Holidays are a classic time for families to
get together and spread cheer and do things together, as we all know. November
through January are a hectic time with Thanksgiving and the winter holidays,
but growing up with my mother, father, brother, and sister, we never but a lot
of time or effort into celebrating extravagantly. We did the whole dinner at
Thanksgiving bit and presents on Christmas, but nothing too fancy. Once I began
to live with my friend Kevin and his family when I was 15, holidays became a
much bigger deal.
For starters, I was always the youngest member
in my own household, so I was the focal point of certain holidays like
Halloween and Christmas. In my new home, I have an 11 year old sister (Karly)
and a 16 year old brother (Kyle), so the focus totally is shifted towards them.
Holidays are taken much more seriously in this home. Halloween is Karly's
favorite holiday. With mom gone from on business trips so often it falls to me
and Kevin, my friend whose family i live with, to take her trick or treating or
to make sure everything is going smoothly for her day. Thanksgiving is when
older sister Katie comes home from Virginia Tech to spend time with the family
and cooks Thanksgiving dinner for a family of 7 people. Christmas is easily the
most hectic time, as I'm sure it is for most families, for the household. Mom
is always big on family time and togetherness and so is Christmas, calling for
the need of perfect holidays. This was a far-cry from the lax holidays I had
become accustomed to, and in the beginning I was a mixture of put-off and
annoyed at the extra effort needed to spend time with family. However, as I
spent more and more time around these holidays and their new found prominence
in my life, I began to appreciate more the fact that I was a part of them.
Anyone who sees the family around this time can easily see how the holiday mood
affects them. Everyone is much calmer in a usually more frantic environment,
the lazier members of the house find themselves contributing more, and everyone
seems more intent on keeping the peace. These kinds of environments have had a
positive effect on me as a person overall because I feel much happier
throughout the year and have more to look forward to than just food and
presents.
This type of attitude contrasts with what I
had grown up with. The holidays I were used to did not have extra meaning to
them so the environment of the house never saw that type of emotional upswing
that was the norm at Kevin's house. No one gave a damn if it was September 25th
or December 25th, there was a way things were done and just because the
holidays came around did not mean that the rules suddenly changed. The reprieves
the holidays have brought have become an important part of my life.
The effects can be seen taking place on Karly
and Kyle too, which is most important because they are the ones who are most
easily shaped by what they see. So while it's nice I have gotten a chance to
have a new experience, it is even more crucial that the younger ones now know
what successful family life during the holidays looks like.
