The holidays are always an interesting time and not necessarily because they are full of crazed activity, but because that's when the family gets together. In today's spaced out world most families do not live near one another anymore. This distancing may be for good reason, after all who really wants to see Uncle Albert more than once or twice a year? But, the sheer distance that everyone has to travel to get together for one or both major holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas makes for an interesting time of planning, pre-planning and finally settling on who gets what holiday this year, next year and so on.
My family always used to plan the year before who would get which holiday the next year. My brother and I took on the responsibility of planning a holiday when my Mom decide enough was enough and we were all adults now, presumably this burgeoning adulthood included not only getting educations and jobs, but also taking up the cross of a holiday. Since there are only two siblings in my family, it was up to my brother and I to divide up the holidays our Mom didn't want. I for some reason incomprehensible to me always ended up with more than one when my brother ended up with less than zero.
The way the holidays are divided up is a reflection of the family dynamic that comes into play with every holiday. It becomes even more convoluted and complex when there are spouses and their families to take into consideration. Sometimes the in-laws seem much more attractive than listening to Uncle Albert's tales of the one that got away, which are inevitably followed by the fact that all of his tales would make a great book, said to the only writer in the group accompanied by a slow smile and a quick wink, wink.
Some tales told at family gatherings are the stuff that legends are made of or were actually legends from the past. These shared stories, with some actually existing in the memories of everyone, are a wonderful point of contact for all those that sit around the table, even Uncle Albert. My brother's stories about his youth and his recurring efforts to become some sort of car driving star on the back streets of Fremont in his Vega find themselves embellished every year amidst much hilarity.
Whether the additions are actual truths, which where hitherto kept from the family to protect our parents from instant heart attacks, or whether they are a wonderful outgrowth of the oral tradition, no one may ever know. The fact is they make us laugh every year, not to mention that we are reminded at least once a year that he is still alive to tell the tale. And we all thought Vega's couldn't get out of their own way, let alone anyone else's.
At the end of the day, after all the wrangling over who will get which holiday, which as you can tell in my family comes down to, at most, two people; after all the meal preparation for Thanksgiving and all the gift buying alongside frenzied activity for Christmas, the holidays boil down to these family times remembering our sharing lives with each other and creating more memories. After all who knows us better than our families? The old saying, "blood is thicker than water", is true after all. So, as we all slide down the slippery slope that will end at a dinner table or other location depending on when, where and how your family celebrates, remember to tell the stories that are uniquely yours and be thankful that you all survived them.
