Family Holiday

Coming together for the holidays brings family and friends together like at no other time of the year. Regardless of the holiday you honour (at any time of the year), there is likely at least one celebration special to your heart, your family, and/or your community.

Only…it sounds so easy and smooth, doesn’t it? When for so many people the holiday season – whenever and whatever it is for you – brings some big challenges. The biggest one for many is the ‘family dance.’ While the holiday season may inspire commercials of happy holiday family dinners, movies with comical family escapades, and greeting cards filled with gleeful wishes of family joy, in all honesty, it’s not the lived reality for so many families…maybe even yours.

I know this family dance so well. Living the stressed-out, expectation-filled family dynamics with one branch of my peeps, we’ve found it better to share our family holiday wishes by greeting card…rather than in-person. This may sound cold, but it’s as if we are better able to express our love and appreciation for each other more authentically at a distance – out of dinner roll tossing range! Please know I love my family dearly – they are truly treasures in my life. However, when the pressures of holiday family meal-time arises the sh!t-hits-the-mistletoe.

Chatting with one friend who has travelled 1000s of miles away from her family for the holidays, some times we go to great lengths to avoid what may have become its own holiday ritual – the family fight.

An interesting thought: why do we feel we NEED to come together for the holidays? What drives us to go through the family dance, year after year? Social pressure, family ‘shoulds,’ a personal desire to be/do better’…?

Family-by-blood are the people we were joined together with as part of a life-long family dance. It’s not always easy…and maybe that’s where the greatest learning and growth come from! But is it worth the connection? Only we each individually know.

Family-by-love are the people we join together by choice and based on…you guessed it – love! Family-by-love may include friends, neighbours, colleagues, strangers, ‘holiday orphans’, etc. They are whoever you bless with your love, trust and time. They may even be your actual family members! For many during the holidays, it’s our family-by-love who we choose to spend our time with. We opt out of the ‘family fight’ to share ‘family laughter’…we choose which family we wish to celebrate our beloved holidays with.

Family-by-love is choice…family-by-blood is inheritance. One you embrace with the joy of your heart, the other you tolerate with their existence. One is a present – a true gift of love…the other is simply present in your life.

While they are all part of your life, which relationships do you give life to? Who excites you to see this holiday season? Who do you hope to steer clear of? Who can you value for simply being present? Which family-by-blood intrigues you to consider loving a little more this holiday season? They are in your life for a reason, allow the holiday season to soften the chat…go find out: why? Let me know what you discover.