What happened between the time you were 8 or 9 -- when you more or less liked your siblings, when Christmas was the magical awesomeness that it was -- and now? Is it just that we got old? Is it the pressure to have everything be perfect? To measure up to the old Norman Rockwell mirage? Or does it have to do with the fact that, in trying to recreate the past, especially one so heavily nostalgic as “The Holidays,” we’re not allowing ourselves (or our siblings, our parents, our kids...) to be real?

The Holidays are supposed to be about family. But, as much as I love my family, they can be tough. These people have known me forever; we forged our identities together. They know my “buttons” --they created my “buttons” -- and in a way, we all feel like we have a right to the the person we helped one another become. So, without realizing why, we can end up feeling betrayed if/when one of us breaks out of that old identity and announces over Christmas dinner that he actually doesn’t like Brussels Sprouts. Or has become an atheist. Or a vegetarian (which, in Montana, can be just as devastating). 

And yet, breaking out of that is inevitable. Who here is the same person you were at sixteen? Yikes. It’s a terrifying thought. Still, get the family together over something as charged as Christmas, and the nostalgia over that remembered magic is narcotic.

I’ve found that when it’s just one of my brothers and I -- with our families, even -- we’re good. We talk and get to know each other like any normal adults might. But then, when you add another sibling or a parent to the mix, things start to slip into old, old patterns. Ancient grievances begin to haunt the edges of the conversation like Scrooge’s ghosts, and the imperative to be real simmers under the pressure to fit in.

In a way, it’s a numbers game. When there are only two of us, we can break the pattern and be normal human beings. But add more people, and the threads, all those old memories tying us to “the way we were” become an inextricable morass. The more people are involved, the more threads of nostalgia, the thinner your energy is spread out, and the more you have to rely on unconscious habits -- those very habits which created your hair-trigger buttons -- to interact. Then just for fun, add in the specters of Nostalgia, Perfection, and Magical-Santa-ness hanging over everything, and you’re screwed. Bring on the Grownups’ Eggnog, and make it a double.

I first had this realization during a Christmas reunion in Yellowstone Park. We hadn’t gotten together with our families for a long time, and I felt like I didn’t know these people anymore, though they looked vaguely familiar. So I spent that Christmas in a lot of one-on-one time with my siblings: snowshoeing, skiing, playing cards,…in a way, acting as if I was getting to know them for the first time. And in those one-on-ones, we were able to be real, not having to fall back on the old patterns. 

It’s a system I’ve tried to keep up among family ever since, siblings and parents alike -- finding time to be real and holding space for the fact that, although this is, in fact, someone I spent nearly every minute of the first 18 years of my life arguing or laughing with, I don’t have any control over who they are now. 

In a way, it’s fun to discover new things about someone you care for deeply. And I find it takes a lot of pressure off; it allows me to take my eggnogs one at a time, anyway.

I wish you the very Merriest of Holidays, and whether you’re spending the time with family, friends, memories, or dreams, enjoy the eggnog but try to take it easy on the nostalgia.

With love,