Each day during The PURSE-onality Challenge: "A Holiday-Ready Heart" in October, Untangling Christmas by Karen Ehman and LeAnn Rice, will be our give-away prize!
Enter via the Rafflecopter at the end of the blog post or click here to enter!
How It Works (via Bullet Points & Videos!)
Day 1: LOVED (+ 2 Vital Questions to Ask NOW)
Day 2: CHOSEN - Making Right Holiday Choices
Day 3: COMPLETE (+ 5 Gift-Giving Questions)
Day 4: PURE (+ Goodbye, Ghosts of Christmas Past)
For our very first Christmas as newlyweds, Daniel and I didn’t visit his family or mine. Instead, we wanted to start our own family traditions.
Anxious to be a good wife and do everything “right” for our first Christmas together, I got up early that morning and started cooking enough food for an army.
Once Daniel was awake, I asked him the all-important question of the day:
“What time do you want to eat?”
He replied, “I don’t care.”
I was stunned by such an unthinkable response. Clearly, he had misunderstood my question, so I spoke more clearly the second time I asked,
I was stunned by such an unthinkable response. Clearly, he had misunderstood my question, so I spoke more clearly the second time I asked,
“What time do you want to eat?”
He enunciated his repeated response with equal care:
“I. Don’t. Care.”
With more patience than I felt a Choleric should ever be required to demonstrate, I gave this man I’d promised to love, honor, and cherish one last chance:
“What time do you want to eat?”
This time, his response came out as one exasperated word:
“I. Don’t. Care.”
With more patience than I felt a Choleric should ever be required to demonstrate, I gave this man I’d promised to love, honor, and cherish one last chance:
“What time do you want to eat?”
This time, his response came out as one exasperated word:
“IDON’TCARE.”
Fine. I’d had enough, too!
“Then we’ll eat at three o’clock.”
Christmas Dinner My Family’s Way
I cooked and baked for hours, keeping my eye on the clock and wishing I had the double-decker ovens that gave my mother such an unfair advantage. Still, I was determined to have all hot foods on the table hot and cold foods on the table cold between 3:00:00 and 3:00:30, just as she’d raised me to do.
At 2:45, Daniel laid down on the couch.
By 2:50, he was asleep.
Not just “resting his eyes” asleep. Deep, snoring-up-a-storm asleep.
I was dumbfounded but undaunted.
At 2:59, I woke him up, telling him, “It’s time to eat,” and at 3:00:10 I started serving.
Daniel came to the table, ate a few bites of everything on his plate, and -- true to his Phlegmatic nature! -- at 3:04 laid back down on the couch. By 3:05, he was snoring again.
I will spare you my reactions, both as his napped and after he woke up. Suffice to say: I shed tears. And we had words.
Christmas Dinner His Family’s Way
The next year, we decided to join Daniel’s family for Christmas. Imagine my surprise when several family members showed up, unannounced, around 8:30 in the morning, bearing a couple of casserole dishes.
A stack of paper plates was produced and everyone started eating.
Everyone except for me, that is.
Paper plates?
On Christmas?
Is this even allowed? (I half expected the police to show up at any moment!)
An hour or so later, more family came. With more food, which was added to the growing collection on the kitchen table.
Everyone helped themselves to the new offerings as well as seconds of the original dishes.
Except for me. After all,
- I’d never eaten Christmas dinner off anything other than my mother’s special china dishes. The ones she’d brought over from Germany after she spent a year as an exchange student. The ones she didn’t let anyone carry except for herself...and me.
- I’d never eaten Christmas dinner anywhere other than seated stiffly at my mother’s formal dining room table, with a place card bearing my name between the small salad bowl and bread plate. And with a gigantic centerpiece blocking my view of half my family.
By mid-day, the kitchen table and counters were covered with food. Dozens of family members mingled throughout the house and all over the back yard, some reclining on lawn chairs.
Lawn chairs.
I made it through that day without having a nervous break-down (but it was a very close call!)
I finally did pile a paper plate with food.
But I could not bring myself to sit on a lawn chair.
Tradition!
A few months ago, my friend Julie–who converted from Judaism to Christianity as a teenager–and I attended the play Fiddler on the Roof. On the drive home, we discussed the struggle the father experienced each time one of his daughters wanted to defy tradition.
Julie fondly recalled some of the Jewish rituals she’d grown up with. But she observed that what made these rituals meaningful was the close relationships she had with the family members who performed the rituals. Because the relationships were already strong, the rituals bonded them together as a family.
However, for those who did not already have the foundational relationships, rituals not only failed to create closeness, they actually caused division. They alienated family members from each other.
Rituals without relationships disintegrate quickly into rigid rules.
Relationships over Rituals
At Christmas, we get to celebrate the gift of righteousness God gave us by sending His Son.
Yet God, with undeserved kindness,
declares that we are righteous.
He did this through Christ Jesus
when He freed us from
the penalty for our sins.
Romans 3:24 (NLT)
Too often, though, we get caught up in defending the right-ness of our rituals.
At the time of year when we sing in church about peace, joy, and love, we too often go home and fight to the death of our relationships over
- gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day
- everyone around the table or eating in shifts
- home-made or store-bought
I posed this question on Facebook: So what's the difference between the rituals of a wonderful family tradition that brings people closer together...and the rigidity of old rules that drive a wedge between people?
All generations are different. I was thinking about the story about how three or four generations in the family always cut the ends of the ham off to cook it. When asked why they did it, they said that whoever was in the generation before (ie. mom, grandma, etc...) had always done it that way so they did it, too. When they got all the way back to the reason that the first generation had done it, it was because the ham wouldn't fit in the pan to cook without cutting the ends off. Here all of this time later they were still doing it, just because the others had done it that way. When we really look at why we do things, we may realize that we don't have to do something just because that's the way it's always been done. It's okay to change things.
Kristina
When traditions get in the way of the togetherness...when sticking to the "right" way makes everyone so stressed that they are miserable, or not allowing for changes in life circumstances, i.e. you CANNOT have a big meal and all eat at the same time when there are 10 kids, and six of them are under the age of three! You have to be flexible. We ate in shifts, but took a big family photo first, and we all prayed together.
Adelle
Talking About Traditions NOW
NOW –- long before the expectations and pressures of the holidays are bearing down upon us -- is a great time to talk about the traditions, the rituals, the “always been done this way”s in our families.
Some conversation starters:
- What is the history of our family’s traditions/rituals?
- What was the original purpose of each one?
- What relationships did they strengthen?
- What has changed since these traditions/rituals were first started?
- Which ones meet my PURSE-onality needs? How/why?
- Which ones meet your PURSE-onality needs? How/why?
- Which ones violate someone's PURSE-onality needs? How/why?
- Which traditions/rituals might we discard? replace? revise?
Your Turn!
- What is one of your favorite family traditions/rituals? Why is it a favorite? What relationships does it strengthen?
- What is one of your least favorite family traditions/rituals? Why is it a least favorite? What relationships does it stress?
- What family tradition/ritual would you like to discard / replace / revise this year?
- Anything else on your heart!
