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Holiday Traditions


Holidays are tricky for me. They tend to bring back a great deal of unpleasantness growing up in a dysfunctional household. My mother longed for the Norman Rockwell scene of a happy family around a table, yet she never got that, or at least not during my time growing up in that household. My father would find any place else to be, and she’d then sulk. Maybe that’s why spending the holidays alone never bothered me. You get to watch what you want and no harassing questions about your life.
Married life changed that to a certain extent, with us visiting my in-laws during Christmas time until a combination of weather concerns and consistent and overwhelming work obligations for my husband made that too challenging. The last three years we’ve spent alone at home (with our cat), doing little of what’s expected of people at the holidays.
I’m always fascinated when people tell me what they and their families do for the holidays, and am thankful that I’m married to a vegetarian who will never expect me to master either a turkey or a ham for dinner. After a very slow moving Thanksgiving where my husband mostly recuperated and I watched an old Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger film (The Small Back Room), I managed to get a salad, potato dish, and corn muffins made, but that was it, before succumbing to a disappointing viewing of The Way We Were. Much like many other films that I enjoyed years ago, I’m finding a different experience watching them now. As a young woman, this film had seemed so romantic. Redford of course was yummy, but it was anything but romantic to me now.
I tried to be more together for Christmas Eve, making roast potatoes and green beans, getting cheeses, and heating up a pre-baked gluten free apple pie. Once again we saw a film of my youth, but strangely it held up better – Smokey and the Bandit. Yes, that is indeed what we watched on Christmas Eve. I noticed after Burt Reynolds died that the film was added to the streaming service, so I put it on our watch list. My husband had surprisingly never seen it; I’d only seen it edited for TV, but the ridiculous chase scenes along with budding feminism and sexual innuendos, was just the right level of lightness without the sappy holiday film sentimentalism. Plus, I just couldn’t deal with watching what used to be some of my most loved holiday movies (White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Christmas in Connecticut). I don’t know if my tastes are changing or it’s just the times we’re living in, but typical holiday fare just didn’t seem right to me.
I still keep thinking we need to create some sort of holiday traditions of our own that will last a while. I’m not sure Burt Reynolds films will fit the bill each time, but perhaps something else will click.

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