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[Back to index of December articles] FAMILY MATTERS: By Margaret M. Treadwell How did Jesus celebrate his birthday as a child? Adolescent? Young adult? What would he say about the ways we celebrate his birthday now? It's "that time" of year again, when the Christmas preparation train starts down the track on the day after Halloween, then speeds up just after Thanksgiving despite our "slow down, quiet, it's Advent" mantra. "On whose terms will we spend our holidays?" asks a conflicted couple, parents of two young children. Her Jewish parents want them to come home for the holidays while the kids are on vacation. "They never had to make these decisions when I was a child because their parents, my grandparents, died so young," she explains. His large Protestant family still gathers at his elderly grandmother's for Christmas - a togetherness tradition that goes back several generations with strong matriarchs setting the stage for a compliant clan. With these family backgrounds, each is full of guilt about not being a good enough son or daughter. They declare themselves thoroughly stuck. As I listened to them grappling with familiar holiday questions about managing relationships, the phrase "Put on the armor of light" suddenly and spontaneously sprang to mind. St. Augustine of Hippo writes in "The Confessions," that in great distress over his dark life, he randomly opened the Bible, pointed his finger at a passage and converted to Christianity upon reading the letter of Paul to the Romans 13: 12-13: "Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light: let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy." Using this passage, the couple worked individually and together on their own conversion - three steps to begin a new way of thinking and being at Christmas: 1. Clarity of vision: Instead of focusing outward to fulfill perceived expectations from their extended families, they worked to become as clear as possible about what was best for their nuclear family now. After some negotiation, they took a mutual stand: "We want to stay home to create our own family traditions which will include both Jewish and Christian religious services and celebrations - and not too many material gifts." 2. Self-definition: Each wrote a letter to their respective families in which they non-anxiously stated their Christmas vision and belief. Then they proposed several dates when they could come for a quality time visit during a quieter season. Both letters were warm and loving in their honesty. Stepping out with their families on these points, both husband and wife discovered that there was a blurred line between "They think I should be with them," vs. "I think I should be with them." He admitted to projecting his "should" on his unsuspecting parents; in fact, he wished they would make more effort to travel to be with him and their grandchildren. Putting on the armor of light can deflect the intensity of anxiety around us, help us focus on our core of integrity and give us courage to be different from the clan while still in close contact on our own terms. It can allow us to be vulnerable while protecting us from taking perceived slights too personally, or help raise our threshold of sensitivity to the pain of those who are disappointed by our plans. Renewed relationships - the heart of Jesus' coming during Advent, Christmas and Epiphany - do best when we follow his example to persist with our vision and principles. May your days be merry and bright, with light emanating from your inmost being, projected to your family and then out into our troubled world. Margaret M. "Peggy" Treadwell is a family psychotherapist. She is the director of The Counseling Center at St. Columba's in Washington, D.C. [Back to index of December articles]
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