Well it is almost here, the madness will end in waves of disappointment, and landfill sites wait with open mouths for the debris of tinsel, paper and broken toys. The stores will open again in two days so that people can return all the unwanted gifts, and scratch about for bargains like hungry chickens. Millions of turkeys will have been recycled, and monstrous carcasses will be the last reminders of those few days of sheer gluttony.
Thrusting families together for one or two days a year is a romantic notion, that was probably mad popular by Charles Dickens, though for some families there are very good reasons why they live apart. Burying hatchets at Christmas seems like a good idea in the run up, but often in reality it is someone's head that the hatchet is likely to be buried in. Aunty Beth and Uncle Albert haven't seen each other in a long time and they like it that way. Putting them together with copious supplies of alcohol, limited space, and an overheated room and you have a recipe for disaster.
A family is connected by its DNA, and if members are lucky or careful, then the connection may well go far deeper than that. It is not however a certainty, and many households are just groups of people who share little but a common roof. being forced together for extended periods of time can exceed the critical mass with all of the chain reactions that can follow.
As I write this, My Mother, sister and her family are heading south. Tomorrow I am heading North.
Wishing all a wonderful family time.
1 comment:
Even from here I can hear you breathing a sigh of relief...
Yes, that's it for another year!
Back to 'living' again..
:-)
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