This is not exactly a unique observation, but every year the Christmas season seems to be upon us sooner and sooner. Back in Halloween I want to be focusing on ghouls and goblins, not tinsel and Santa Claus. But, unfortunately, the pleasant aspects of Christmas (the feeling of good-will, the push towards charity, et cetera) are not the ones that are pushing into Halloween; it is the unpleasant aspects that keep creeping onto perfectly legitimate holidays and strangling them.
Unpleasant aspect number one: The rampant commercialism. Sooner and sooner, the pressure on FINDING the PERFECT gift for your friends and loved ones from advertisements starts. The heavy implication of these ads are that you don’t really love your loved ones unless you get them the latest, most expensive, shiniest new gadget or bauble. Now, don’t get me wrong: I love giving gifts. I love the moment with my closest friends and family when their face lights up because I got them just what they wanted, or needed. And that’s why I work on some of the gifts months in advance: handmade gifts (that are within my limited available skill set) that my friends will actually appreciate take a long time to make. But, I somehow don’t get that same feeling when all I do is drive to the store and get some sort of weird do-dad that will just take up space and I’ll have to fight a bunch of people-driven mobs to get it (and don’t have the money to get it in the first place).
Unpleasant aspects number two: This has been a problem for awhile now, but now that Hubby and I are married, it’s put into even sharper relief: where are we going to spend Christmas? The various families all want us at their houses*, which are functionally on the other end of the country. The worst part of all of this? I don’t want to go to ANY of the family for Christmas; because by some sort of unspoken contract that I was not a party to, we are only allowed to talk about: the weather, sports, new births, new relationships (on a very shallow level, and no talking about heartbreak), new jobs and food. Oh, and I’m no longer allowed to talk about the weather because I keep using meteorological terms and I brought up global warming once. I’m also forbidden from talking about, in no particular order: politics, books, movies, social movements, college, and the biggest one: religion. Which brings us to…
Unpleasant aspect number three: The annual argument that I go to church with the family on Christmas. Now, I’m a mushy agnostic: I think there might be an omnipotent being that has some sort of designs on humanity, but I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest it. I don’t think the Christian idea of a god exist (since such a being is logically impossible); and don’t put much stock into the Bible as a literal word, but all-in-all, you can believe whatever nonsensical thing you want to believe. The first year of college, I came home and told my parents flat-out that I was not going to church. Last year, in order to keep the peace with my new in-laws, I went to church with them on Christmas. I told myself that it’s because I missed the music,** but in the end I caved because I didn’t want Hubby to get into a verbal altercation on my behalf.*** But, no one respects my desire to not go to church; so every year is another argument about me going to pretend to be religious. And I do mean pretend: my dad told me one year I should just tell mom that I’m believed in Jesus because it would make my mom happy. But, I just can’t see lying about this to my family (and the rest of the church); it would be disrespectful to myself, and to every Christian.
I guess that I don’t like Christmas because it just brings to head all of the problems that I continue to have with my families and our various worldview; and is super expensive. Any one else have this problem with your family? What are some of your strategies for the holiday season?
*I never understand this: every year I either end up offending someone through my liberal hippie-ness, or I end up contributing next to nothing to the conversation while I die a little inside, but I still keep getting invited back, and if I don’t come, they always get upset. It’s very, very weird.
**Which is demi-true: I do like hymns and enjoy singing. There is just something so life-affirming and joyful about traditional religious music. But, it’s always soul-killing to listen to Midwestern Lutheran churches: the only people who would sing “Stand Up for Jesus” unironically while sitting down, who can sing “Hallelujah” like they’re reciting the tax code, and can sing maybe three notes convincingly.
***Not that it really mattered: I refused to say the Lord’s Prayer or take communion and that caused a tense conversation between Hubby and parents, and dirty looks my way. I guess they wanted me to lie about my beliefs? I’m a heathen, and that seems disrespectful to Christianity to partake in rituals that you don’t believe do anything.
It’s comforting to know that mine isn’t the only father who does this to his daughters. “You should do X, it’ll make your mom happy.”
My friends and I have pretty much gotten around the expensive bit by being terrible gift procrastinators. We’re always like, “oh, I have a gift for you / in mind for you, and I’ll totally get it to you soon!” Sometimes we’re like that for a few months. This has the nice effect that, ultimately, we don’t really get each other Christmas gifts or birthday gifts or whatever else, but instead just get each other gifts semi-randomly throughout the year.
My family’s not religious, so that’s not a problem. I don’t really think I spend that much money on gifts, because I don’t get the feeling I’m expected to. I think it would freak out family members if I spent too much on them. Politics is a sticky issue.
But what happens in a lot of families—including mine—is that conservative political opinions are permitted, but liberal ones are not, because it’s impolite to be right and logical when other people are engaging in prejudice and fantasy. This is across the board. If someone is racist or sexist, it’s fun-killing to correct them. If someone is a believer, it’s impolite to be an atheist in any way. If someone is a conservative, being a liberal is impolite. Being right and/or logical is considered the equivalent of flashing money around. Just ugly, like you’re showing off to the less fortunate.
Thus, what I do is try to keep it to myself until I’m provoked. It’s harder for someone who starts the political discussion to take offense without admitting that they’re only offended because you’re right.
My cousin skipped out on the holidays one year by telling her dad that she was with her mom in another state and vice versa. She came to our house instead. Her parents are not the sort of people to ask a lot of questions about that kind of thing, so they never knew.
I mostly hide from my family and haven’t laid eyes on any of ‘em in quite a while, honestly; Christmas is the uncomplicated joy of my kids, me, and now the husband-to-be. It’s terrific.
However, when I was married both times, I had the exact same interactions with both sets of in-laws. In the first go-round, I learned to simply stay silent, smile a lot, and instead spent the majority of the time chasing around whichever small child I was currently rearing because there was also a global refusal to even remotely attempt to child-proof the opulent and knickknack-filled house. With the second, I felt more social and also less need to be openly myself and therefore spent all my time pretending to pray and delivering platitutes with the sweetest smile I could muster.
Free! FREE! I don’t hafta do any of it anymore! Yay!
I’m very lucky that my religious family doesn’t exert any serious pressure on me to go to church with them. I wasted a lot of energy pretending to still believe when I didn’t for a few years in late adolescence, so it’s a relief for it to be out in the open now. (Albeit not actually discussed, because there’s not really nothing to say). I will go for special events (wedding, funeral, confirmation, etc) but regular old holidays, no.
“…annual argument that I go to church with the family on Christmas.”
Odious behavior. Turning church services into a chance to show-off to the neighbors doesn’t do God any honor. treating his humans that way dishonors Him. Odious.
“This has been a problem for awhile now, but now that Hubby and I are married, it’s put into even sharper relief: where are we going to spend Christmas? ”
One more example of how the Chinese are smarter than the rest of us – you now how they handle this (at Chinese New Years Season – about a week)? The first day you spend with the [husband's] family (OK, objectionable, because it says that is the primary side of the family), The next with the in-laws (wife’s family – see above),and the next day you have an open house for as many guests as you can attract, the more the luckier. The order may be feudalistic, but the point is that no one tries to jam everything all into one day.
It’s not my friends I feel the pressure from: it’s the family. Last year, my mom and dad and littlest sister moved into a new house. I painted them all pictures to decorate (3 Harry Potter wands for littlest sis, a charcoal of a willow drawing for dad, and 3 wine bottle pieces for mom). Littlest sis is the only one who actually put hers up; and mom and dad have made sure to mention they don’t need any more paintings.
I actually did feel bad about that: I put a lot of time and effort into the drawings, but it still felt-like kindergarten “Look what I drew on notebook paper”-esqu (although I’d like to think that they are of much better quality than that).
And Amanda: that’s about the long and short of it. The first Thanksgiving this year was at the In-laws, and I made mention that it’s so inspiring that we have our first black president. Mother-in-law made sure to emphasize that he was only HALF black, and dad-in-law brought up how racist it was that Colin Powell endorsed him only because he was black (after an argument, he backed down to “mostly because he was black”: I was cut off before I could go anywhere else)>
Jim, the only trouble with splitting up the holidays is if your respective families live on, say, opposite sides of the country, it’s a lot of flying around. Which is expensive and tiring, especially with kids.
We’re still working out the whole holiday situation, but it appears as though we’re visiting our families before or after the holidays, and spending the days themselves with friends.
“Jim, the only trouble with splitting up the holidays is if your respective families live on, say, opposite sides of the country, ”
Yeah, that’s a problem that typically never came up in China when the custom evolved. Don’t know what they do now – probably have all the aame problems we do.
In the Army there is the institution of the “geographical bachelor” someone separted form spouse and kids – non-gendered term. On holidays soemone is supposed to take in every one of the geographical bachlors. and basically every family overseas is the equivalent, and oftern people gang their celebrations to give some numbers to the gathering. There is a simialr custom of inviting in lone strangers for Passover.
Living across the country is hard for a whole lot of reasosn and it just gets all the more obvious around big holidays.
“We’re still working out the whole holiday situation, but it appears as though we’re visiting our families before or after the holidays, and spending the days themselves with friends.”
That strikes me as about the best solution I have ever heard.
“politics, books, movies, social movements, college, and the biggest one: religion.”
It seems widely accepted that people get terribly offended by talk about religion and politics unless everyone agrees. People are just pathetically sensitive I guess. But the other things? These people need to make some concessions here.
Books have been nixed after we talked about some of our favorite book, or books we’ve recently read (in my case, Harry Potter, the Handmaiden Tale, and some books by Christopher Moore), movies were nixed for the same reasons (Juno, et cetera) current events drive things into politics.
There is pretty much no part of my life that doesn’t have to do with my values: what I enjoy and what I don’t enjoy has to do with it. But, it seems they are much the same, just on opposite sides of the aisle.
College appears to be a “flaunting” activity- not everyone went, so they think I’m bragging.
Family is, as always, what you make of it. DON’T GO HOME. Splurge, get a small cabin for a week near a decent mountain, maybe a hotel room in Duluth not far from some decent skiing. It’s your first Christmas married – to hell with anybody else.
TRH
No money, Hubby wants to keep a good relationship, I’m not ready to cut the family out of my life yet. So, I grin and bare it.
On both sides of the family, I find myself hiding in a corner and not talking to anyone. One side ignores you and the other is actively malicious, so ’nuff said there.
Acceptable topics of conversation include:
(a) Every European vacation Mom’s side has ever been on. They are perfect and the last of the yuppies and go to Europe constantly for long periods of time. Don’t ask me where they get this money. Meanwhile, my mom and I haven’t left the country since the 80′s. We literally have nothing to say while they go on about their vacations.
(b) My aunt’s job and how people at Intel are annoying.
On the other side, we have:
(a) How my cousin’s soon-to-be-ex is a bitch. (She is not, my cousin is the family asshole, but he’s also the only son. Again, ’nuff said.)
(b) Making the kids behave.
(c) What’s wrong with Jennifer and why isn’t she married yet?
(d) Any possible rude comments they can think of, somehow they always manage to surprise me.
As you can imagine, I don’t even touch politics. Or have any opinions. Or tell them anything. God, I hate families.
*I never understand this: every year I either end up offending someone through my liberal hippie-ness, or I end up contributing next to nothing to the conversation while I die a little inside, but I still keep getting invited back, and if I don’t come, they always get upset. It’s very, very weird.
It’s all about control. They want you there under their gaze so that they can weigh you in the balance and find you wanting. If you could successfully say ‘sorry, not this year,’ and come back the next year and still get along with them, then their control would be broken and you would be a threat . . .
I really don’t want people to think my family is composed of monsters: they’re generally nice people- donate to charity, remember my birthday, volunteer. But, they just have weird beliefs about what’s acceptable to talk about, and who’s allowed to get offended.
I really don’t think it’s about control. Or least, I hope it isn’t.
“I really don’t want people to think my family is composed of monsters: they’re generally nice people- donate to charity, remember my birthday, volunteer.”
Kind of reminds me of my Dad.
TRH
I quit visiting my family at the holidays, and instead go see them at some other random time of the year. Then I really get to spend quality time with them, instead of dealing with the holiday madness. It’s actually worked out to be much more special for us this way. They get all their grandkids (my nieces and nephews) to come over and spend a day, and we just have free-form playtime. Nobody’s upset b/c they didn’t get the present they wanted and I’m not frazzled from holiday flight overcrowding and delays.
It has the effect of putting much more meaning into my visits. The one time I visited at Christmas I felt I was lost in the shuffle of all the Christmas stuff.
This year was the first year I spent Thanksgiving with my aunt (dad’s sister) and cousins, instead of my parents and my mother’s side of the family. My parents traipsed off to their vacation home for a month, and I couldn’t take the time off of work. I didn’t expect to have a good time, but I’ve found much of the opposite of what many people report: now that I am an adult, with my flamingly liberal opinions and all, it’s MUCH easier to socialize and much easier to have fun with my family.
We often get into political discussions, jobs, college talk, etc, but this time we (as an unspoken decision) mostly avoided contentious topics in favor of family togetherness, since one of the family matriarchs was recently diagnosed with cancer and we’re all very worried about her.
We skip the drama only after trying and trying. Last year there were ultimatums about what I could talk about. You can imagine how that went over. And church is. not. going. to. happen. Like missjulied we go at alternate times of year.
“I quit visiting my family at the holidays, and instead go see them at some other random time of the year.”
Miss Julie, that may be the best advice ever.
When I was a kid with my two brothers, we always did the same thing – Xmas eve to my aunt’s party and then to late church, then Xmas morning at home. I guess I took for granted that I got to sleep on Xmas eve and spend Xmas day in my own bed/home. Now that I am in my mid-20s, in a LT relationship and no kids, things aren’t so simple. We have to choose which days we spend with which side of the family, his or mine. Of course they all say “you’re adults now, do what you want” but I don’t think that’s what they really mean. I love seeing MY family at Xmas; I don’t even mind going to church, especially since it’s 100% optional, it’s a relatively non-crazy denomination, and most people are drunk anyway. But I don’t like being forced to do this calculating choosing dance between my family and my boyfriend’s family, since my family is all relatively easygoing (if a tad predictable in their conversations) and my boyfriend’s mother is, well, controlling and neurotic. But my boyfriend says “I want to be where you are” but I know he wants to see his Mom, so gee, no pressure there! I just get the impression that I’d be free to spend Xmas at my own home, no pressure, if I just had kids. Like somehow if we are childless, our time, our holiday, is not ours. It’s enough to make a girl go bah! humbug.
I have the church problem too. It gets more and more awkward every year to go… I’m dreading it this year, because either I’ll have to go or it’ll turn into some ridiculous argument that I’ll probably lose due to being outnumbered.
Present shopping is kind of rough, too, because everyone I’m supposed to buy things for, I haven’t seen since August. I don’t want to waste time and money on crap no one’s ever going to look at again just because I’m *supposed* to.
Basically, I’m looking forward to seeing my family again, but I’m not looking forward to the actual Christmas part.
I found your blog through feministing and enjoyed this post. My question is why do you let them get away with disrespecting your beliefs and values? Why you have to be the one to compromise? If they really love you then they would love you for who you are not ask you to pretend to be someone else. Maybe you should just have holiday’s at your house. Then you can set the rules. I think the idea of visiting them at another less loaded time of year sounds like a plan. As for your husband wanting to maintain good relations with his family- same question. Why are you the one who has to keep you mouth shut in order to make that happen?
My trick: fly in for dinner. Stupidly expensive and time-consuming, but just enough time for “family! You aren’t so bad!” and in return they say “hey! We like to see you, even though if you were to stay longer we would call you hell spawn!” and I can usually not say anything offencive for 3 hours (after a few days of holding it in I, personally, just end up making a point over something pretty random).
(Fun fact, the Romans complained that Saturnalia was getting too commercial.)
I’m relieved; there’s so much suffering at family holidays for me, and I somehow supposed that I was alone in this.
I’m still treated as though my words have no weight, and my opinions have no valor. I’m 25, unmarried and unengaged, and unlikely to be either anytime soon. I don’t own a house, and I no longer work a nine-to-five. I’m doing everything wrong, according to them, even though I’ve found my own definitions of success and happiness.
My charming family patriarch (grandfather on mum’s side) actually said point-blank during a family holiday dinner that I was, “wasting my degree.” No one stood up for me, defended me, said anything in my favor and I didn’t want to stir up trouble by actively explaining what I was up to. I was working three jobs at upwards of 60/70 hours a week and I was exhausted. All of my energy was put towards paying bills and avoiding moving back in with my parents.
I’m too old to play with the kids, and disinterested in sports and whatever else it is they deem acceptable to discuss. Certainly books, religion, anything but major blockbusters in film is verboten. They don’t understand what I do in my free time, and I’ve done what they do and honestly see no need to dedicate such time to it.
It’s a bit easier than when I was an awkward adolescent, because I can drink. Drinking *too* much, some mystical amount, is equally problematic. I repeat the same tired stories to every uncle and cousin and other random relative. I work x, y, z, job, I live in x place, I’ve be doing y in my free time. It’s a short, two minute spiel and I hate every second of its lies.
My room mate and I declared a family-free holiday this year. I also worked Thanksgiving day and the weekend following, which has made it easier. I plan on working Christmas too, even if I’m not. “Oops! Sorry, family-mine. I’m working in a down-turn economy and I just can’t get time off and risk losing my job!” I look forward to saying that so. damn. much.
This fact is enormously fun.
My parents managed it by spending one Christmas with each of their families while they were dating and engaged, and as soon as they were married saying “We’re having our own Christmas together; we’ll see you at some point in the season,” and sticking to it. It helped that they got married a fortnight before Christmas.
They ended up spending some truly miserable Boxing Day’s with Dad’s family, whose younger brother married a woman who is not an intellectual match for the rest of the family and spends her time being subtly malicious to make up for it. (No offence meant to her intelligence – dad’s family are a very smart bunch. My little cousin who gets reliable B’s stands out as the stupid one.)
After a few years, certainly before I got old enough to remember, they instituted the Grand Present Swap, whereby Dad’s family all meet up around this time of year and have lunch. Bags of presents get exchanged for placing under trees and we all go for a walk and have three different conversations at once, because there are fourteen of us. It’s a good system, because I don’t have to smile at my least favourite aunt and thank her for her inevitably rubbish present. Or talk to her or her daughters much.
I find this system of making Christmas your own and spending Boxing Day with friends, and seeing family for half a day or a day at some point when the tinsel is up, to be such an excellent one that I shall adopt it immediately the question arises.
“Being right and/or logical is considered the equivalent of flashing money around. Just ugly, like you’re showing off to the less fortunate.”
Hahaha. Best comment on this thread.
Every time I hear about someone struggling to get along with their family because of their different ideologies (liberal vs conservative, Christian vs atheist, etc) I thank my lucky stars for my liberal, heathen, feminist parents, who are totally batshit crazy in their own way.
I still hate visiting at Christmas, though.
Sheer numbers, family peace, and wasted breath. I’m outnumbered there about oh, 20-1 (I think some of the cousins might be moderately liberal), and I’m up against families that are big on people knowing their place. Family peace, because it ends up with pained expressions, tears, and screaming if I bring it up too much. And finally, wasted breathe, because they don’t even comprehend that a) they are disrespecting my beliefs and b) that’s something they should be concerned about.
There are some things that I’m not willing to compromise on (blatant -isms are where I draw the line) but for the most part, I go through it because they are still my family, and I’ve internalized that I have some level of obligation to love them.