Untraditional Traditions
Navigating through the holidays
For those of us who grew up outside of the Norman Rockwell nuclear family dynamic, the holiday season tends to hold a lot more than just fuzzy feelings. For me there is a swirl of shame, sadness, and self pity tied to this time of year, and mixed with seasonal depression, I always feel like I’m missing the mark.
It’s hard to get excited about a slew of oncoming obligatory events where everyone is delighted about something you’ve been conditioned to not except, so you’re most comfortable doing nothing instead. In my younger years I craved “normal” holiday traditions and would throw a fit if my mom threatened to leave off one Thanksgiving staple side dish from the table or not wait until Christmas to exchange unwrap presents; clinging onto the idea that if we could just reenact all the right steps perfectly as in performance, it would somehow be the salve that healed the sting of the people missing from these moments.
It always felt like I was pushing my mom to put up the tree, hang the ornaments, and make the pies - which in retrospect was a pretty selfish attitude when also considering she mainly didn’t want to do these things because we couldn’t afford them. My childish inability to understand her hesitation about spending money we didn’t have on things she didn’t like compounded my detestation around the holidays and made me feel like I was the only one who cared about keeping up these fake traditions feed to us by joyful commercials and insistent cheerful songs.
Considering the only other people at these holiday celebrations were my depressed, recently widowed mom and sometimes my despondent 20 something year old brother, I wasn’t wrong in gauging their disinterest but instead of giving in to their indifference, I would work overtime to produce a Hallmark holiday moment that they seemed annoyed at best to have to attend.
After years of the same fights that always boiled down to yes, it is worth it to get decorations down even if we’re putting them away in a few weeks, I too became frustrated with my own desire for normalcy and decided it was just easier to let the holidays pass and feel fortunate enough to see another year go by. I still made the effort to go home every Thanksgiving and Christmas just to get a break from work and the city but covid was the first time I couldn’t go home and missed it terribly.
It turns out what I was sad to be missing wasn’t the decorations, but the ritual of breaking open a new puzzle with my mom, watching bad made for TV Christmas movies, and eating popcorn in cozy blankets. I didn’t care about the stuffing, matching PJs, or general merriment, it was the feeling of shutting out the world and being with my family that connected me to this time of year.
Now that brother has his own family with young kids, my mom and I attend his wife’s large family celebrations during the holidays. They have all the trimmings, paper turkeys, themed place settings, and pumpkin scented candles I used to dream of, and it’s a pleasant few hours of polite stale conversation by the fire, filled with distant relatives and empty promises of closeness. But the part I look forward to the most is going home at the end of the evening to curl up on the couch next to my mom and watch a movie about some girl from the city who falls in love with the man running the farm she just inherited from her grandfather, eat regular junk food, and not mentioned the holidays at all.
That’s my favorite tradition and I hope I get to enjoy it for a few more years before I find myself on the couch without my mom there to make fun of the bad acting, help me finish a puzzle, and count down the days until January 2.
Shit We’re Loving: WATCH
Blaze’s Pick: Hocus Pocus 2
I may might about a month late to the revival party, but Halloween weekend I watched Hocus Pocus 2 for the first time. In keeping with the holiday tradition vibes, it added an anticipatory element to wait for actual Halloween to watch and it did not disappoint.
I’m sure everyone who was planning on seeing it has done so by now but I loved the added characters, including Tony Hale. Also the fact that there was more actual witchy vibes besides the Sanderson sisters and that it touched on deeper yet relatable teenage conundrums and morals; specifically the friends navigating a new boyfriend dynamic and when Whitney Peak’s character Becca has to explain to Cassie’s boyfriend that he is in fact making fun of her by pointing out her “differences” and calling them “weird.” There’s that familiar sandpaper rub that maybe more people would get along or solve issues faster if we expressed ourselves more or listened to our actions with an open mind. Overall it lived up to my expectations for a sequel of a classic and also the addition of Tony Hale was top tier.
Show Your Support: Love For Our Elders
A grandparent’s love will never grow old.
This month’s spotlight organization is Love For Our Elders, a letter-sending group that spans 70 countries and includes more than 50,000 volunteers, all with the goal to “alleviate [the] growing loneliness epidemic.” The stats behind social isolation: In 2020, 7.7 million community-dwelling adults aged 65 and older in the United States were socially isolated, and 1.3 million were severely socially isolated. More strikingly, 43% of Americans age 60 and older report feeling lonely, which is shown to increase the risk of dementia, heart disease, stroke, and premature fatality from all causes.
LFOE was started by Jacob at 13. After his own grandfather passed, with whom he was very close, he began volunteering at his local senior living community and learned that many have forgotten about their elders. To combat that huge pill to swallow at 13, he handwrote letters to his older friends and thus LFOE was born. Since its inception in 2013, Love For Our Elders has mailed hundreds of thousands of thousands of letters to senior communities, created a storybook of inspiring seniors, and facilitated in-person volunteering events. To support these and many more LFOE endeavors, OTF has donated $75 and encourages you to spread the word or, even better, write a letter!
Daily Intention:
Today I choose… to keep making my own traditions.
Here’s some nifty buttons for you to press, enjoy: