From Thanksgiving through Christmas, the rallying cry is "home for
the holidays." As relatives gather, we expect these celebrations to be
full of perfect familial love and harmony. Alas, ties may be tightest at
this season, but so are tensions. Why do things go so wrong—and how can
we make them right?
It was the beef Wellington that pitched Frank Pittman into the dark
whirl most Americans—and now others around the world—celebrate as
modern Christmas. One of the country's leading family psychiatrists, an
author and an enthusiastic chef, he went, by his own admission, to a
great deal of trouble to construct the elaborate dish for the main
holiday feast. "I thought it was fabulous," he recalls. But all six
children in attendance quickly stripped off the flaky crust, "took one
taste of it, got up and lined up at the sink to wash the pate off the
beef." He was insulted. His feelings were hurt. He made fun of the
children's tastes. But he never cooked anything fancy for Christmas
again.
For Pittman, the dinner disaster brought something of an epiphany:
increasingly, we package our expectations of family love into the
holidays. We want the occasions to be "perfect" and we want all our
dreams—of connection, harmony, joy and bliss—to come true. We willingly
go to a great deal of trouble for the season's slew of
holidays—Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and, of course,
Christmas—precisely because our expectations are so heavily
tinseled.
In fact, we count on the holidays to compensate for the rest of the
year. "I wanted to make up to the family for not having been a good
enough father and uncle all year," the Atlanta-based Pittman confides.
The disastrous dinner made him vow then and there to do that in different
ways. He now puts a lot less energy into Christmas and much more into the
rest of the year. "It's worked out a lot better," he reports.
Holidays weren't always a fantasy of family closeness and wish
fulfillment. They used to be more of a community holiday. Thanksgiving
began as a civic marking of nature's munificence. At Christmas,
communities were thronged with people singing in the streets. Perhaps in
keeping with the pagan origins of solstice celebrations, there were grand
parties for adults. Christmas festivities were so secularly indulgent
that the offended Puritans forbade them.
But over the past century, Christmas and the other special
celebrations have moved indoors and become more private family-centered
events, emphasizing internal rituals and traditions. "Home for the
holidays" has now become the seasonal rallying cry.
What family experts like Pittman now know is that family ties may
be tightest at these times, but so are family tensions. Holidays activate
everyone's longings for visibility, for recognition, for admiration, for
love. At the same time, they stir old fears—of not being nurtured, of
being humiliated in the eyes of others, and especially for brothers and
sisters, of not being appreciated. The piling up of emotional
vulnerability provides a critical mass for reaction. It's almost
inevitable that the wrappings will come off family feelings.
Thanksgiving is America's one true nonsectarian family holiday. We
pause on this occasion to give ritualistic thanks for the bounties of our
lives and country, and, that done, hurt ourselves into the extended orgy
of consumption that is increasingly America's gift to the rest of the
world.
The Macy's parade, the turkey, the endless football games—William
Doherty, Ph.D., psychologist and professor of family social science at
the University of Minnesota, calls Thanksgiving the slowest afternoon of
the year, attributable only in small part to the lethargy induced by
overeating—have long been the official kickoff to the annual Christmas
frenzy. Thanksgiving is the day on which Christmas decorations sprout in
public spaces and Christmas windows debut at major department stores.
Increasingly, though, the selling season is being pushed back. Today, the
unofficial starting signal for Christmas buying is Halloween.
Still, the day after Thanksgiving remains the single most intense
shopping day of the year. Based on the store traffic on this one day
alone, retailers routinely issue predictions on just how good the
Christmas season will be for them.
Just as the commercial machinery each year whips into gear, so does
our emotional machinery. Thanksgiving sets in motion the longing for
family ties that were knotted, or supposed to be knotted, in childhood.
It unleashes a wave of anticipation that carries celebrants spiritedly
through the making, baking and shopping of the next month.
Yet while the season spins us into a whirl of feverish activity, it
also shifts us into a psychological passivity. The rest of the year,
explains psychiatrist Pittman, we can hope there's something we can do
that will make a difference in our lives and family relationships. "But
at Christmas time, it's supposed to be brought to us. It's supposed to
come as a gift, rather than something we're working for."
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