Reflections on Holidays and Families: A Test of Character

“The pur­pose of Chris­tian­ity is not to avoid dif­fi­culty, but to pro­duce a char­ac­ter ade­quate to meet it when it comes. It does not make life easy; rather it tries to make us great enough for life.”

~~ James L. Christensen ~~

Here we go! The hol­i­day sea­son has offi­cially begun. The hustle-bustle of shop­ping for presents is now the norm for many folks. For most of us, there will be too many par­ties, school pro­grams, and other oblig­a­tory appear­ances to make between now and Decem­ber 24.

Many Amer­i­cans, espe­cially women, are so tired from all the prepa­ra­tions that by the time Christ­mas arrives, they are com­pletely unable to enjoy it.

Hol­i­days also sig­nal another unique kind of stress: The “oh, my god, we have to spend time with the rel­a­tives” vari­ety. Sadly, this time of year is all-too-often rife with anx­i­ety, con­ster­na­tion, and emo­tional upheaval. Folks are expected to spend time with their extended fam­i­lies, as well as a vari­ety of friends, neigh­bors, acquain­tances, busi­ness asso­ciates, and, last but not least, fel­low church-goers.

Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but divi­sion. From now on there will be five in one fam­ily divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daugh­ter and daugh­ter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Luke 12:51–53
The Message

For many fam­i­lies, that pas­sage is lived out, in vary­ing degrees, dur­ing what is sup­posed to be “the most won­der­ful time of the year.” Nego­ti­a­tions between spouses about which par­ents to visit, at what time, for how long are final­ized and acted upon. Host­esses brace them­selves for the annual appear­ance by that one fam­ily mem­ber who always drinks too much before the hol­i­day din­ner and then starts a fight with an in-law. Moth­ers steel them­selves against the well-meaning but often snarky com­ments from the in-laws about their par­ent­ing tech­niques. Fathers begin the daily self-encouragement that will sus­tain them dur­ing a long week­end with their grumpy father-in-laws. And, of course, all of that emo­tional gird­ing fre­quently occurs in antic­i­pa­ton of the ardu­ous drive “over the rive and through the woods to grandmother’s house” with the kids scream­ing and fight­ing in the back seat, and the spouses argu­ing about which exit from the free­way is the cor­rect one.

If any of this sounds famil­iar and brings back mem­o­ries of hol­i­days past, take heart: You are in excel­lent com­pany! I’m con­fi­dent that any­one who is a mem­ber of a fam­ily — small or large — can con­jure up at least one mem­ory of at least one holiday-related dis­pute, debate, all-out argu­ment, feud or com­plete break­down of a rela­tion­ship that remains unhealed, per­haps after many years.

A cou­ple of my rel­a­tives expe­ri­enced just such a fight. I grew up under­stand­ing that they did not speak to each other. Even­tu­ally, some­body inquired as to pre­cisely why they no longer inter­acted. And nei­ther of them nor any of the extended fam­ily mem­bers could remem­ber why! So many years had passed that they were utterly stumped about the basis for their ostracism of each other. Thus, they decided, in the inter­est of “mak­ing peace” before the first left this earth, to put aside their dif­fer­ences. They were the best of friends until the first of them died. But they missed a lot of years together — they did not rec­on­cile until they were both well into their seventies.

We can all deepen our enjoy­ment of the hol­i­day sea­son if we remem­ber that the pur­pose of Chris­tian­ity is not to avoid dif­fi­cul­ties with our rel­a­tives, in-laws, boss, cowork­ers, neigh­bors, fel­low parish­ioners, et al., but to develop char­ac­ter ade­quate to meet those dif­fi­cul­ties when they arise. After all, the old cliché is ver­i­fi­ably accu­rate: We do not get to choose our rel­a­tives or, in most instances, the many other folks in our lives with whom we have ongo­ing rela­tion­ships. There­fore, we need to exer­cise patience, tol­er­ance, and some­times, espe­cially in the case of the elder mem­bers of our fam­i­lies, deference.

The con­flicts and strug­gles we endure with our loved ones, espe­cially at this time of year, are not made guan­teed to be made eas­ier by the fact that we are fol­low­ers of the cross. Rather, the unique path we walk equips us to deal with those sit­u­a­tions with a gen­er­ous spirit and kind heart devel­oped and main­tained through prayer and faith.

In response to the Writer’s Island Prompt Num­ber 8: Memories

Orig­i­nally pub­lished Novem­ber 20, 2007.

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