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Feed'tis the season
The concept of "irony" is almost impossible to succinctly define on the fly. (Try it out loud sometime; notice how you sound like a presidential candidate in the midst of a televised debate.) But these three words just may suffice.
That the impending holidays should be the catalytic force behind a national plague of depression that borders on the epidemic is the very essence, if not the definition itself, of irony because the holidays are, if nothing else, a celebration. To further jack up the irony quotient, the pundits at the National Office of Acronyms, Medical Division, have dubbed this propensity to sulk as the fourth calendar quarter runs down as S.A.D., which stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder. This is a little like dubbing tax season S.U.C.K.S., but nonetheless, far more of us than we care to notice face the season with all the enthusiasm we have for a forthcoming root canal. Even that guy ringing the bell in front of the department store looks pissed off.
Our expectations, both hopeful and cynical, are part of the problem. How we face the prospect of squaring off with our families, both immediate and extended, during the holidays defines the landscape of the bleak and inevitable reality.
Here's why. If tradition holds and talk around the office water cooler is to be believed, someone at the family holiday table will be drunk, and someone will be holding a grudge against someone else. More than a few won't really want to be there, egos and agendas will run rampant, resentment will fill the air like the gin and bitterness on Uncle Frank's breath, and chances are the gravy will taste like over-salted motor oil. This year, we can multiply all this drama by a factor of 700 billion, which translates to the need to take out a second mortgage to finance the holiday gifting obligation, which in the midst of today's credit nightmare just ain't gonna happen.
Of course, if you're an executive from a bailed-out bank, you can buy the whole clan a fleet of new Audis and break your holiday bread down in Cabo. Just be sure it happens before your Congressional hearing.
Our expectations, both hopeful and cynical, are part of the problem. How we face the prospect of squaring off with our families, both immediate and extended, during the holidays defines the landscape of the bleak and inevitable reality. The degree to which our expectations collide with our hopes is a measure of our resultant anxiety, and because we tend to go to one of two extremes "” it will either be a temporary trip to Hell itself, complete with pitchfork-wielding kin tormenting you with words and mannerisms pregnant with hidden meaning, or it will be different this year, because it's the holidays, after all, and we're all a little older and wiser "” we stand about as much chance of having a positive experience as actually enjoying a hunting trip with Dick Cheney. Sanity resides in arriving with a clear assessment of the players, a spanking new complement of emotional body armor, and a few tools that will help you rise above it all.
First, choose not to engage. In other words, be nice. If you can reside behind a transparent wall of acceptance of the inevitable, if you can elect not to engage, and if you can observe the proceedings with the detached cool of a researcher watching video of a pack of hyenas attacking a cameraman, then you just might emerge with your blood pressure intact. The fact is the recently transpired year will not have changed the worldview of your relatives. The only factor you can change in this equation is you, and once you realize they really are, after all, entitled to their opinions, you will have qualified for a license to relax. Have another chicken wing, and just go with the flow.
Of course, there are more pragmatic strategies to emerge from the fog of the holidays with your sanity intact. If you are hosting the feast, make sure to create firm arrival and departure times with a reasonably minimal window in between. Fill the emotionally laden space of your time together with specific activities (kids are wonderful foot soldiers in this battlefront) like charades (avoid family themes such as "Who still owes me three grand?"), Monopoly or scrapbooking. Never let a drunk make a toast. Avoid relying on the television "” this is like sending hungry troops into battle armed with jagged soup spoons "” and try to keep the genders mixed. Sending the guys off to the family room to watch football (notice how quiet things are at first) while the women tend to all things preparatory not only offends the sensibilities of anyone with a whiff of 21st-century reality, it's a recipe for impending hostility fueled by Budweiser and merlot.
Nobody says you have to actually like your relatives, who you didn't have the opportunity to choose. The only thing you really have to do is show up, and once you step into that void, the road separates, and you must choose: You can engage. You can resume the noise from last year with the seamless fluidity of hitting the "resume play" button, or you can be different this year. You can be tolerant. You can be pleasantly aloof. You can be untouchable. And if you're really into that evolving-self thing, you could even be open, compassionate and forgiving in a way that sidesteps the landmines of the past.
Your family will likely find it ironic (heck, they can't define it any better than you can), but you just might find it refreshing. And you might, as a consequence, enjoy the holiday season after all.
