Do You Hang on TOO Tight to Ceremony?

When you grow up in a Catholic household with strong Irish heritage, there’s never going to be any doubt about living in a world steeped in ceremonies and rituals.

When your Myers-Briggs personality type is identified as ESFJ, then one of your values is Social Tradition.  So ceremonies and rituals become a useful and successful strategy.

When you choose to work in a coaching/counselling arena, then ceremonies and rituals become a technique you encourage clients to use to mark significant shifts and changes in their lives.

Do you get the message?

The Old Pink Apple Tart here is pretty familiar with ceremonies and in fact I tend to relish the opportunity to introduce a ritual to many things in my life (even if it’s a one-person ceremony.)  The only trouble is that with that kind of history and embedded thinking, change can be harder to embrace.  I need to hear good reasons for changing my patterns of behaviour, or introducing a new ceremony.

When I look back at Christmases Past, the one that stands out in memory was the first PC Christmas (post-children) we had in OUR home.  It was just a few weeks after #3 was born and I thought it would be good for me and bubs and the pre-schoolers to stay home all day.  To get this idealistic dream, I had to have my family for lunch and SweetP’s for dinner!  (What WAS I thinking?  I can’t remember WHY I couldn’t join them together.  Maybe bloody-mindedness and obsession with tradition?)

By my judgment, the ONLY way to conduct Christmas was to have simple stocking fillers from Santa appearing in the pillow case in the early morning, and then “proper” presents coming from Mum and Dad under the tree.  Those presents didn’t get touched till the Present Distribution Ritual once everybody (the adults) had gathered, had a drink and some nibblies, and was ready!  It didn’t matter how many times kids asked “Can we open our presents?” the answer was No.  It was good for them to learn to wait!

The presents had a ritual all their own, as well.  It was best if one person handed them out.  And it was better if that person was an adult who could keep an eye on harmony by avoiding one person having five presents piled in front of them and another none.  (After all gifts just got plonked under the tree so random was part of the whole scene.  Yes I know I have just described a less-than-random scene.  I NEVER said this story had logic as part of its make-up.)

SweetP’s family on the other hand had a method that I believed was haphazard and chaotic (and therefore totally unacceptable).  As you walked in the door (still with bowls of food, children, and presents in your arms), other family would approach you with a kiss and present.  For me, who valued some semblance of organisation, this chaotic mayhem was HELL.  I had no idea who’d given what to the kids, after all I was busy putting down a half-sleepy toddler, moving food into the kitchen, and fielding presents left, right and centre, all while desperate for a breath, a cuppa, a drink, or all three!  The kids tore things apart wildly and with great glee, egged on by grandparents and uncles.  Why wouldn’t they?  There was noise everywhere and I just felt totally overwhelmed and out of control.  (Not a comfy place for Pink Apple Tart even way back then!)

So THIS Christmas I was going to get my own way!  (Yes!  I can see the issues here.)

I carefully prepared the in-laws (especially MIL who was just as bloody-minded as I was) and battled their disapproval and arguments against my methods.  They reluctantly agreed.

The end to the story?  By the time I’d had my family for lunch, battling heat and a breast-fed baby who was unhappy cos his stressed-out Mummy had allowed her milk supply to dwindle for lack of fluids and attention to self-care, I just wanted to run away, crawl into bed, or otherwise avoid my MIL.  The delightful present-giving ritual I’d insisted on, had an air of awkwardness and resistance from the participants, and NO pleasure for any of us!  The kids just wanted their pressies.

The point?

One outcome of the whole event was a significant rise in my loathing of the whole of Christmas.

Any shift in my habits was delayed by the death of my MIL, and the abandonment of any Christmas traditions within SweetP’s family.

Another outcome was: enough evidence, though only with significant hindsight, to persuade me that change was needed and that tradiitons could not be transplanted from one group to another.  By the time I could unravel where my loathing of Christmas could come from, I had reached a point of being prepared to accept ANY changes to Christmas traditions.

Now I am happy to cast aside traditions with ease.  So when my son (father of my new granddaughter) suggested it was time to stop sharing Christmas with my extended family and instead develop a new ceremony where we become the observing (and indulgent) grandparents, I was happy to agree.  It was easy.  I’d already let go of so much from working to achieve Christmas calm!

So this year is the time we say goodbye to our extended family joining us on Christmas Day.

Instead I am handing over the baton to my son.  I know he still values family.  I trust that he will create new rituals and will ask my opinions.  I can let go.

The relief is enormous!

So what about you? Do you have any over-tight addictions to Christmas/Holiday rituals?

Is there some sign that is quietly calling to you (or YELLING at you) that it’s time to let go?

Why not have a think about it over this Christmas?

Believe me, the world won’t end.