Enjoying family gatherings for Thanksgiving or
Christmas with a dysfunctional family can be a true test of patience and
understanding. Dysfunctional family holidays are a taste of reality that is a
far cry from the idealized family holiday gatherings that we have been
conditioned to believe the norm for all family gatherings – a happy, smiling
family gathered together around a table laden with a beautiful spread of a golden
turkey and all the trimmings - hands clasped in fellowship and heads bowed for
grace or blessing. Unfortunately, most of us didn’t just step out of a Norman
Rockwell painting, and most family holidays are not such portraits of familial
bliss.
With my family being an exception, many families
have one or more family members who are just eccentric enough to contribute to
an air of dysfunction in family gatherings. Do you have a peculiar grandpa who
refuses to stop burping because he insists that suppressing gastric functions
can have deadly consequences? Do you have a spinster aunt who complains about
everything from her aches and pains to the turkey being too tough? Do you have
a family member who is always known to imbibe in a few too many cocktails at
family gatherings? Perhaps you have a brother, a cousin, or an uncle who persists
in arguing loudly about everything from politics, religion, and race to the
state of the economy and foreign affairs. And does he always insist that he’s
right and the world is all wrong? Perhaps your family gatherings are punctuated
with a few children running around who are either fighting or whining. If this
is a more accurate portrayal of your holiday family gatherings, then you need
to learn how to have an enjoyable Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner despite
familial dysfunction. This article will solve your dysfunctional family holiday
dilemma.
Step 1:
Preparation of the holiday meal:
Everyone at the gathering should have a hand in
helping in some way with providing for or preparing the holiday meal.
Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are usually such elaborate feasts that no
one member of the family should be saddled with all the responsibility alone.
Though there is something to be said for keeping the holiday meal simple and
easy. In one of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts
comic strips, Woodstock, Snoopy and the gang enjoyed a blessed Thanksgiving of toast
and popcorn.
Step 2:
The Seating Arrangements:
Try to seat everyone at one table, if at all
possible, avoiding the peripheral and infamous card-table seating. No one wants
to be the one who has to sit at the card table with the children. Not even the
children want to sit at the card table. Allow each family member to gravitate
to a seat of his own choosing. If family members are allowed to choose their
own seats, they will naturally avoid seating themselves next to anyone with
whom they are not compatible. Incompatible family members seated side by side
are like a ticking time-bomb that could explode at any time. Diffuse any tiffs
at the table that you may sense emerging by reminding the combatants of the
occasion and that they should demonstrate some decorum and dignity or take it
outside.
Step 3:
Diffusing the Alcohol Problem:
If the temptation to over imbibe in alcohol is too
great for any family member, either serve no alcohol or limit the alcohol to a
single glass of wine for a familial toast at dinner. You will be less apt that
way to have to witness Aunt Polly take to the piano to perform an inebriated
and melancholic rendition of “Send in the Clowns.”
Step 4:
Football Viewing:
Viewing football on television, a Thanksgiving Day
tradition, should be postponed until after the family dinner. Don’t even allow
the television to be turned on until after the dinner. Aesthetically, soothing
music in the background would be more pleasing than the cacophony of sounds
from a televised football game in the next room.
Step 5:
The Blessing or Prayer:
By all means say some kind of grace, prayer or
blessing. It’s not necessary to have everyone clasp hands because, after all,
Norman Rockwell is no longer among the living and will not be painting your
holiday family portrait. But some kind of blessing will assist with fellowship
and peaceful bonding.
If the “family clown” insists on saying a prayer
before the meal and he is known for his sarcastic wit, you may get a blessing
that will resemble the following credited to The Joy of Tech by humorists/cartoonists, Nitrozac and
Snaggy:
“We thank our forefathers who came to this land and
displaced the natives, spread diseases and looted this land’s natural resources
so that we can now enjoy this great bounty while ignoring our colossal,
mounting debt. And may we continue our tradition of destruction to our entire
planet, polluting our air, land and water for these short term benefits that we
now enjoy. So let’s overeat and glutton ourselves, and bestow a heavy burden of
epidemic proportions on our already struggling health care system. Amen.”
Amusing as it may be, that is the type of blessing
you must avoid as it seems to mock a sacrosanct custom and sets a negative
tone, even if parts of it have an acerbic ring of truth. A blessing penned by Ralph Waldo Emerson would
be more suitable for a loving occasion:
“For each new morning with its light, For rest and
shelter of the night, For health and food, For love and friends, For everything
Thy goodness sends. Amen. “
My personal preference, however, is the following Irish prayer, suitable for any holiday gathering:
My personal preference, however, is the following Irish prayer, suitable for any holiday gathering:
“May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be
always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft
upon your fields. May green be the grass you walk on, May blue be the skies
above you. May pure be the joys that
surround you, May true be the hearts that love you. And until we meet again, May
God hold you in the palm of his hand.”
Step 6:
After Dinner Relaxation:
Hopefully you will have gotten through the Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner with little or no drama. Now you can turn on the televised football game for your guests and just sit back and wait for the turkey’s tryptophan to take effect, lulling your guests into dreamily dozing so that you can relax and breathe for the first time since answering the first doorbell ring.
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