Holiday Happiness
I learned everything I know about How to be a thoroughly American family from 1980s sitcoms. My family immigrated from overseas when I was three years old, and it was easy to see that we weren’t like the families on TV: we didn’t have a two-story house, my parents weren’t doctors or lawyers or architects (why were there so many architects on TV?), and we definitely didn’t have dinner in the formal dining room every evening and take turns telling each other how our day was.
By middle school, I’d thought to check with some classmates to see if their families did these things, and when they confirmed that, yes, their house did have stairs; yes, their parents worked in offices; and yes, they did have family dinners at the dining table, that sealed my impression: real American families did live life like the Seavers and the Keatons and the Huxtables.
By high school, it became my goal to recreate as many of those TV family vibes as I could in my own life. In eighth grade, my family moved into a two-story house (finally, stairs!), and while I couldn’t will my parents off of their entrepreneurial path and into professional careers, or even get everyone to sit together for dinner, there was one thing I could pretty closely recreate: TV family holidays.
Ah, the holidays: a time for warm family gatherings filled with food and laughter, according to my TV-addled brain. In high school, I had the good fortune of dating someone whose mom came straight out of Martha Stewart Living, and who was thrilled to teach me how to make a traditional Thanksgiving feast. I even got everyone in my family to play along and go around the table reciting something they were thankful for before saying grace and diving into the meal. Finally, I was able to realize my dreams of Americana during those few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which was enough for me.
I kept this idealized version of the holidays going for as long as I could, but after my mom died in 2015, our family’s hub disappeared and our big family gatherings slowly disappeared, too. But I’ve found it isn’t just us who are no longer celebrating the holidays with big family gatherings. Covid-19 really put the nail in the coffin as many people seemed to realize, it’s kind of nice not having to fight hours of traffic or the crazy airport madness to try to see relatives for a single meal, one that may or may not actually bring all the warm fuzzy feelings that sitcoms promise.
As we head into this holiday season, I find myself re-evaluating what this time of year means to me. If all my hopes of happiness were pinned on recreating a Full House Thanksgiving, well, I’d be woefully out of luck. Lucky for me, I have the wisdom of two wonderful blog partners to draw on during this bittersweet time.
Vanille
Holidays can be traditionally celebrated but they can also be reshaped into something that you create. The “magic” of any kind of celebration comes from the intention and attention someone puts towards it. It doesn’t have to be about family, gifts, or even a traditional feast. Holidays can be shaped by ceremonies and the traditions we create outside of the typical and widespread commercial or religious ideas. They can be a marker in our lives of our progress, of time passing, of seasons changing. (I personally like to do the solstices and equinoxes as well as the holidays.)
These are some of the things I do during the holiday season to maintain balance in each of the elements in my life:
Fire: Decorating as a way to care for my home and express myself. I like to craft something, it can be very simple and very small. But it is a way to both express myself and give my space something special to mark this season.
Earth: Cooking lovely things for people I love. Again this does not have to be a whole feast, or anything traditionally made. A small treat or warm drink can sprinkle a little magic, and make that day a little special.
Metal: Doing some prepping for the long winter months by cleaning the garden and/or the house. This does not have to be a big “Spring cleaning” but simply giving attention to one part of the home that could use a little extra care can help foster that cozy feeling of preparing for hibernation.
Water: Reflecting on the year past and year to come. Remembering all that has happened, good and bad, and taking stock of the big picture. Dreaming about what the next year might bring.
Wood: Thinking of goals for the next few months, without setting any deadline, but simply seeing how to add more pearls of happiness to my life.
It’s good if these rituals are specific or special to you, because they won’t have as much meaning if you’re just going through the motions that someone else decided would work for them. But no matter what you choose to do, be very conscious about why you’re doing it.
It’s okay to celebrate the holidays away from family. Time with family can be challenging and adding the pressure of achieving the “perfect” holiday only makes it harder. Time with family — if it brings joy — can be celebrated at any point during the year, but is not an essential part of celebrating the holidays.
As a kid, the holidays were a time for dreaming. Dreaming about the presents you’d get, the cookies you’d bake, the food you’d eat and spending time with grandma. It was the preparation and the anticipation that made the day of celebration special. This dreaming and preparation was an essential part of the “magic”. Now that I am an adult, the dreams have changed, but the practice of dreaming and preparing is something that I try to keep alive. Lately I’ve been trying to imagine what this time of year will be like with my own children.
Erna
When you approach the holidays — any holiday, not just Thanksgiving and Christmas — then you need to define for yourself what this holiday is about. For a lot of people, Thanksgiving is about family, but at its root, it’s the American origin story. The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of bounty and friendship between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans; the settlers would have died if the natives hadn’t saved them and taught them how to survive. Thanksgiving is a good time to celebrate the people around you who stuck together and toughed out the hard times with you.
Making Thanksgiving a family-focused holiday is complicated when the people who have helped you survive aren’t your family, or your family hasn’t been helpful or supportive. Friendsgiving should be the way of celebrating Thanksgiving, but people feel an obligation to uphold tradition and be with their families. It doesn’t make sense to give thanks for your family if they have let you down, but if you want to celebrate family, then spend some time thinking about how to make your family relationships more harmonious and focus on that.
The purpose of a holiday is to celebrate a holy day; it’s a day to take part in a sacred ceremony, the way Thanksgiving is connected with a lot of food because the settlers almost starved. Not only should you consider what the holiday means, think about what you really want to get out of it. The custom of telling each other what you’re grateful for is important, you have to do a little bit of performance. It’s ceremonial eating and saying what you’re thankful for. For any holiday, find out what makes it sacred, and what ceremony you want to perform to honor it, and realize that this is why it’s worth celebrating.
Christine
While that period between Thanksgiving and Christmas was my opportunity to embrace and be a part of American culture, in my heart, there’s still a filipina core, and if you know filipinos, you know we love a good celebration (who else do you know will wish each other “Happy new hair cut!” or “Happy new shoes!”?). For me, that means deriving joy from wishing people of all cultures a happy holiday, no matter what that special day may be.
But it only seems right that if you’re gonna take part in a celebration (even peripherally!), it’s good to know what the meaning behind that celebration is. Here are a few other holidays that people celebrate during this time:
Hanukkah is a celebration of religious freedom that began when the Maccabees won a battle against their Greek oppressors and were able to reclaim their temple.
Diwali is a Hindu festival that celebrates the spiritual victory of Dharma over Adharma, light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.
Boxing Day is a British holiday tradition of donating things to people in need, and giving gifts to the people who keep our lives running (traditionally tradespeople and employees).
Kwanzaa is an annual celebration of African-American culture, based on African harvest festival traditions from various parts of West, East, as well as Southeast Africa.
… and then there’s Festivus for the rest of us.
From all of us at Elemental Happiness, we wish you and yours a Happy Holiday Season!
