THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 21, 1995 TAG: 9511210044
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 186 lines
STEP, STEP, STEP. The floor boards groan beneath your feet, shattering the dark silence as you warily approach the door.
You hesitate, but there's no turning back. The knocker is cold and heavy in your hand. Bam! Bam! Bam!
Even before the hollow echo recedes, the knob turns and the door swings inward - slowly, slo-o-owly - creaking shrilly on oil-starved hinges.
Light from inside the house strikes your eyes, half blinding you. A shape fills the doorway. You're seized by fear. You want to run, but you can't. You're paralyzed. Trapped.
So you do the only thing possible. As if governed by some primal instinct, your mouth opens and a sound - a sound you haven't heard in a long, long time - pierces the night air:
``Hi, Mom.''
OK, so maybe we exaggerate. But for many people, gathering with their families for the holidays isn't far from life in a Stephen King novel. Horror, dread, anxiety, tension - these are some of the words these people use when talking about ``celebrating'' Thanksgiving and Christmas with relatives.
Not exactly Norman Rockwell images. More like Norman Bates.
``You feel you have an obligation'' to your family, said Linda L. Dunlap, chairwoman of the psychology department at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., who writes about family relationships.
``You will die for each other, but that doesn't mean you want to chat together.''
The reasons for this unhappiness are many. Most of them have to do with the fact that we're human.
Sometimes, family members just don't like each other. You don't get to choose your family like you do your friends.
Also, it can be distressingly easy to retreat into old roles. Doing so can be comfortable and fun, but it also can cause resentment, especially when the roles are unpleasant ones.
Parents may treat their grown offspring like they're still children, nagging about their clothes or hair or how they're raising their own family. Older brothers may pick on younger sisters, even if the sisters now have families, mortgages and shelves full of awards from work. Adults may sit back, expecting their parents to cook and clean for them as they did 20 years earlier.
And different people in different homes almost always do things in different ways, even when they come from the same family. These could be little things or big things, from deciding whether to put marshmallows on the sweet potatoes to the best way to discipline rowdy kids.
All can cause tension during a visit. And they come during the often-exhaustive stress of the holiday season, with its decorating, shopping for gifts, baking, cooking, traveling and overly excited, free-from-school, candy-cane-gorged kids.
Add to this a final ingredient: the high expectations for the holidays that we've built up from sentimentalized childhood memories, television depictions, even Hallmark cards. It's easy to get even more stressed - and depressed - when the reality doesn't come close.
You're thinking the Waltons; you wind up with the Simpsons.
It can be enough to make you scream. But don't. At least not indoors.
Families everywhere survive such gatherings. Even thrive on them.
Families like the Padgetts of Norfolk.
For the third year in a row, Ann M. Padgett is preparing Thanksgiving dinner for her extended family.
Her mother-in-law. A sister, her husband and their four kids. A cousin, her husband and their two kids. A neighbor's family of three.
Add her own husband and two children and she's going to be ladling gravy for 18 on Thursday.
``I've got more room than anybody else,'' explained Padgett, a speech pathologist at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk. ``I'm happy to do it here. That way, after you eat, you can just sit and not have to drive anywhere.''
She makes it work by the seemingly contradictory method of planning but not expecting everything to go as planned.
That's just how the experts say to do it.
Have a plan. You could simply not show up at a family holiday gathering and claim you misplaced your calendar. But that wouldn't be truthful. Or believable.
So before you leave to visit relatives, talk about it with your immediate family. Discuss your expectations. Discuss possible conflicts and how you'll handle them. Discuss everything. But do it ahead of time.
And tell relatives how you feel.
``If you already know what some of the things are that may bother you, then you can say, `You know, I'm too old for that.' Set a limit. Stand your ground,'' said Sharon L. Payne, an instructor and counselor at Virginia Wesleyan College in Virginia Beach.
``I think it's real important to let them know: `Mom, maybe that's what you expected when I was a kid, but that's not how I handle that in my home.' ''
Also, try to spread out any shopping, cleaning and cooking. Delegate tasks.
Padgette asks her Thanksgiving guests to bring a prepared dish. She also starts shopping early in the week and sets the table a day early. She picks up a video or new game for the kids, knowing they're prone to getting bored.
Bob Lewis, clinical-program supervisor in the psychology department at Washington University in St. Louis, calls Thanksgiving a good time to get together with family and friends because it's centered on food and fellowship, not gifts.
Still, divorced, separated and blended families suffer more stress during the holidays as they juggle several schedules and many memories. Here, even more planning is needed, said Richard Percy, professor of human-development counseling at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
Concentrate on the kids - ask them what they need to make the compromises work. Celebrate on a different day, if need be, to avoid custody conflicts. Trash traditions that remind your family of unhappier times.
If childless and spouseless on a holiday, make plans to visit relatives or friends. And avoid TV shows featuring idealized families.
Lower your expectations. In other words: Be realistic.
Grandparents won't be able to nap when they're at Ground Zero of the grandchildren's Power Rangers war for supremacy of the universe. The kids aren't going to sit quietly around the dining-room table while great-aunts discuss the family's history of plantar's warts. Accept it and act accordingly.
Padgett tries to squeeze in the normal rest period for her children, ages 5 1/2 and 2 1/2, to maintain at least some of their routine. But knowing that having 18 people in the house isn't routine, she also plans to give the kids some duties so they will feel a part of things - putting napkins and silverware on the table or letting them help with a simple recipe.
``They like to have something to do,'' Padgett said. ``They like to have some ownership.''
One year, her children and their cousins made paper pilgrim hats and Native American headdresses while the grownups cooked - and everyone had to wear one at dinner while they discussed the meaning of the holiday.
``It was a picture of loveliness,'' Padgett said.
Even if not what her guests expected.
``I think you have to be real careful on not developing your expectations for holiday happiness on other people, but . . . make your own happiness, if you will,'' said Virginia Wesleyan's Payne.
Develop your own traditions. Much holiday tension may come from feeling trapped in family rituals. Don't do it at the expense of your happiness, said Dr. Clyde Flanagan, a psychiatrist and professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.
``When visiting the in-laws, grandparents and cousins becomes a stressful traveling marathon, it may be time to make a change,'' he said. ``As the needs of a growing family change, don't get locked into thinking only one routine is possible.''
Maybe alternate travel each year - you go one year and have relatives visit you the next. Often, travel is easier for retired grandparents who don't have young children and jobs to worry about. Explain to relatives what you're doing and why, and invite them to join in.
If you do travel for a holiday, save something special for a home tradition of your own, to build your own memories.
``Certainly, as far as kids go, I've never seen them object to having more than one Christmas celebration,'' said Robert E. Emery, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia. ``They'll take as many as they can get.''
Chill. Try to relax and keep a sense of humor, a little holiday spirit. It's only a visit.
If things get too tense, take a hike - literally. Go for a private walk. Go to the mall. Sightsee. Bowl. Rent a movie. Break out a puzzle. Whatever. It'll give you a break.
``Things even you wouldn't ordinarily do, but just something to do,'' said Marist College's Dunlap. ``It really does give you something to anchor to, to talk about. Because I think it's taken for granted that families get along together.''
Avoid the avoidable.
``To get into some heavy discussion about politics or religion has not been known to bring about a lot of family harmony,'' writes Glen O. Jenson, family and human-development specialist at Utah State University.
Neither has offering unsolicited advice to other adults.
``You accept and love each other in spite of their faults, because nobody's going to change,'' Padgett said. ``It's not going to be the perfect day. It's going to be a day like any other day. . . . You come to appreciate what's important. A lot of this other stuff is just not important.''
Maybe above all else, don't take things personally.
``As adults, we need to see our parents as people,'' said Paula Stanley, a counselor-education professor at Radford (Va.) University. ``Remember that you're only visiting for a while and try to maintain a good relationship, even if that means some self-restraint. Also, instead of focusing on your differences, try to find some common ground.''
That shouldn't be too hard. After all, it's family. ILLUSTRATION: Color staff illustration by Janet Shaughnessy/The
Virginian-Pilot
by CNB