Whether holidays are hellish or happy, the rituals that we practice
as lifelines to our past, as well as redefine and reconfirm who we are in
the present.
Two days before Easter, Karen Sissel called her mother to say that
she and her live-in boyfriend, Joe, were not coming this year. The
announcement was met with tears, anger, and many telephone calls all
around the family, including several to Karen telling her what a bad
daughter she was. Every Easter, Karen's family expected her to spend the
entire day at her parents' house. Any mention that she and Joe would like
to spend part of the day with Joe's family, or that they would like to
celebrate with their friends, was quickly dismissed by Karen's mother,
who told her how this would upset her father and make him ill.
Karen's mother would then remind her of how they had accepted Joe
and their living together rather than marrying, implying that the couple
should be grateful and not rock the boat. Thus embedded in the Easter
ritual were many unspoken and anxiety-provoking issues.
On Easter morning, Karen called and apologized. She quickly
canceled a dinner they had organized, and, once again, she and Joe spent
the day at her parents'.
If this story sounds familiar to you, then some or all of the
rituals in your life may have become obligatory--wherein participants
celebrate events more out of a feeling of obligation than with any sense
of meaning. Both the preparation and the ritual itself are more burden
than joy.
Yet in these times of rapid and dramatic change in the family,
rituals can still provide us with a crucial sense of personal identity as
well as family connection. Despite its changing status, membership within
a family group is still the primary way that most people identify
themselves, and rituals that both borrow from the past and are reshaped
by relationship needs of the present highlight for us an ongoing sense of
continuity - as well as change.
As family therapists, we are struck by how different families look
in the 1990s than they did 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago. Given such
change, family members often express to us that they have no road maps
for what family life should be like. One woman told us, "My neighbors and
I always talk about how we have to invent each step as we go along. When
we grew up, our fathers were the only ones who worked outside of the
house, and God forbid if you were divorced or a single parent or
remarried. Who knew from that? We don't have any models for how to go
through this."
Rituals can provide us with such road maps. Whether they involve
the way meals are shared or how major events are marked, rituals are a
central part of life. They are a lens through which we can see our
emotional connections to our parents, siblings, spouse, children, and
dear friends. By acting as condensed expressions of family interaction,
rituals give us places to explore the meaning of our lives and to rework
and rebuild family relationships. They connect us with our past, define
our present, and show us a path to our future as we pass on ceremonies,
traditions, objects, and ways of being with each other.
Holiday Rituals
Often, our most vivid memories are of holidays. And they may also
carry some of the deepest emotional meaning of families. When parts of
our ritual life that have worked well are passed on to the next
generation, people feel comforted. When holidays are filled with tension
or unspoken conflict, the very relationships holidays are supposed to
celebrate can become frozen. Why is this? What happens with family
meaning-making during holidays?
Families may experience a lot of pressure about how to celebrate
their particular rituals at holiday times. In addition, as it is common
for generations of families to gather for many of these celebrations,
possibilities emerge for both generational connections and differences to
be highlighted. There may be expectations of particular ritual
observances--such as religious services--that may be meaningful to some
family members and not others. Family patterns may become more intense
with the increased proximity that takes place. Old, unresolved issues may
come to the surface.
Also, when there have been major family changes, issues of
membership, loyalty, and reworking family dreams can arise--these may
emerge in ritual-making and at the same time can be worked out through
the planning and ritual process.
The following examples illustrate both the changing nature of
families and the special conflicts such situations may create during
holiday times. In addition, they offer suggestions for solving such
problems by changing the way the family--and its individual members--can
view as well as celebrate a holiday ritual.
Family Change, Family Variations
When Kay and Margaret, her partner of 12 years, first lived
together, they celebrated holidays separately at each of their parents'
homes, along with other extended-family members. They did not yet feel
comfortable sharing with their families that they were a couple, and they
did not want to deal with issues like where they would sleep and how
others would or would not value what they meant to each other. This
pattern of holiday celebrating was very stressful for them.
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