent to all. We always have a large turkey dinner on Thanksgiving and then watch football with most of us falling asleep off and on. Others may be predictable but not really verbalized or recognized as a ritual. Every Thanksgiving Uncle Bill and Aunt Jane have a little too much to drink and behave poorly which irritates Mom, and then Mom and Dad have an argument after everyone leaves.
Many of our rituals are time honored and delightful. Perhaps you always join with your relatives in early morning Black Friday shopping and the rush, as you elbow your way into a store at 5:00 a.m., is something you truly live for. Maybe your family delights in singing together on some special occasions. Maybe each year you pursue a larger Christmas tree or attempt to compete in making the newest or most elaborate dish. Or is there a time when the extended family gathers and retells old family stories?
The point is that we eventually form our own family and not all of the traditions we grew up loving, or at least enduring, will fit well with our partner’s expectations. Our union with a person from a different family, must incorporate two tribal traditions, plus leave room for our own ideas of what makes for a great celebration. Danger only evolves when partners move from negotiating their new roles and traditions and slide into a stance of defending themselves and their families and attacking the partner. When this occurs, it is no longer a matter of choosing your favorite aspects of a celebration but instead turns to a highly personalized testament to whose family is “right”.
This will sometimes lead to escalating attack-defend behavior which cannot in any way provide either partner with new creative ideas of how they as a couple will now celebrate a given holiday. When the above scenario occurs, the couple may attempt some kind of negotiation that is unsatisfying to both. We might try alternating years. On even numbered years we will hold a party in my family’s tradition and on odd years (coincidence fully intended) we will do it your family’s way. We also know that, on our partner’s year, we will make disparaging comments or at least disapproving looks throughout the preparations and events in order to remind him or her that we are doing this against our better judgment and knowledge of how holidays are really meant to be celebrated.
If you have been caught in such disagreements, despair not. It’s normal. Such traditions, or lack of traditions, strike at a very deep part of your being. These events or customs usually begin before you are even able to make sense of them. You simply learn that on these days your family always behaves in this way. And when these events don’t happen, even for good reason or when you weren’t that fond of them in the first place, you will likely feel some discomfort or anxiety.
I have worked with people whose family had no positive holiday traditions and although they might think that such traditions would be nice, would then feel very uncomfortable with their partner’s families at such times. They felt completely out of place as they had no primitive memory of why these events should hold such power and delight. It was not that they necessarily thought the partner’s family was wrong, but they had no internal connection to the practice and so it felt wrong.
If you can step back from the idea that one of your family’s traditions is wrong, you have an opportunity to explore what this behavior truly means to you. I can certainly think of family traditions that I simply assumed were normal, while growing up and through the early years of adulthood, which now seem either unimportant or even negative. However, what remains a valuable memory of those days was the entire family gathering in the kitchen, and that as each family member arrived from near far, the kitchen became more densely packed, loud and joyful. Probably like most people, I still gravitate toward the kitchen at gatherings and although you might suspect that it’s due to the proximity to food, it’s also because, for me, that is the most natural place in the world to gather. And, as with cooks all over the world, it probably drove my mother up the wall.
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet suggests, “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. It is the same for family traditions. There is nothing good or bad as long as it does no one any harm. You will never convince your partner that their traditions are useless or silly. It is much like trying to convince someone that they should like your favorite song. You can only explore how to fully engage with and protect each other at special times and, in so doing, to form your own private rituals. Have great holidays!