Tradition Kills My (Holiday) Spirit
I prefer spending the "Holiday Season" (including Thanksgiving in this) with friends over family. Probably not a shocker to those who know me. It’s also probably not a surprise to the majority of people in the U.S who feel some form of obligation to spend time eating dinner with Uncles and Grandparents that, if drunk enough (though not necessarily), will more than likely say something racist.
For a while now, I’ve been pondering why the "holiday season" irks me. You should see the rough drafts I was working on if you need any proof. Now, I realize some might read these words and wonder "How can anyone be irked by this holly jolly time of year? Are they the Grinch?" Should it matter, I have yet to find any green tufts of hair, discover a shrinking heart or hear Thurl Ravenscroft singing narration about my displeasure for this time of year. If you’ve read my last post, you’d know that I’m weird (like most millennials), so I think it’s weird that people don’t find this time of year weird.
Aside from the usual gripes many have of the hyper-commercialized shop-a-palooza that completely misrepresents (or just ignores) the true meaning of these holidays or just spending time with family, I think I've finally dug to the root of this hydrochloric holiday time; tradition.
Now, I understand why many enjoy this season. Subconsciously, it provides a chance for many to enjoy some normalcy with a healthy dose of concentrated nostalgia with a dash of gratitude. From my understanding, on the surface, this time is, according to Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold, supposedly a chance for “The most enduring traditions of the season best enjoyed in the warm embrace of kith and kin… Christmas is about resolving differences and seeing through the petty problems of family life.”
Either that or maybe I’ve watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation way too many times (it was a Christmas Eve family tradition for many years).
Everything around this time has revolved around commercialized traditions for 128-ish years (longer if you count all the originally pagan practices that we’re glommed on to Christmas as a way to make Christianity seem more palatable for non-Christians). But, after a while, the festive season just gets fucking tiring. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. And this gets to the heart of the matter as to why I have trouble finding joy and good tidings. According to a study by Slumber Cloud as reported by Tyler Schmal of the New York Post’s Market Watch section,
“…68% of Americans also consider the holiday season, that special time including Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas, to be a “stressful” time… Over half of Americans (56%) admit to wanting to take a break from the holidays while they’re in full swing, with the average American saying they feel they need a break 10 times throughout the season.”
The holidays pile on additional stress in addition to all the other “everyday stress” many of us face, which is a complete buzzkill for creative folks like me. The holidays belie an extremely stressful month or two as families across America subject themselves to the stresses of preparing their homes for various traveling, gestational and festive traditions that breed nostalgia and fantastical expectations, making for an extremely busy 30-ish days. I bring this up in particular because, for others like myself who thrive on creativity. In case you haven’t heard, I like to write, and science has shown that being busy kills creativity along with too much stress.
As a kid, I thought Thanksgiving and Christmas was about gorging like Vikings until nearly passing out in a food coma while adults chortled about sports and politics. As I grew older, Thanksgiving just became a stressful Christmas Prequel where my maternal family were often left wondering if my mom’s sister’s family was coming up to eat or not, which would determine how much food to make and who was preparing what all the while simultaneously determining how the tradition of picking names for Christmas presents at the end of the meal would shake out, all (most of the time) traditionally done at my Grandparent’s house.
As I got older, the lead up to Christmas (and the day after) became a super busy roller coaster of emotions; my family would spend several days lugging 10–15 giant plastic tubs packed to the brim with traditional Christmas decorations down from the attic to decorate the house and the traditional family Christmas tree, while, at various points a week or two before Christmas, various family members would sneak around the house like secret agents making sure others aren’t home in order to have a few minutes to wrap gifts painstakingly searched for in store or online, but that was made more challenging when we had to spend a weekend or two making traditional holiday shaped cookies as a family while trying to squeeze in the traditional watching a funny Christmas movie or two on Christmas Eve, not to mention the rigmarole of coordinating with extended family members to determine who was visiting who at what times and who is going to make what dishes for the traditional big family gathering on December 26 all the while wondering who was ending Christmas Day the most and least disappointed while adults chortled about politics and sports. Why is this a tradition again?
It’s tough to write, or really do anything creative when it feels like you’re booked solid from the last week of November to January 2. Oh, and keep in mind, until I turned 21 and graduated University, the aforementioned traditional rush of things is in addition to whatever school work had to be completed and crammed into my brain before the winter holiday break.
It’s not exactly a calm time one can just daydream and go through on autopilot, which is one of the main ways creative people divine inspiration in the first place. Not that I had much choice in the matter at the time.
However, now I’d like to think I’m at a point in my life where I can choose when and why I get #stressedthefout instead of being unceremoniously opted in to extra time periods of stress when I was a child, teen and twenty-something.
My favorite Thanksgivings and Christmases have been when I’m around friends and not family. There are no expectations and everyone is mostly poor so we can’t really get each other a lot of gifts anyway.
My favorite Thanksgiving was a “Fakes-giving” I spent in Atlanta, celebrating a day off from Advertising School with a bunch of creative weirdos and writing our sarcastic thanks on large rolls of paper covering the walls. Maybe there was more, but I don’t remember much else due to the fact I often got pretty intoxicated on wine, whisky and rum during our reveling.
Now, please don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying all traditions everywhere are bad. If it works for some people, that’s awesome! But when certain traditions breed expectations that causes more than half it’s population to feel stressed and/or burned out, it might be time to re-prioritize a few things.
Maybe I’ve been watching too much Star Wars The Last Jedi, but I’m at a place where I think it’s time many of us, as Kylo Ren so succinctly stated,
“Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.”
Why are we putting our bodies and minds through these broken time loops filled with disappointment and stress every year? What’s the point?
I should also point out that this time of year often conjures copious articles and self-help tips that promote strategies in which all of us can deal with these extra stressful busy times in healthy and productive ways. The only other time of year I see anything remotely similar is around Valentine’s Day, when articles share tips about how to not feel like the loneliest person in the world being sucked into a spiraling dark black hole of rejection and depression while everyone around you is in love. Or… something like that. My point is, you don’t really see self-help articles pop up (at least with as much promotional prominence) about how to not be as stressed during St. Patrick’s Day or Labor Day, and, in my mind, that’s telling. One would think that if a certain time of the year was causing much stress and anxiety, we’d either be looking for better ways to improve this time of year or reconsider participating in it altogether.
I’m choosing to reconsider and not participate. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to send gifts and not talk to my family at all. I am, but I’m doing it on my terms. Maybe it’s selfish, but it’s something that’s not going to make me feel like my heart and mind are exploding into numerous sighs of exhaustion after getting into a fight with each other.
As detailed in my first blog post, I write. My girlfriend is a painter. I don’t think these commercialized holidays that compel people to create stressful traditions and unfathomable expectations were really made with people like us in mind. It doesn’t jive with why I write and express myself in the first place. But, like I said earlier, if it works for others, that’s totally cool. I’m not condemning the holiday season wholesale. I’m just explaining why I’m not participating in it with the multitudes.
However, if that still feels upsetting or unsettling to some, think of it like this; I’m creating a new holiday tradition of not participating in 97% of the traditions my family and others have created over the years.
