by Delaney Letts
Holidays—that time of year when families are reunited, celebrating special occasions, exchanging gifts and sharing delicious meals together. Joy and happiness fill the room as life seems absolutely perfect… or maybe not so much.
As wonderful as the holidays may be for some, many families dread the holiday season. Some say they don’t like interacting with particular relatives because of something that happened in their past. Others say that disasters are just bound to ensue whenever their family gets together. Unless you have a perfect family, there always seems to be some uneasiness between members during this time of year. Families struggle with putting a smile on their faces, pretending everything’s ok when something does not flow as smoothly as envisioned.
Student Carrie Fleharty shares a personal Thanksgiving family experience.
“I love the holidays because all of my family comes together, and I get to see some relatives that I haven’t seen in a long time,” Fleharty said. “At the holidays, if my family has a dispute, it’s usually because they don’t all agree on a certain topic. For example, I was raised a vegetarian my entire life. I do have some uncles who were married into my family that are not vegetarian, though. I remember one year, my Uncle Jim cooked this big turkey. I was probably 13 or 14, and at that age my parents didn’t want my sisters and I to eat meat. So, there were definitely some disagreements about having a turkey present at the table. But for a family of vegetarians, within an hour that whole turkey was completely gone. This was actually my first time eating meat. It was delicious.”
The holidays create chaos and commotion like none other. People are running around the stores buying food galore and gift after gift after gift. Also, since a lot of families come in from out of town, everyone is busy planning events or additional gatherings leading up to the big day of celebration in order to make the most out of everyone’s stay.
However, not everything in life can work out as planned. The holidays increase stress levels, making certain situations feel unorganized or out of hand.
“My favorite part about the holiday season is just getting together with all my family and friends and not having to worry about too many things,” student Kyle Watling said. “I feel like if anything, the real craziness doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving when people start to worry about shopping right away. My family likes to get everyone’s Christmas presents done fairly early. We have a pretty big family, so there’s a lot of shopping that needs to be done every year. For some people though, shopping as quickly as possible doesn’t always allow them to appreciate family as much as they would like. The biggest dysfunction my family sees during this time of year is no matter how many family members are coming over, even if it’s just one aunt, my mom is constantly cleaning the house. You will find her cleaning something just about every day during the season, even if she knows people won’t care about what the inside of the house looks like.”
