The trials and tribulations of holiday planning
The holidays are a time for gratitude, love, thankfulness, togetherness, and connection.
So why does this Thanksgiving feel like an impending Cage Match? It's absurd. I want to boycott the whole thing this year. Can we all just not do that this year? Can we all just appreciate that we'll get to spend one meal actually talking to each other and appreciating one another and set aside all the bullshit?
Apparently my families can not.
It happens to be compounded this year by a few complicating factors (my own recent separation among them, granted). Aside from other considerations, my brother has made some big changes to his life lately that may bring more members to our family for good soon. He and I have always felt like the Black Sheep of both sides of the family and holidays have been hard on us as a result. We had managed to get into a groove with it over the last five or so years though and I liked that reliability. Then life threw us both some serious obstacles this year and everything is back up in the air and we're handling it the best we can. I can't speak for him personally, but boy do I wish certain family members would just BUTT OUT ALREADY.
I have trouble relating to my family. Am I alone in this? My friends are so much more my family than my family is. I can really depend on them to be there for me and to understand that frequently the best thing they can do for me is to let me do it myself. My family on the other hand has never understood this about me. They want to "be there for me" and no matter how many times I emphasize it they won't accept that I've got my shit together and I really don't want them to do anything at all. I've often postulated that it comes from a place of well-meaning guilt; that they feel like they don't do enough for me and so I've HAD to do everything myself...it doesn't seem to occur to them that I WANT to do it that way. I fear at times I've alienated them and that I don't give them a chance to know me (and that may be fairly accurate, to their credit). But in my own defense: my family is huge and I have very little in common with many of them. Most of them live far enough away that regular visits aren't really possible with everyone's busy schedules and so the holidays become this lurking behemoth of trying to cram a whole year of togetherness into a few tense, formal dinners.
I know it wasn't intentional, but growing up my brother and I were given the impression that getting together with family was an annoyance and a burden, but something that had to be tolerated out of politeness. It rarely seemed to be something my parents looked forward to. Looking back on it all, I can understand why - the two sides of my family are VERY different and for some reason it was decided before we were born that the holidays would be spent with both sides on separate days both for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. That's a lot of family, a lot of travelling, a lot of inconvenience and politeness to cram into two months.
With my husband we were able to choose Thanksgiving with my families and Christmas with his family (tiny in comparison to mine), but this seems to have caused some discomfort among my family. I won't call it "resentment" because I don't think the feeling was so strong, but I felt it nonetheless and it's hard to come back into the fold this year and re-find my place in the family dynamic.
It's now looking like my brother and I might be celebrating Thanksgiving with separate sides of the family this year and I don't feel good about it. On the one hand I don't want to hurt my mother's feelings and leave her to visit her side of the family alone, but on the other hand I have grandparents who are getting older that I want to spend more time with on my father's side of the family and I want the opportunity to meet and get to know the new people in my brother's life. Additionally on a purely selfish note: I just flat-out like my father's side of the family better than my mother's. Sorry, Mom! I love you, but your family makes me feel like crap. They don't mean to, but we've never gotten on the same page and I usually come away from my interactions with them feeling like the nerd at the corner table of the cafeteria.
The simple solution would be to tell my mother how I feel and ask her to understand my position...but you don't know my mother. It's not that simple. Again, I love the woman deeply, she raised me and loves me unconditionally even when I don't think I deserve it. She is a wonderful and caring mother, but she is much more emotional than I am and I have difficulty navigating those waters. There simply is no way to tell her this without her feeling hurt, because to her, her family is a part of her and if I don't like her family then I must not like her very much either.
As difficult as it's going to be, I know I just need to do what's right for me and start a new family tradition. My grandparents are not going to be around forever and I need to take advantage of what time I have left with them (something that I'm terrible at doing historically). We all have family drama like this, it seems. I know the adage "you can't pick your family" exists for moments like this, but in some small ways we can. I believe that we can choose to spend more time with people who make us feel good and less time with people who make us feel bad, regardless of blood/familial relations. And while it may hurt, and it may be uncomfortable for a while, I think that when we make choices like this everyone benefits in the long run.
Is your family absolutely nuts? How do you handle them? What's the best (or worst) decision you've made about family holiday headaches? Let me know! If I get good feedback I'd love to compile a post of your best comments on dealing with family headaches.