Insights
Yesterday was a doozy of a day. If I tell you that I dropped a much-needed piece of pumpkin pie on my foot, on my suede shoed foot, at 11 o’clock at night, and that by that time I was so traumatized I hardly blinked but simply ate what I could rescue of the pie off my shoe, that might tell you — at least a little — what the day was like.
In fact, when Ed asked how I was doing and how the day was going, I said it was going like this:
That is, like one of Francis Bacon’s popes dropping into hell with your skin burning off as he drops.
There are a fair few stories I could tell you including Helena having a most unusual accident in my parents’ closet and Daniel having a full blown tantrum because we were trying to serve him (Thanksgiving) dinner at LUNCHtime — but stories won’t capture what was wrong. In fact, nothing I could narrate from the surface would seem worthy of provoking my descentintohell type feelings, even factoring in my basic intensity and love of a good, ghastly picture of a Bacon pope. That’s part of what makes it all so tricky.
The thing is this: basically, my parents hate holidays and they always have. In different ways and for different reasons but they both do. They get stressed, unhappy, wound up and miserable, for days ahead of time and building up to a great, grey mass of unhappiness. They bicker with each other, can’t hold a good conversation with anyone else and hide in the kitchen. There is no yelling, no overt conflict of any sort. Just a strong, pounding current of unhappiness. Meals are chores, rather than pleasures. Chores are attacked with grim vim. The children sense the mood and go haywire. The grown-up children sense it and get tense and worried and defensive. No one relaxes. No one hangs out. My mother leaves the table to start washing dishes as soon as she can and my father escapes upstairs as soon as he is able.
Yet here is the kicker — you can’t get either of them to admit this. They won’t just go to Bermuda or, you know, to bed and ignore the dreaded day. They both want us all to come, invite us, talk about what a lovely time we had last time and how nice it will be to see us all and celebrate together. They are utterly revisionist — and all three of their daughters are similarly revisionist. We think — “Oh! we did have a nice time. Didn’t we? Did we? We must go do that again. Right?” And then we do and wonder why it’s not any fun. We’re all waking up these last few years and we’ve all tried different ways to break the spell. We’re still working on it.
And here’s another kicker. We all love our parents. Love each other. For all of us, family is important and we genuinely want to be together at these turning points of the year. But they don’t work. This year was a prime, refined example of that — but it was also a gift, because it made it all clear to me. I understood that (politics aside) I dislike Thanksgiving because my parents do. And I’m annoyed about that because I thought I’d got over that whole — I think this because my parents think it — thing years ago. It’s not fun to have your old demons leap up and bite you on the ass when you thought you’d laid them to rest with a sledgehammer years ago.
But while revisionism has kept us quiescent when perhaps we should have been ringing the changes, it’s also a gift and one I value. We can all find the moment of joy in a horrible day and given a little space, will remember that moment and forget all the rest. So yesterday I remember, was hard. But already what is staying with me is that Daniel found a way out of his tantrum all by himself, that the children giggled themselves silly over SpongeBob and that Helena whispered as I put her to bed, “Oh Mummy, I liked the bit when Sponge Bob’s square pants exploded. That was so funny.” I remember that Daniel and his cousin Liam played PayDay, a game from my childhood that they found in the cupboard. I remember that Christina and John and I ate slices of turkey in the kitchen after everyone was asleep. I remember Helena dancing in the living room with Christina. I remember the fire in the fireplace and the pleasure of being with my family, however flawed they are. And I remember that my sisters and I agreed that we can change this — that it doesn’t have to be thus.
My father’s grace — which he reads every Thanksgiving — gave me this:
Bless all those whom we love most dearly, and all those whom we have difficultly loving as we should.
Sometimes, those are the same people.
LOVE your father’s prayer. Sounds like you have achieved the ultimate family Thanksgiving. Isn’t that what the holidays are about–getting together with family and trying to maintain your sanity??
You just described my family celebrations. It’s difficult to articulate just what the miserable undercurrent is about during our holiday celebrations. Everyone looks forward to it and dreads it at the same time. My mother and father would kill us if anyone ever indicated that the celebrations aren’t wonderful. But the whole time they were preparing as we were growing up for some big holiday party, they fought like hell and you could never do enough to help or get out of the way. This year, I have two babies and found it difficult to help clean up, but I offered and I tried. I brought food. I offered to help come the next day and take down the leaf, wash the linens. I was ignored on all fronts for these efforts, as were my profuse apologies before, during, and after. No one saud, oh, gee, we understand that you can’t wipe the counters while trying to keep your two year olds hands off the tv buttons and the glass vases all around the house. Or, well, it’s hard to hold and feed a crying newborn while loading the dishwasher. My mom kept sighing, and ignoring, and grumbling, and then hysterically asking my father to help. Sigh. It’s just dishes, I wanted to say. It’s just family, remember you wanted us here? My dh and I drive home from every holiday exausted emotionally and quite unable to actually identify the stress or what went wrong. We vow not to do this to our kids when they grow up. Wish us luck!
Wow, this is frightening. I wonder how many other people can relate – my guess is LOTS. My mother is a ball of negativity on holidays – without having a clue that she is. Lord, I hope someday I can just admit that I’d rather go to to a cabin in Colorado and hide for Thanksgiving.
I enjoyed this story. It’s nice to get clarity from these situations, instead of being overwhelmed and miserable. You did well.
I shoot low for holidays. That way, I always exceed my expectations, and I don’t try to kill anyone.
Good post. I suspect you were joking about eating pie off your shoe, but I must admit I have been there done that!
Thanksgiving is actually my favorite of all the holidays. Gratefulness is good, no presents necessary, and I like to cook. But I very definitely get stressed right at the end when I am trying to make all the side dishes, sauces and gravies be ready at the exact same time! That’s a pretty bleak and ugly half hour in the midst of a holiday I really enjoy.
Now, where is that pie…
Actually, NB, I have witnesses to the pie incident. It was worse than that bad.
Thank goodness it’s all over. Roll on Christmas, which is my favourite of all the holidays.