Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Holiday Rhetoric

Reunite 
       Around the holidays is when families start to reunite. When Thanksgiving and Christmas come around, that is when you start seeing more family members and see some members of your family only on holidays in some cases. I have a certain family members that ONLY come around during holidays and call me and try to talk to me like we are close as can be and like they are always there for me. This is something that never made sense to me because why would you want to distance yourself from family members and then just all of a sudden take an interest in them? I think for some people holidays are there way of getting in contact with their whole family and doing things that make them feel better about never talking to them. People buy gifts for one another and visit each other’s houses and have dinner with each other when in reality they can’t stand each other and that is why they only talk to each other once a year.
       There are the instances where family members live very far apart and they cannot be in regular contact with each other and do not have time to check up on one another, especially if you have a big family. This is where the whole idea of families coming together for the holidays can be a good thing. Holidays can be awkward though because there always those couple people in the family that you don’t really like coming around but they do anyway and its ok because it’s the holidays and people are supposed to “come together.” I realize that not everyone has a dysfunctional family but I would guarantee that almost everyone has that one grandma or one uncle or whatever that they should probably talk to more often and feel bad about not doing so. When holidays come around that is when everyone comes together and it is supposed to be all happy and everything is ok. I think that people should not wait until holidays to get in contact with one another and that they should be for them year round as much as they can. You are supposed to be there for your family always, not just for holidays to support a superficial idea coming together for the holidays. 

1 comment:

  1. I can relate to the dysfunctional Christmas that you are talking about. It seems like everyone comes to Thanksgiving not really wanting to be there, at least at my Thanksgiving it is that way. My parents often will sit and talk about what will be the best excuse to leave early. This year it was Black Friday shopping, even though we did not go Black Friday and did not even intend to go in general. Usually I only see most of my family on these two days, Christmas and Thanksgiving. Any other time if I see them in Wal-Mart and go up to say "Hey" they make a B-line for the exit. I will not lie, most of the family I have are a bunch of nut cases so I do not know if that is such a bad thing :). I think most people just go through the motions for the holidays. They feel obligated to put on some kind of act, to show people how “family oriented they are.”

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