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 Texas : Features : Columns : Letters From North America :

Holiday Season

by Peary Perry
Peary Perry
Anyone who has had married children or in laws of their own should be able to identify with what I’m about to say. This time of the year (the holiday season) puts an enormous amount of stress on family relationships.

The major decision to be made is… who goes where without hurting anyone’s feelings? If we went to your parents house last Thanksgiving, do we go to mine this year? If we all get together at our house for Christmas, where do we go next year? The problem seems to only get worse once your children go off and get married. Now, we have to deal with the in-laws of their spouses. So, it keeps on getting more difficult as the years wear on. The stress of trying to put everyone together in one place at one time seems almost impossible at times.

Some families try to hold family reunions every so often and rotate these from place to place as conditions allow. Here again, we run into the obstacle of getting everyone from one place to another for several days and nights at a time. Distances and work schedules tend to put a crimp in plans and expectations.

I’ve dealt with this issue all of my life. Some of the most stressful periods in my life have occurred as a result of my parents fighting over where to go and when they should go. My Mother’s parents or my Father’s? There didn’t seem to be any clear cut plan or simple method of resolving the issue from one year to another.

Like most families, our kids live in different places. Fortunately, we all live in the same state so it isn’t like some of them have to travel from one part of the world to get here. Just trying to coordinate with everyone’s schedule is really the hardest part.

I suppose I’m somewhat slow, but it has taken me all of these years to get to a possible solution. This year I rented a six bedroom, six bath beach house for Labor Day. Everyone is off that weekend and not many of us have so-called family obligations like we do for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it seemed like the perfect holiday for all of us to get together. I was not wrong.

So, for the first time in about thirteen years, my wife and I ended up spending three wonderful days with our four sons, our three daughters in laws, our two granddaughters and we had a great time. They laughed, played games, cooked, played in the sand and in the ocean and just chilled out. The perfect holiday.

No one got stressed out, no one got upset, no arguments and no conflicts with any one else’s parents or in-laws. This is going to be our time of the year. We discussed where everyone is spending Thanksgiving and Christmas, so that’s out of the way, over and done with. We can move on to next year.

Everything went great except for the required family photo. Trying to get eleven people in the same place at the same time to sit still for a picture is harder than you think. Some were at the beach, some were at lunch, some were asleep….so it isn’t easy to corral everyone together for ten minutes and try to grab a group shot. I finally managed to get it done and then I could leave everyone alone for the remainder of the weekend. Those pictures are very important to me. Everyone changes so quickly, especially the grandchildren. I want a record of those changes. This was my only requirement for the entire weekend…..

Sitting around listening to all of my family talk to one another and discuss things fills my heart to the brim. I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything. To me this is what life is all about. Just being around them makes me want to try harder and keep on going. We have so much to be thankful for and so many opportunities still out there waiting for us to grab hold of.

Life is full of stress and strain on each of us. We all need to take a few days out of our schedules and spend time with those that we love. Family is the true foundation of our society.

© Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com

Letters From North America - September 11, 2009 column
Syndicated weekly in 80 newspapers

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