1 of 4
Christmas dawned cold and brilliant. Outside the frosty picture window, the Cheet River caught the rising sun, transforming it into dancing tinsel. Evergreens on the hills beyond bent with the weight of last night's snowfall. A gentle breeze scattered flakes into the air like confetti. Behind me, logs popped and hissed in the giant stone fireplace. A misshapen wreath fashioned from vines hung above the mantel.
It was a scene to rival any of Currier and Ives'. As I drank in my surroundings, I felt wonderful. And strange.
I'd turned 40 that year, and as a rite of passage, I'd decided to spend Christmas with two friends in the West Virginia mountains. When I told my parents my plans, a space of silence and surprise rose between us. "It won't seem right without you," my mother said finally. "But you do whatever you want." But her unspoken words came through just as clearly: Aren't you being disloyal? Don't you know Christmas is family time? I started to say something to assuage my guilt, then stopped. Surely, I'm old enough to create my own traditions, I lectured myself.
There's no place like home for the holidays, goes the old song. But what is home? And whose home? As the one single adult in my family, I haven't accomplished the things that signal adulthood: getting married and having children. So it's been difficult for me—and for my family of origin—to think of myself as a family unit with my own traditions and practices. I'm still my parents' child in a way my sisters aren't, because there's no one to "take care of me." Only recently has the idea of "going home" meant something different than going to my parents' home. And my family's come to include not only my parents and sisters, but a "family of friends" with whom I enjoy an intense closeness.
I'm not the only woman who's been caught in the swirling vortex of holiday expectations. My sisters and married friends also struggle. Each year, Amy and her husband agonize over how to divide the holiday time between his and her parents.
"Every year I want to say, 'We're planning to stay home this year,'" says Amy. "But every year the words get caught in my mouth and we end up driving to both sets of parents. I feel as if I'm stuck in a tradition I can't break."
Mary and her husband, Ted, had several heart-to-hearts about how to meld the traditions of their families of origin. No detail was too insignificant for discussion. Should they open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Attend the six o'clock church service or midnight? Serve shrimp scampi or roast beef for Christmas dinner? Cut their own tree or put up a metallic one?
"It was amazing how tenaciously we held to our traditions," says Mary. "It took awhile before we were able to create our own."
 E-mail this page   Print this article  Post a comment |
