I've never really hit it off with my relatives. I saw them a lot while I was growing up but it was always a conflict ridden relationship for me. I felt they didn't understand me and perhaps I didn't understand them either. They generally annoyed or upset me, made me feel like I was constantly being questioned and disapproved of, even sometimes reduced me to tears when nobody was looking. Yet I always liked those big family events. It wasn't a big, old happy family. We weren't the Waltons. Like in a lot of other families there was underlying hostility and conflict between people.
I suppose I took for granted that we would always be a part of each other's lives.
When both grandparents had passed however, each family kind of went their separate ways. Or perhaps some of them still see each other. I really don't know.
An event a few years ago made it rather impossible for my family to socialize with the rest of the relatives, and since then they have more or less disappeared from our lives. We can still see each other of course, but things have changed.
Anyway, I don't want to get bogged down by the specifics of that. The point is that I really miss being part of a large family. Especially around the holidays. As it is now, it's just me, my parents and my common-law. Even though we never really got along all that well and perhaps didn't have that much in common, there's a void without the relatives. It's rather empty at Christmas. To me, Christmas is a holiday that should be large, noisy and eventful, something out of the ordinary. Four people gathering around a quiet table is just like any other day of the year.
Then I remind myself that Christmas isn't about how many people there are around the table or how festive the house is. It's about the birth of Christ. It shouldn't really matter who or how many we are with. Christmas will come either way. Then I reconsider and go back to my previous belief that the holidays is a family ocassion. Then I realize that nothing can stay the same forever and that my extended family has changed and I need to change with it. Instead of relying on my relatives I should be creating my own family. Have children. Create new traditions. Traditions of my own. Because we sure can't turn back the clock. Neither is it healthy to gaze nostagically at a distant past and remember it in rosier terms than it actually was.
1 comment:
I know how you feel exactly. My relatives can be such gossips that I recently took them all out of FB. But this past month, I've realized how I've gotten used to seeing them at least once a month for one celebration dinner or another. I've missed them or, rather, I've missed the feeling of being gathered together, as we did when my mom was alive. There is something comforting in sharing a meal as a family. You may be annoyed sometimes, but at least you don't really feel alone.
You're right though. We should create our own traditions, and be with people we truly love and care about.
I do like group gatherings though and it would be nice to have a relaxed dinner together with everyone...but many friends seem reluctant to do that and prefer the one on one. I guess that will have to do.
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