Traditions

I'm going to deviate from my normal format where a clear connection is made between my life now as compared to my life before surgery.

This has to do with traditions and when it's time to let them go.

This season we're in is all about the traditions. We all have them and they all mean different things to each other, even within the same family.

A newer tradition we have started in the last couple of years since my brother moved closer to us, and he is the only one on my side of the family that has little kids, is that we go to his house on Christmas Eve for dinner and merriment.

A tradition my husband and I have done since our first Christmas together is that we do a Feast of the Twelve Fishes but with sushi. We do this because when we started dating, we pretty much just went out for Asian food for lunch, and in marrying him and taking his name, I gave up a pretty rocking Italian last name.

The thing is with traditions is that they grow and transform, or maybe even go away, as families change, get older, and then add new ones in the form of in-laws and children. My niece and nephew are 5 and 3 so Christmas literally changes every year with them so far.

My husband and I recognized that some of the traditions that we have participated in are not going to work for us this year, and maybe for the foreseeable future. This has caused a lot of strife in our family.

I'll skip you the gory details, but between my history of Seasonal Depression, the fact that I'm actually on a work trip for almost the entire month of December, and the fact that my coping mechanism has been taken away from me, we decided to take Christmas to the barest of bare bones. This has not been kindly received from certain members of our extended family, so we have decided to spend Christmas with just the two of us, and possibly making that a tradition.

I think the funniest thing about all of this was that when we decided to do Christmas on our own, our minds immediately went to food partially. Food is so deeply rooted in this season its nearly impossible to escape it.

There are a few important things I'm taking from this rather difficult last week and a half or so:

1) When traditions come before people, it's time to let them go. I'm not saying that if one person can't eat cake anymore we need to not have cake. I'm saying it's unreasonable to maintain a tradition for the sake of tradition if its simply not working for certain members of the family. Allow your family to continue to serve cake, but make sure they know you will not provide cake if it's ever your turn.

2) Allow yourself to be excused. If an aspect of the holiday is starting to be too much for you, politely excuse yourself and take a walk around the neighborhood or find a quiet room to sit down in for a few minutes. I feel like such an anti-social creep when I do this but I know it's needed if I want to be a constructive member of the family.

3) Learn to watch for your signs of overdoing it. This can vary for everyone. For me, I will feel an extreme temperature change. I'll suddenly get very hot or very cold.

4) Know when to say no. This is so much easier said than done, but understand your limits and know when it's the right time to refuse and invitation or say no to an aspect of a celebration.

This year is going to be interesting to say the least. I think I have a healthy relationship with food but I forgot how much I depended on it during this time of year. I'm hoping that lowering stresses as much as I have control over will help me every step of the way.