Hello, bloggers.
As we approach the ritualization of the holidays, we reflect upon how the holidays make for a much stronger relationship between families and friends.
It seems to me that Christmas has become very hectic, while Thanksgiving seems more traditional—even though Christmas is a religious holiday and Thanksgiving is more of a secular holiday. Sometimes, all of the hooplah and partying and folderal in gift-giving and running around, yelling “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” sort of detracts from the mellowness of true family harmony. It becomes a matter of: “Why didn’t I get a better gift from so-and-so? Why do I have put up with these bastards coming to our house? Thank God we’re half in the bag, otherwise we couldn’t put up with these people...”
In my first life, there was hardly ever a Christmas that wasn’t interrupted by coming to the service of a family whose holiday was interrupted by the ultimate tragedy. Sometimes there were two, three, even four families we invited to dinner with us, who were having wakes downstairs in the funeral home. It was a bittersweet time to have a “Merry Christmas” while these families were going through the worst times of their lives. “Death takes no holiday” was a reality in our family.
That was compounded by the fact that all of our employees wanted Christmas off, and so our family took up the slack. Thanksgiving was something we took more leisurely; it seemed that not as many people died around Thanksgiving...
So, all things considered, I probably didn’t have the traditional experience of these holidays, as the ordinary person would, because our life was always revolving around people whose Christmases had been interrupted by tragedy. Therefore, it probably gives me and my family a different outlook on all kinds of things, for better or worse. I know it shaped my art in many different ways.
Today, with my family, we have a great Christmas. We all get together—it’s very inclusive. Some of the members leave right after dinner and go on to our place in Ireland, where they have traditions of their own. Others go to other families to visit. We have all kinds of things that go on, and they’re all great. So from our family to yours, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Matt