On Considering Thanksgiving
The commercialization of American holidays prompts us to consider the sizeable distance between what’s promised and what’s predictable. These holidays unfold much like the Peanuts comic strip featuring Charlie Brown’s sister Lucy, in which Lucy ostensibly holds a football for Charlie to kick, only to take it away at the last moment. “AAUGH!” cries Charlie Brown, as he kicks thin air and does a somersault prior to landing on his back. “AAUGH!” expresses much the same sentiment of many of my patients as they confront, once again, the letdown that predictably follows the festivities.
In contrast, there are those who come back from their time with family reporting poignant encounters of solid good cheer and expressing heartfelt desire of doing it again next year. What is the difference, one might ask, between these two groups? Over many years, my patients have recounted at least four distinct types of holiday environments in which unpleasurable experiences dominate, and only one generally enjoyable holiday ethos. Tolstoy was on to something when he said, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Go Along to Get Along
As my patient Al put it on the Friday after Thanksgiving, “It was just the same as it always is. My parents, my siblings and I put on our forced family fun faces and exchanged pleasant palaver of no real importance. It was as though we were in competition to see how little we could reveal about what we were feeling or thinking. I actually heard my cousin say to his mother, ‘I love it here at grandmas, it’s always the same, nothing ever happens!’” This type of group avoids any possible tension by confining discourse to the most anodyne. The upside is that no one is visibly upset. The downside is that no one feels connected.
Don’t Tread on Me
Sometimes, instead of wanting to avoid potential conflicts at all costs, certain family groups come baited for bear. My patient Mary told me recently, “I couldn’t believe it. We got into it even before everyone was there. My father made an anti MAGA joke just at the moment my sister-in-law entered the room wearing one of those hats. I raised my eyebrows at my mother as she was pouring her 3rd glass of wine, and she said, ‘wha, youse tink Imma drunk?!?’ And before I knew what I was doing I snapped, ‘Yeh, I tink you is!’” By the time we sat down to eat it wasn’t clear we’d all still be there for dessert.” This group conflates railing against with relating to. The result is more battle than belonging.
I’m Not Actually Here
Another common holiday adaptation is for families to be checked out, glued to their cell phones, not making eye contact, coming late or leaving early. Jason tells me that “My aunt’s attempt at hosting Thanksgiving this year seemed more like a passive aggressive drive by than a family holiday celebration. Everyone was flitting about, unfocussed, needing to get up frequently to fill their drinks, go to the bathroom, move their cars. More than once I saw someone simply drift away. We were like zombies.” This type of group would appear to be torn between not wanting to be there at all, yet not wanting to miss out.
This is Bloody Awful
Then there is the group that freely demonstrates a kind of superior disdain. These gatherings tend to be rife with sardonic humor, as if the attendees were critics at a performance they were only too glad to pan. An English patient puts it succinctly when she says, “You know, it’s like we’re performing a kind of holiday satire, poking not-so-good-humored-fun at the host and one another. My favorite this year was my uncle Randal’s response to my stepbrother’s wife, Trish, who, it must be said, acts like she’s descended from royalty. They came quite late, and when Trish exclaimed, “Oh so sorry, we’re just back from the island!” Randal lowered his glasses and said, “Oh really? Which one, Staten?”
Coming Together vs Growing Apart
Somewhere between personal predilections and performative pressures there exists an interpersonal space that we enjoy being in. These better times are had by those who feel comfortable with one another during the rest of the year.
Ritualized holidays, whether cultural or religious, are often less than fun because the attendees go more out of duty than desire, and because they haven’t made the effort in cultivating meaningful relationships with the folks whom they know will be there. The conceit is that what is passed off for holiday pleasure is actually a collusion in holiday pretense. Unresolved tensions, overt antagonisms, and badly hurt feelings are suppressed for the purpose of putting on a happy holiday show that predictably results in a deepening of those wounds.
It is not Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Kwanza, Christmas and the other major holidays that pose the difficulties. It’s what is happening or not happening during the rest of the year. A more interesting question than “what are you doing over the holidays?” may be, “how are your relationships going?” Being in a more meaningful conversation can happen anytime throughout the year. And then, just maybe, next holiday season you will get to actually kick the football.
RESOURCE:
For further questions contact Dr. Nicholas Samstag, Ph.D. In addition to subconscious anxiety, he has extensive experience working with people who have the following types of anxiety and anxiety-related disorders:
Irrational fears and phobias
Panic disorders
Anxiety with depression
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Dr. Samstag is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst living and working in New York City. Nick's many services include individual and couples’ treatment, consults, and virtual psychotherapy. He also offers supervision to doctoral psychology students, psychoanalytic candidates, and psychiatry residents.