Family Christmas

 

When we revisit childhood sites there can be a kind of temporal vertigo in which the years collapse in on themselves. This often happens on a return to school or university. Sometimes it happens in a family setting. This year my cousin kindly hosted Christmas at her home in which I spent numerous Christmases before the age of 10. It's in that life period real Christmas imprinting takes place. The template is cut against which all future Christmases are judged.

Returning to that house with children of my own but together too with my father and sister got me thinking about how families evolve both by degrees but also in leaps and bounds. There can be years in which family dynamics seem hardly to change, then there is a birth, marriage or death and suddenly the warp and weft of the family tapestry is fundamentally altered.

It can be very tempting to resist change and the big life events are an obvious challenge to that impulse but it seems to me important to remember that even in the quiet moments change is always happening. Family rituals can often obscure changes hence the disproportionate tension that can arise when a presents before lunch person marries an after luncher. Also, as often happens in life, close proximity can prevent a clear observation of developments.

Ironically it's in noticing and, even more so, in embracing change that family traditions remain vital and meaningful rather than stale retreads of what went before. Families are, of course, composed of individuals and constituent groupings but they are also or at least can be more than the sum of their parts. Christmas can be so freighted with expectation because people instinctively know this and when we gather there is inevitably an assessment of where we stand in relation to the whole but also of the whole itself.

Some families are very expressive and open about this process, some refer to it only obliquely and others leave it all unsaid but somehow manage to make their feelings known nonetheless. It certainly isn't always easy but I admire families that manage to gather and cohere. Sometimes it is necessary for people to stand apart from their family to safeguard their own wellbeing or because they are the victims of familial prejudice or even threat. But spurning family for no really good reason is perhaps a prime example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It's precisely because you don't get to choose your family that they hold a value that a friend never can. Even closest and oldest friends don't have the time, energy or interest to engage with and assess your development in a way that your parents, siblings and relations (often maddeningly) do. When we are able to value our family, both in terms of cherishing them but also in being unabashed about taking stock, the chances are the family will value us.