Why do people continue this awful tradition, which no one except maybe children and the elderly enjoy?
I do remember having fun at holiday dinners in the prehistoric past, when those of my generation were too little to grok the conflicts and competitiveness of this horrible annual ritual.
And Christmas cards: same deal, with photos and (save us) narratives of the sender’s perfect selves, perfect spouses, perfect houses, perfect vacations and oh-so-popular-and-athletic perfect children.
Lest you doubt me, when’s the last time you got a card from a non-Asian family that mentions their children’s academic success? The 1960’s?
If one were to cast the American Christmas (or Hanukkah or I suppose Kwanza) dinner, it would have to include the following:
– an overbearing, hyper-critical, self-absorbed matriarch;
– a male chauvinist uncle;
– a set of thin, well-off, expensively dressed and perfectly coifed Sadie aunts who keep undesirables out of their kitchens and brag about their early retirement plans (oh, for pity’s sake, sell your house and move to your condo, already!);
– a bunch of unruly kids;
– the favorite nephew or niece who, as an adolescent, charms with their vibrant personality and incredible good looks and, as an adult, graces the proceedings with the presence of their shockingly attractive spouse and offspring;
– the clutch of male relatives who are too lofty to help with clean-up, retiring instead to the den to discuss important matters like the salaries of professional athletes;
– the obligatory loner, invited out of an exaggerated sense of charity and, thus, permitted to contribute nothing (the “oh, just sit and enjoy yourself” exile, delivered with a grimace by the head Sadie), but who provides a convenient whipping person, on the basis that all the good-looking, well-off, successful people in attendance resent the fact that their superior social skills** inexplicably deteriorate in the loner’s presence;
– the least-favored aunt or uncle, nephew or niece whose conversation – offered with the best of intentions and in all good humor – will be nit-picked for weeks because the Privileged Ones, insecure to the core despite their lofty social status, professional success and material wealth, take umbrage at some slight suggestion of self-worth as yet unendorsed by Them and, thus, judged to be unseemly….
I could go on and on.
Gone are the days when maiden aunts were prized as the personal possessions of little children who unequivocably adored them.
Gone are the days when gracious hosts went out of their way to ensure that guests without direct family credentials were included in conversations and even the most humble hostess gift or food offering was oohed and ahhed over, rather than implicitly but definitively awarded last place in a silent contest for Best Dessert.
Gone are the days of gatherings at a real table, with buffet-style dinners favored instead, enabling hostile camps to gather in different rooms and even on different floors.
I don’t mind holiday get-togethers if they happen on neutral ground, with limited pecking order opportunities and room to escape.
My DIL’s father accomplishes this miracle every year with his traditional Fourth of July party, an event with, literally, no walls – he invites half the universe to his beachfront property, provides ample outdoor seating, tons of wonderful food, and is perfectly happy to let his guests entertain themselves by wandering on the beach, using his boat, transporting children in their 3-wheeler, playing horseshoes, providing professional-level entertainment and lighting fireworks.
He and his wife do the cooking, and they are insistent (in a very nice way) that guests stay out of the way, thus avoiding the whole Sadie-in-the-kitchen grab-for-dominance mess.
I usually spend most of the day with the kids, which takes the edge off the whole male chauvinism and Sadie conversation bitchiness.
Even though most of the adults exclude me, apparently on the basis that homeliness is catching and infection would mean divorce and unemployment, I still have a good time beachcombing, watching the hermit crabs and the tiny fish, and figuring out how to get the kids back and forth from “Treasure Island” without drowning anyone.
We’ve discussed this: Christmas, we appreciate your bright lights and pretty colors, but your phoney conviviality and anything-but-Christian exclusion of people not born lucky leaves the judges cold, so you are OUDT: please leave the runway.
**I’ve never met a good-looking, financially well-off person in my life who could carry on a decent conversation or entertain with scintillating wit. That’s probably because they are so inner-directed, and it takes some tragedy in the course of a lifetime to wake people up from their solipsistic slumber.
If you are a wealthy friend of mine and are reading this blog, you probably have a few brain cells in your head and are reasonably articulate, so for purposes of this discussion, consider yourself “plain” since, a priori, you can’t be clever, rich, beautiful and part of my social circle. I don’t know anyone who is all of those.
Returning from that aside: I have no idea what the Haves talk about, conversations usually cease when I try to join them.
One suspects, though, if they are middle-aged, they are waxing rhapsodic about their triumphs on athletic fields of yore or the cleverness of their current investment manager.
In fact, one such social butterfly made it at point at Thanksgiving dinner one year to interrupt the meal with crass braggadocio about his new status as a millionaire, thanks to his wife’s transfering her old retirement funds to their joint account.
Needless to say, he’s still welcome to dine with his wife’s extended family, whereas some of us have been banned, conversations about art, politics, world events or technology being not lightweight enough for proper American middle class gatherings.
And everyone blames Bush for the dumbing of America – ha!