Hope your Thanksgiving was great. I bet it could have been better. I wouldn’t be surprised if you said you are glad the holiday is over. Holidays can be tough. If we think about it it’s not surprising.
Holidays are about family. That sounds cozy and warm. However there are some things about family that make the gathering tough.
We know family. Most of the time we have TMI, too much information about family. All the family “secrets” are smoldering just beneath the surface. Plenty of tension building there. We have to remember who knows what about whom.
We don’t know family. While we, of course, know our family; they are not the same folks we grew up with. We now live separate lives. We tend to live in “time freeze.” We think that people are the same as the last time we visited with them even if that was a year ago or ten years ago. People change and change isn’t always comfortable.
It’s not Facebook. People post all this warm and fuzzy stuff on Facebook. I’m not saying they are lying. They are filtering. They don’t mention Uncle Joe showed up drunk or Aunt Mary brought those kids who were raised in a barn or the cake collapsed or someone over seasoned the dressing. Holidays are real life with people not really used to rubbing shoulders, well… rubbing shoulders.
We really love ’em all. Because holidays are all about people we love, we really want things to be great. We have high and usually unrealistic expectations. The table will not look like the ones in the magazines. Something will spill on the carpet. Remember no one except you expects it to be perfect. They are just hoping for no disasters.
We are not used to human contact. If you looked around yesterday, lots of folks were looking at their phones. We are used to friends and family we can turn off or put down. We aren’t in practice for face-to-face human contact.
Thanksgiving is Christmas prep. On Thanksgiving most of us have our eyes on Christmas. We have one eye on the turkey and another on the sales flyers. As we clear off the table, we realize it’s time to dig out the tree.
So if yesterday wasn’t perfect, don’t fret. You still have Christmas and New Years to mess up.
Be blessed.
Nick
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