#HolidayTravel #FamilyGatherings #traffic #AirTravel #families
This, and every holiday season, is a time for joy, celebration and reflections of faith.
It’s also a time for gifts, parties and family gatherings.
Are you looking forward to your family gathering?
Families can be wonderful, loving, inspiring and encouraging.
They can also be fraught with tension, animosity and jealousy.
If you have an extended family in which everyone not only gets along, but also is genuinely happy to be among one another, consider yourself truly blessed. Not all families are like that.
There is nothing worse this time of year than to make a big sacrifice to get somewhere for a family gathering, and either not want to be there or not have a good time.
As you ponder whether to go to a family gathering, consider what you might have to do to get there. Will you have to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic, or drive through hazardous winter conditions, that extend a trip for hours more than it should take? Will you have to negotiate a crowded airport, complete with multiple contagions, risk flight cancellations because of weather or other reasons and wind up not getting there in time for the festivities?
And, as you consider whether to make the trek, do you hear things like: “so-and-so will be so disappointed if you don’t come.” Or, “this may be so-and-so’s last Christmas (or Hanukkah).”
Those guilt trips are merely that because, in some cases, the so-and-so who would be disappointed if you didn’t come may simply give you a hug when you arrive and when you leave, but not talk to you very much the rest of the time – unless, of course, to tell you how he or she doesn’t like, or disapproves of, something in your life.
By all means, if you have an overwhelming sense of obligation that you can’t shake, make the trip.
Holiday family gatherings became customary when everyone in the family lived near each other. As members of the family – usually the younger ones who grow up – move away, they become more complicated. With all the advances in travel over the decades, traveling today can be difficult, not to mention exhausting and frustrating. Holidays are supposed to be fun and celebratory. Often, they are stressful and lead to hurt feelings, arguments etc.
Political polarization within families can add to the tension. The TV commercial in which a holiday dinner leads to a physical fight is not necessarily overdramatic.
Yes, all of us are born into a family. We should cherish where we came from. But, we don’t necessarily have to be obligated to all members of that family.
A good rule of thumb is: if you KNOW you will enjoy yourself at a holiday family gathering, make the effort to go.
Or, if you really want to see some, if not necessarily all, members of the family, try to get there.
But if you know a trip to a family gathering will be stressful, and getting there will be a big sacrifice for you, then you may want to rethink making the trip.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go. But, if you do, go having weighed all the considerations.
Sometimes we view these occasions as automatic. They don’t have to be. You have choices, even during the holidays. Try to celebrate wherever you will be the happiest.
The best of holidays to all.
Peter