THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412180051
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
I'm the younger of two children. My role in the family is to sit back and let everyone take care of me.
It doesn't matter that it's been decades since I left home, or that I now have a family of my own. Whenever I'm around my sister and father, I go back to being the baby.
One year, I lost the keys to my rental car and had the whole family on hands and knees combing the grass for hours while I stood there helplessly blinking back tears.
A part of me laughs at these antics, and the teasing they bring, but part of me feels disgusted.
Wait a minute, I think. I'm a grown-up. I keep a household running, two children's lives moving in relative harmony, and have somehow managed to hold onto a job for 13 years. Why can't I walk through the door of my childhood home without feeling like a 6-year-old who's just lost her mittens?
My older sister, meanwhile, is the organizer of the family. She takes charge. Brings the most popular food. Selects the most useful presents. Comes up with the best ideas about what to do after dinner.
It drives me crazy.
Sound familiar?
It probably does. Change the names, the situations, the aggravation and I've summed up family gatherings for a lot of people.
As much as we enjoy getting together with family, many of us also go into those gatherings with a small dose of dread.
Cathleen Gray knows it's not all silver bells and candy canes out there. The professor of social work at the Catholic University of America has analyzed families whose holiday gatherings fall short of Hallmark cards.
The No. 1 problem is falling back into our childhood roles. We sit at the same spots at the table. Sleep in the same rooms. Take the same teasing from older siblings. Or allow ourselves to be teased. And then wonder why we're so mad at the end of it all.
``Any kind of shift in the routine helps,'' Gray says. ``It can be as minute as altering where you sit at the table.''
If you tease, hold back this year. If you're teased, don't play along. And if you want to go one step further, try to find out new things about each family member that put them in a different light.
Here are some other tips from Gray to keep the holidays from turning into an episode of The Simpsons.
Make a change in the family routine. Arrange a potluck dinner or go out instead of having one person do all the work.
Arrange quiet times with your family. Sometimes the flurry of activity keeps you from having heart-to-heart conversation.
Set realistic expectations for the holidays. You're not going to pick all the perfect gifts or build the perfect gingerbread house. You're not going to match those families on the TV commercials. But you can still have a good time.
Try to appreciate getting ready for the holiday instead of going crazy running around. Enjoy the moment instead of preparing for one.
Don't compete with siblings.
Don't view your parents as being on your back all the time.
Avoid nagging.
And if all else fails, take a walk. A long one. Holiday gatherings take up ``psychological space,'' says Gray.
A walk alone buys back enough space to remember who you are now instead of who you were then. by CNB