Introduction:Family Drama and the Hol­i­days

“How often I found where I should be going only by set­ting out for some­where else.” ~ R. Buck­min­ster Fuller

Noth­ing ups the ante for fam­ily drama bet­ter than “going Home for the Hol­i­days.” (You really need to see the movie…)

Typ­i­cally, past dra­mas are min­i­mized as peo­ple play the “this year it will be dif­fer­ent” game. Peo­ple expect Nor­mal Rock­well gatherings,

© Nor­man Rockwell

© TV Guide

when “those gath­ered ’round” more closely resem­ble the Bunkers.

There are ways to change the game, but only if you decide to end the old game, AND replace it with some­thing Zen.

In no par­tic­u­lar order, 10 con­cepts for a more inter­est­ing and insight­ful Holiday

1. Stuff the Stuff

So, how much is enough, how much is too much? I’m an only child (sur­prised?) and Hol­i­day Glut was expected. I got 20–30-40 presents, and my par­ents spent them­selves into the poor­house. When Dar and I started hang­ing out, I per­suaded her to adopt my spend­ing habits. I’m embar­rassed to admit that, in the 80s to early 90s, we spent in excess of $3,000 on each other.

One year, we set a bud­get. That worked. In 96, we actu­ally thought about our spend­ing. We weren’t depriv­ing our­selves year round, so why all the stuff for the Hol­i­days? We declared a mora­to­rium on spend­ing for each other, and lim­ited our spend­ing for fam­ily mem­bers. 10+ plus years later, we still spend ZERO on each other. What a relief!

The Zen in this: Your worth is not deter­mined by how much crap you have, and your value to oth­ers is not con­nected to what they give you, or how much they spend.

Time to grow up and exit Toyland.

2. Qual­ity Trumps Quantity

A fol­low on to the above, but think about it. How many hours, days, are you will­ing to throw away plan­ning events, shop­ping, run­ning your­self ragged, just to put on a larger dog-and-pony-show than last year? (Par­en­thet­i­cally, I’ve been hear­ing sto­ries of kids par­ties cost­ing 6–10 thou­sand! Yikes. Talk about try­ing to buy your kid’s admiration.)

Is it really that satisfying?

One client always began plan­ning Christ­mas in Octo­ber, and her plan­ning was mostly reliv­ing past dis­as­ters and pre­dict­ing worse sce­nar­ios this year. Why?

“Because Christ­mas is really spe­cial and should be per­fect!” Yikes.

The Zen in this: Instead of hav­ing an “I’ve sac­ri­ficed the most for the Hol­i­days’ con­test,” give it all up. Then, put back the bare min­i­mum. With all of the hours you free up, spend some qual­ity time, peace­fully, with your near­est and dearest.

Inter­nal sat­is­fac­tion trumps exter­nal shows every time.

3. Your Fam­ily is Your Family

Dig out a few fam­ily group pictures.

Line them up on a table or counter, and look, really look, at each per­son pic­tured. Repeat: “These are not the Wal­tons. These are my kith and kin. They are as they act, and are as they are, and noth­ing more.”

Many peo­ple want the Hol­i­days they see on TV, with grandpa Wal­ton read­ing “The Night Before Christ­mas” to the kids, and every­one being of exces­sively good cheer.

Your fam­ily is who they are. They are how they act, year after year. Stop judg­ing them! Just because you don’t like how they act is never, and was never, enough to get them to change.

Who do you think you are, any­way, dic­tat­ing how oth­ers ought to behave?
After all, you hate it when they demand that you be dif­fer­ent, don’t you?

The Zen in this: There is no right / wrong, good /bad. There is just what is hap­pen­ing. Peo­ple are who they are, and act as they choose. You can’t change them, but you can change you.

This year, engage with your fam­ily (or not, see below) as they are. If some­one is obnox­ious, smile and walk away. Deal with the peo­ple you are related to, as they are, from the core of who you are.

If you are work­ing on ground­ing and cen­ter­ing your­self, see fam­ily gath­er­ings as a great place to practice.

4. Develop Your own Hol­i­day Traditions

If your fam­ily gath­er­ings are warm and fun, by all means enjoy them, and engage fully. At the same time, see about set­ting up one tra­di­tion for your prin­ci­pal fam­ily (with your partner/spouse, and your kids, if any.) And if you don’t much like the Home for the Hol­i­days trip, shorten it, elim­i­nate it, book a trip, in short, change it.

My par­ents are dead, so there is only Dar’s side to deal with at hol­i­days. I really like my mom-in-law, and she likes Christ­mas, so we show up for her.

We also really like our 21-year-old niece, who is both cute and bright. And fun to hang with. I pro­posed that we teach her to eat sushi this Hol­i­day sea­son, and this could, if she accepts, evolve into a tradition.

The Zen in this: Stop look­ing back­ward and try­ing to recap­ture or invent some­thing. Instead, cre­ate cer­e­monies, activ­i­ties and timeta­bles that are mean­ing­ful for you.

Your task is to cre­ate a mem­o­rable life, for you. This requires actu­ally doing something.

5. Cut Your­self Some Slack

Ask your­self how much energy you put into mak­ing things a cer­tain way for oth­ers, at your expense.

Back when I was in the Min­istry, I took Advent really seri­ously. I planned umpteen events, and ran them all. Invari­ably, in Jan­u­ary I’d be flat on my back in bed with the flu. My acupunc­tur­ist and Ninja Sen­sei would sigh, stick in some nee­dles, force gag-worthy tea down my throat and ask me to re-consider.

The Zen in this: You are not here to straighten bumpy high­ways for every­one else, at your expense. Now, you may have trained your entire fam­ily to expect this of you, but no one makes you act this way. Give it up. Dial back the per­fec­tion to some­thing fun and manageable.

This is a sea­son that can be used to nur­ture, renew, and recharge your­self. It will hap­pen when you so choose.

6. The Gift of the Season

It doesn’t mat­ter what your faith per­spec­tive is, the hol­i­day sea­son is an oppor­tu­nity to reflect. It’s funny how most of the reflec­tion gets dumped off on New Years Res­o­lu­tions. And we know where those go.

For for­ever, peo­ple have used the dark days of Decem­ber, and the Win­ter Sol­stice, as a time to reflect on death and rebirth, and on the gift of life. Same with the idea of a New Year, an arbi­trary date rich with the idea of new beginnings.

The gift of reflec­tion and grat­i­tude radi­ates through these days, pro­vid­ing we don’t leave the energy of restora­tion in the park­ing lot of the Mall.

The Zen in this: declare this year-end as a time for reflect­ing with your near­est and dear­est, (who may or may not be fam­ily.) Note what has ben­e­fit­ted you in 2007, and declare an inten­tion for 2008. In keep­ing with a noble Haven tradition,

pick a word that will be your ‘key’ for 2008. Develop a cer­e­mony ded­i­cated to per­sonal self-reflection.

7. Engage

Many peo­ple are so zoned out and exhausted by Hol­i­day prep that they are pretty much ‘gone’ for the Hol­i­days. If there is any gift to be found in the Hol­i­days, it’s the abil­ity to step back from the ram­pant con­sumerism long enough to engage with peo­ple you care about.

I remem­ber one poignant moment, in 2004. My dad fell on Decem­ber 20, and sprained his ankle. At 92, his cir­cu­la­tion couldn’t han­dle this. He devel­oped sep­sis in the leg, and was soon on mor­phine, then in a coma. He died the day after Christ­mas, Box­ing Day in Canada.

Dar and I were with her fam­ily when we got the call. Every­thing stopped, and then peo­ple were hug­ging me. There was a pal­pa­ble sense of connectedness.

Sad that for many, this only hap­pens in times of crisis.

The Zen in this: Engage with oth­ers. Tell them how you feel about them. Hold, them, hug them, make con­tact. Be direct in your expres­sions of grat­i­tude for oth­ers and for their gifts.

Do it ‘now.’ And then con­tinue to enact engage­ment. All the time.

8. Retreat

Carve some quiet time for your­self. Each of us needs a dose of soli­tude, and the Hol­i­days are a great time to take this opportunity.

1. If you’ve had a death of some­one close to you dur­ing the Hol­i­day sea­son, look around for a “Blue Christ­mas” ser­vice in your area. You don’t need to be an Chris­t­ian to go. Most are med­i­ta­tive, prayer­ful events, designed to allow those griev­ing to express their grief.
2. If you have a cot­tage or know of a place ‘in the woods,’ go for a walk and just ‘be’ in nature. Feel the charge in the air, as the days shorten, turn and lengthen. Give thinks for liv­ing, for breath, for opportunity.
3. Set up a fam­ily shrine. I sug­gested this one in the add-on pdf for my book, This End­less Moment (the add-on is avail­able to any­one, for free.) Add pic­tures of your fam­ily, add sig­nif­i­cant objects. Spend some time daily reflecting.

The Zen in this: Cer­e­monies are a part of our genetic wiring, I think. That being said, cer­e­monies need shift­ing and fresh­en­ing. I used to laugh at what I called ‘Christ­mas Chris­tians.’ Those were the folk who got all gussied up for the Christ­mas Eve ser­vice, and never dark­ened the door until a year later. Need­less to say, they were there out of habit.

A house­hold shrine is a great way to focus your inten­tion and pres­ence on what you hold dear.

9. Bake it, Make it

Another way to escape the ram­pant con­sumerism of the sea­son is to make part or all of your gifts at home, from scratch. Do your bak­ing and mak­ing with con­scious­ness and inten­tion. Hold in your mind an image of the recip­i­ent, then let the image go and focus in on ele­gant creating.

Per­sonal beats pack­aged, hands down.

The Zen in this: Chop wood, carry water. need I say more?

10. Deepen, Deepen

This sea­son is either a thing to be endured, with a fake happy face, or a time of reflec­tion, self– know­ing, inti­macy and sharing–a deep­en­ing. You pick. You choose.

All moments are bare of mean­ing. We add mean­ing. Or, we go brain dead and numb and run (lit­er­ally and fig­u­ra­tively) our­selves ragged as we attempt to avoid the pain we create.

Instead, cap­ture this sea­son and make it your own. Pro­vide mean­ing to every­thing you do, real mean­ing, mean­ing sig­nif­i­cant to you. Use this time to deepen your com­mit­ment to your spir­i­tual path, and to find more ground­ed­ness. This oppor­tu­nity exists in each moment, and it’s up to you to use it.

The Zen in this: In the end, your path is yours, and you make of it what you will. Strive for more depth, more under­stand­ing. Bring your­self back to bare pres­ence. Invig­o­rate and enliven yourself.

Cel­e­brate the gift of life!