Are you happy now Fred? It's Anarchy! How Thanksgiving will be some places.

For the past four years in my work, I have used episodes of the TV show Suburgatory in my therapy groups with kids. It centers around the life of a 15-year-old girl named Tessa, who gets moved from New York City to a suburb by a father thinking it is going to protect her. It ran for three seasons on ABC and in other countries.

At Thanksgiving Tessa is lamenting the loss of her New York City tradition.  However, Lisa, her neighbor and friend appears to have it worse.  Lisa is dreading a number of holiday family traditions which include wearing a dress that makes her look like a Puritan Pilgrim.

One third of the episode is devoted to Lisa's struggle with her mother, Shelia.  Lisa takes Tessa's suggestion to tell Shelia that Lisa is not wearing the dress.  Lisa's brother Ryan then refuses to wear his vest that complements the dress.  Shelia takes her anger out on her husband Fred.  "Are you happy now? It's anarchy!"

Shelia sends Lisa to her room, and then turns up the thermostat to be persuasive.  Lisa goes over the top to prove her point  (You will have to see it for yourself) and disrupts Thanksgiving Dinner.

Subgatory is a comedy, but it anything like it happens at your house, people will likely do anything but laugh.  When over the top stuff happens at your holiday, chances are you cringe.

Shelia

Many mothers, matriarchs, and queen bees act like Shelia.  They are so determined to preserve traditions that they are willing to dominate and decimate to get people to conform at the cost of the relationship.  Shelia makes you want to hate her because she does not care what other people feel.  It is her way or she will punish you or destroy you.

Lisa

Like Lisa, many people feel that some traditions are humiliating or embarrassing and uncomfortable. They want the holidays to be fun and not beholden to some old tradition that has no comfort or security to it. They are willing to fight for change even if others suffer from the collateral damage.

Tessa

A side plot of this episode is Tessa missing what used to be.  Like Tessa, some of us grieve the loss of traditions sometimes. There were times when people got together.  Those were good times. They had meaning.  We don't have them now.

Us.

Sometimes watching something we relate to can be helpful as we survive.  We may need to laugh.

If you are interested in finding the show Suburgatory online, It is Thanksgiving, Season #1.  There are a number of online video sources that claim to offer this show.  I cannot guarantee how safe they are.   I make the usual disclaimer that I have no financial stake in your watching this show or buying a copy of it.

I hope that you were helped by this, and if you liked it, feel free to repost and pass it on.

Considering Traditions

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Canada had its Thanksgiving celebration
the first Monday in October.   Thanksgiving is a day where there is a
"traditional" feast of one whole day's calories.   My grandmother had some
wonderful traditional meals until she and my grandfather left wintry Iowa
for sunny Florida in 1976.

In light of my Grandmother's passing back in May, I have given thought
to the concept of Traditions over the past several months. My
grandmother was keeper of holiday traditions in the family as long as
she was able.  In a sense, I am thankful that she did keep traditions
and I miss them.

Some people hate traditions. The traditions bring back memories of
pain and abuse, and the family control freaks sounding like Tevye in
Fiddler on the Roof shouting “Tradition!”

Some people cherish traditions. The traditions remind them who they
are, where they came from, and where they belong. Traditions ground
them.

Some people grieve the loss of traditions. Their absence makes for a hole in the
middle of their hearts.

Christmas and Advent are traditions in the very sense of the word.
They are not in the Bible. However, they are reasonable traditions
that Church Fathers started in the Fourth Century AD as an alternative
to a pagan celebration.

Traditions are at the heart of holidays that also are very much sticky
subjects that bring about a confusing mess of feelings. Part of
surviving and coping through the holidays is deciding what traditions
can mean in your life.


For a starting point, I will start with the good old Webster
Dictionary. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition) .
The definition is
1 a: an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought,
action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)
b: a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the
past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of
mouth or by example from one generation to another without written
instruction
3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4: characteristic manner, method, or style <in the best liberal tradition>
In terms of the holidays,

We usually take traditions given down to us and pass them on.  They mean
something to us.

Besides the gathered meaning, traditions bond us together. I have decided that
traditions as part of my family life make our relationships closer and
give us a sense of appropriate closeness or intimacy. We will enjoy
the practices we have engaged in over the past several years.

Where traditions seem to fall short is when they engender the pursuit
of delusional nostalgia of old fashioned holidays. Traditions cannot
take us back to earlier times when we did not have those problems. 
Let's face it, those  earlier times had different problems and were not
problem-free.

However, part of the grief at holidays is that some family traditions
lose value and meaning. Family changes, divorces and deaths either
evaporate the traditions or change the significance from fulfilling to
painful. Memories of the traditions also can be painful because the
traditions embody the family member who was at the heart of the
tradition.   If not for the loss of the family member, there is always
the economic necessity of job transfers and relocations that mean for
families not being able to come to be part of the tradition.

As emotional human beings, we can feel lost without the tradition.  Oh
yes, we can put on our shells of faces, but the pain will still go on
inside for today is going to happen despite the tradition or its
absence.  The pain can lead to engaging in addictive behavior,
over-eating, depression, maybe even thoughts of suicide.
In the end, theologically, the tradition is not Jesus Christ.  The
tradition is not the liberating faith that Jesus Christ came to earth
to bring.   As I seek to live this holiday season, I really seek to
live . . . not be stuck in the black, emotional cloud of expired
traditions.

I do not leave you with any particular advice today, other than
recognize you have a choice. You choose how you will feel today.  You
will choose what you will do, just as I will choose what I will do.

A Thanksgiving wrap-up: the project idea worked but wondering about Black Friday

At the end of this American Thanksgiving Day I am listening to the online version of "The Link" from Radio Canada at http://www.rcinet.ca/english/program/the-link/home/ and taking inventory.

The coping strategy results

While it was not a perfect day,  it turned out to be a good day with some satisfaction.  The strategy worked: a project that occupies your mind and that you can get excited about helps makes a holiday better.  My strategy for Thanksgiving Day was to make bookshelves in the garage workroom. 

Despite  the warped wood from a reputable national chain of building supply and do it yourself stores, the two book shelves look decent.  My wife and I have already cleaned up the cluttered sides of  our bed and put our book collections (previously on the floor and under the bed) on the shelves.  There was a double supply of satisfaction: the shelves are done and my bedside if clean.

The family factor

It seemed to be good that we were by ourselves.  My wife and I called our sides of the family and both had a few good chuckles, a few scoffs, and a few sad head-shakes.  Being far away helps you see things within the big picture of the rest of your life situation instead of getting caught up in it because it is up close and dominating the landscape.   If we had been with some of those people we would have endured some drama and headaches.

Traditions--They come and go and we grieve when they stop

Yes, had our nuclear family traditions as we watched the Macy's parade (the NBC version) and had to deal with some boredom by the kids. They would have preferred to watch Phineas and Ferb or something else on Disney Channel, but we stood our ground and had to tell them to share the couch and keep their hands off each other.   However, it was cool talking about Scotty McCreery not catching his cue and whether Kermit the Frog was one of the Muppets when the Sesame Street Float came on the screen (Scotty--I think I would have downright embarassed myself if I had to sing there--your still a far better man than I when it comes to public performance).

We had the dinner as planned and talked about our blessings amongst other subjects around the table.  Later, we made good on our six-year-old tradition and went to the nearby convenience store and tried some strange "Apple Cider Cappucino." 

I was mindful that tradition is part of the relationship that binds people.   A tradition in this context is a repeated activity that provides a sense of belonging and connection.  A tradition is a positive activity. 

Without the relationships, a tradition otherwise tends to be empty and meaningless. Some people  hang onto traditions believing that they hold the meaning to the holiday.   They may engage in the tradition alone, and it may bring some satisfaction, but it is unlikely going to be as good as when they kept the tradition with family.

No, I think that traditions will come and go.  I am becoming of the opinion that it is important to grieve the loss of the old traditions that no longer are.  If we do not grieve the loss of those traditions, we continue to stay in the pain that the holidays are not the same.   

What this is going to mean is that there may be a day when some or most of our family traditions cease.   We will feel sad because we will not do them anymore.

There was a day when my grandparents stopped hosting the large Thanksgiving meals.  They started going to Florida before Thanksgiving,  then bought a mobile home trailer, and then sold their home in Des Moines.   My mother was not one to make Thanksgiving Dinners like my grandmother did and we had an electric stove so there was not the smell of a gas stove.  She also was averse to making stuffing/dressing, baking pumpkin pies, and potato soup Thanksgiving night with the leftover mashed potatoes.  As a teenager I thought that Thanksgiving was not as good anymore--I was grieving and of course I was not realizing it.

There will be a time when the simple traditions of my little family will stop too. They will stop for whatever reason like my kids moving away and not coming home for the holidays.  Maybe we will grieve or maybe we will simply have other traditions that replace them.

Changing gears: Black Friday

Given that we had stayed home I read through the paper and its glossy inserts.  I noted that there were 56 glossy inserts for "Black Friday" retail sales.  The paper was as big as if not bigger than the Sunday paper! (Of course two advertisers had two different glossies.)

Black Friday is statistically the biggest shopping day of the year.   Retailers are enticing us to go out with special upon special.  The question to me is "Are they really special?" 

Retailers have put so much expectation into the holiday season.    There will be an almost weekly news story telling us whether or not sales forecasts are being met.  

Retailers have sent out a not-so-subtle message of guilt that it is your and my patriotic if not religious duty to go out and spend money.  That message of guilt to me is irrational because it is neither a relgious violation nor a violation of the law if you do not go out and spend your money.

However, there can be a blurring of the guilt.  Many of us feel inadequate because we cannot afford the things we want . . . or feel that we should be giving to others.  There can be a sense of inadequacy seeing all of that cool merchandise and know we cannot afford it.  Some people try to ease this sense of guilt by pulling out the credit card, but then they also face a sense of guilt and increased vulnerability because they spent money they really did not have.   It can be a never ending cycle.

Many people are still unemployed this holiday season.  They cannot even begin to afford Christmas presents let alone paying all the bills. That could make the feelings worse.

I am going to be exploring coping with the lack of money in light of the psychological war of the retail and advertising sectors in the next posting.    

Thanksgiving Eve at home:Nostalgia is a lot like the pink envelope sweetner

It is on cusp of the first of the holidays of the holiday season of 2011. 

We are staying home this Thanksgiving.   We found it most practical to stay home because of the current situation at my job--lots of staying late.  There is some thankfulness that we stayed home because of one of the main freeway bridges over the Ohio River being shut down due to cracks. The closed bridge has has caused significantly more congestion going out of Louisville. 

We have our plans.  It will be a simple dinner.  We have the turkey breast versus the whole turkey.  There will be no pumpkin pie because I am on a diet and I have not convinced my wife and my children that it actually is quite good.  I expect we will watch the Macy's parade and eat after the parade while the dog show is going on.  We will go to one of the local convenience store and have hot beverages in the afternoon to get out of the house so we don't go stir-crazy.

Thanksgiving 1968

Today I found myself remembering the Thanksgivings my grandmother hosted in the late 1960's and early 1970's.  In my nostalgia, I do miss them because they appeared to be where the action was.   I remember the smell of the gas stove and the cooking stuffing/dressing and turkey. I remember the sound of the electric beater whipping the mashed potatoes. I remember seeing my grandfather carving the turkey with the electric knife and getting greasy hands.

My grandmother and grandfather would have 15 to 20 people in the house and they were not all family.  There would be people at the main table, side table and then me at the coffee table eating on my knees with the second cousin a little younger than myself.

I would see the picture of the crowd of people who attended Thanksgiving 1968 whenever I went to my grandmother's house in Des Moines, and then at her mobile home in Florida.   I always looked for me in the picture off to the side where my mother was holding me tight to keep me out of trouble (they tell me I was quite the active toddler). It was the "glory days" of my grandmother's hosting, and that large photograph was the trophy.

I kind of miss that kind of gathering, but then in my nostalgia, I was only a young child and I had no earthly clue about the drama that was going on amongst the adults.  I did not have an understanding of the criticisms my grandmother had made and my mother's reactive defensiveness.

While my mother continued to rail about during the rest of my childhood about the criticisms, it was not until I was into my teenage years and started to feel my own exasperation about my grandmother's incessant and insatiable need to talk about her perception of what was wrong with me (my teeth, my hair, my face, the college I was going to go to).   The yellowing photograph in the same picture frame over 40 years does not tell the whole picture of what went on.    

Nostalgia can be a lot like the "pink stuff" or Saccharin-based sweetener that a lot of people still put in their coffee and other beverages.  It has the worst after-taste if you partake in too much of it and maybe with just one packet.

Nostalgia versus grief and loss

Mind you we do all have our memories.  Nostalgia aside, some of our pasts are better than our present currently is.  I think that grief often accompanies nostalgia because we often have to endure the thought and emotion that we no longer have that which was good or at least that we remembered to be good.

With the grief accompanying nostalgia we may have a variety of feelings: sadness, anger, and depression.    I would like to offer that this is a situational depression versus a clinical depression because we are having a feeling that is a reaction. 

The grief can be worse with the passing of a loved one that was at the last Thanksgiving.  It can be worse if you depended on that loved one to organize and host the meal.  Thanksgiving indeed will not be the same.

Changing your frame of mind
Dwelling on the losses of the past is like sitting on a tack.  You can get up and remove the pain from your derriere or continue to sit, bleed and hurt.  You have a choice.

The choice is that you are going to choose whether you dwell on the past or focus your mind on something now.  I think that having a variety of distraction options to occupy our minds on may be necessary.  Some of the options involve mind and body.

I am working on taking my own advice this year and my options for this four-day weekend include the following:

1) A project of building two small bookshelves for the bedroom so I do not have such a mess by my bedside.

2) Switching off between four different books including two Edward Abbey books (I have recently discovered Edward Abbey and his personal history of being a national park ranger to be just fascinating)

3) Helping my son with his Pinewood Derby car.

I have found being busy in both mind and body are often necessary.  I have decided that is why many like to go serve meals in missions and soup lines at the holiday (an excellent perception correction).

I have a colleague that has frequently suggested to others that they go and make some new memories. That can be a good option--your present does become your past. Why not make it something that you can remember with pride instead of just another day of sitting and moping over what was?      

I will be the first to say that it is all easier said than done.  Sure you may be alone with your thoughts and not have money to do anything.   But I think that it can be a lot of little activities that are not going to cost you anything instead of one big activity.  What can you do now that you can afford?  Pick up litter in your neighborhood, serve in the serving line at a mission?   Go for a walk (weather permitting)?

I hope that your fourth Thursday of November is better than you expect.

Focusing our thoughts on being thankful aka choosing to look at the bright side of life.

The first holiday of the American holiday season is Thanksgiving and it is less that 48 hours away.
The Canadians had their Thanksgiving the second Monday of October.

A little bit of meaning is supposed to be added by thinking back to what was alledgedly the first Thanksgiving in or about 1621 where the puritan pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in Massachuetts had a meal and gave thanks for the provisions they had for the long, hard winter. There is some patriotism involved in the remembrance as those pilgrims sought to flee persecution in England for their way of believing--one of the cornerstones of the freedoms we have in the United States.

However, the first Thanksgiving was officially celebrated in November 1863 and not 1621. On October 3, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the national holiday of Thanksgiving to occur on the fourth Thursday of November. 

Expectations

Thanksgiving has become known for the traditional feast and watching football games on TV.  The feast traditionally consists of turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and other trimmings depending on your family traditions.  It is an expensive feast where a family is supposed to gather together and be thankful and reflect on their blessings and then gather around and have some kind of good time.  Those traditions tend to have meaning in that they bond us together in our relationships with family members. 

If it is going to be a good time, family members will tolerate the lousy and worn mattresses in guest bedrooms and air mattresses set up on the floor.  Also, there is tolerance of the lack of privacy and inconvenience of sleeping out in the living room or having to sleep on the floor of your parents's bedroom.   If family members love each other, the inconveniences and bad backs are worth it.

The problems in 2011

In 2011, many are not going to be able to afford the food thanks to the ongoing recession. The economic numbers are alledgedly suggesting we are no longer in a recession, but the 9.0 percent-plus unemployment rate (http://www.bls.gov/cps/ on 11/22/11) still gives the feeling and air that we are still in a recession. Many are not making the money they would have to spend on the lavish meal.

The other half is the timeless reality that many families are toxic and dysfunctional to the point that gathering together would be futile and painful.  Sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, unresolved conflict, and alcohol/substance use all contribute to the perpetuation of anger and separation.  Regardless of how good the economy is, there is the pain that a family cannot be together and love and accept each other unconditionally.

The toxicity can extend to the reality that family members do not call each other nor want to call each other and even disown each other.  Phone conversations and e-mails can be painful if not abusive.  Some people who have made allegations of abuse get ostracized by the rest of the family as a liar who is not to be trusted.  Some abuse survivors are essentially are forsaken by their families and are practically orphans (denial in the family is a strange phenomenon).

Less dysfunctional is the economic evolution where family members move away from each other to attain economic opportunities that do not exist in the town or city that used to be home base for the family.  There is nothing particularly wrong with individual interests taking priority over family interests, but one consequence is that family members cannot conveniently get together.  It is harder when the economy is down as the money may not be there to make the trek.

The economic evolution and family dysfunction often go hand in hand.  Why would someone want to spend the money to travel a long distance to sleep on a lousy guest bed and suffer the abuse of a brother, sister or other relative who you haven't seen in a long time.  In these cases you are reminded why you haven't seen them in a long time and don't want to see them again for a long time.

At least one more problem that fits in here is divorce and death.  Many people have lost someone in the past year and the holiday is just not going to be the same without them.  Many people are reeling from divorce and have a large black emotional hole within themselves that just steals the joy of the holiday.  

For many people, Thanksgiving is likely going to be a lonely and empty day of sadness and depression because of the lack of money, the distance from your family, or the inability to cope with your dysfunctional family, or the grief that a loved one is no longer there.  It could also be the doorway to another 37 of days of misery expected to end January 2, 2012.

Getting back to Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving may be easier than Christmas to cope with.   Thanksgiving can be a mindset that someone can buy into.   As I have discussed in my earlier posts, we have thoughts, and those thoughts will produce feelings.

Thanksgiving can be made out to be a warm and fuzzy concept connected with earth tones and romantic themes of the courage and bravery of the pilgrims.  However, like the Christmas music that has been playing already for about three weeks, it can get thin, meaningless, and be easily forgotten when compared against the pain we may feel for whatever reason.

A relevant question here is "What if I have questions about the existence of God or I have problems with God given my abuse?" Why should I be thankful for something I am not sure I believe in?  Many of us are therefore faced with a challenge or maybe a number of them. 

Given all those challenges I think that Thanksgiving can be defined simply as

Looking at what is positive in your situation 

 or

 realizing what could be worse

 and

taking note of it

and

repeating as often as necessary.

   

I think that there is always the possibility of finding something positive and meaningful about your situation.  On the flip side I think that there is also the possibility of finding something negative and meaningless about your situation.  This is akin to the old adage:

Is the glass half-empty or half-full?  

I caution that practicing Thanksgiving is not necessarily going to make you happier.  It may only make you less miserable; it is no panacea.

I am mindful of my college wrestling practices at a Christian college I went to.  There was a circle before practice and my coach would go around the circle and ask was good with the different guys. I realize in my preoccupied mind, I was not thinking about what was good, but about that 10-page paper I had to type with a manual typewriter.  When myself or one of the other team members drew a blank, my coach would then chide with his usual sarcasm:

"You woke up today.  You're breathing aren't you. That's good isn't it?"  

To which I stupidly said, "Yeah."

Thanksgiving is not a past action of nostalgia

I realize that in this intense world we live in where we are focused on the demands and requirements, thoughts about what we are thankful may be foreign.  We easily get preoccupied with the demands of our lives and our perceived deficiencies in meeting those demands; we obsess about what is wrong versus and forget what is right. 

The holidays and the idealism of what they should be allow for few gray areas.  Idealism demands that holidays be all or nothing matter.  We look to nostalgia to make things better. 

Nostalgia is a selective look back to the past when you did not have one or more of the problems that you have now. Nostalgia sells lots of over-priced and cheaply-made retail items in the holiday aisles of discount retailers, but it blinds you to the reality that the the past had its problems too.  My grandmother's nostalgic stories of the Great Depression seem a little far fetched to me now.

Thanksgiving is a present action of choice and not being

I hold that thanksgiving is a present action.  Thanksgiving is in the here and now. Thanksgiving may include remembrance of what has happened in the past, but it should have meaning for now.  For example, I am thankful that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins.  I am saved because of his past action.  Being born again does not make me or my life perfect, but like Zig Ziglar has said, I have one less problem because I know my future is secure.

Looking at the bright side and practicing thanksgiving is a commitment. For some it may necessitate frequent reflection on what you have to be thankful for. For many it may be looking at the tiny items in your life that are good. 

Thanksgiving can be hard work, especially if you are so used to looking at what you don't have.  Depending on your situation, you may have to think about those tiny good things again and again throughout the day.  You may have to read a list of what you are thankful 100 times a day if that is what it takes to ease your pain and give you perspective.

Another day if you want to look at it that way.

Even if the above thoughts are a little bit weak for your needs and Thanksgiving Day is still going to be miserable,  I fall back to position that how you spend those 24 hours on November 24, 2011 is your choice and only your choice.

You have the power to decide how you will spend it with the resources and abilities that you have. 
After awhile in the mental health business, I realized that some people are miserable because they choose to be miserable and no one was going to tell them to cheer up.  They were survivors who wanted to be in control and being miserable was their way of control.

If you are wanting to be thankful, then choose to practice it--you are not necessarily going to be it because you want it, but because you DO it.

If you just want to be miserable on Thanksgiving Day, have at it. Control is like a stale potato chip.  It may be stale and unappealing, but at least you have it.