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Just before Christmas this year, a friend said that she was baking homemade horse treats for the horse rescue place she volunteered at, “Maybe that can be our holiday tradition. We don’t have children so we don’t have any traditions.” I let the comment go, because it surprised me. My friend is successful in a long time, and high-powered career. She’s charming, and kind, and lovely, and just an all around good person. She has a happy marriage of many years. They have a really wonderful, big, dog, that as most big dogs do goes from majestic beauty to be hairy goofball within minutes. Since she lives in the city and only travels to their country place periodically, she satisfies her love of horses by volunteering at the above horse rescue when at her second home. Until she made the remark about not having children, and thus a lack of holiday traditions, I’d never thought about what she might believe about having children. That she might believe certain things would have changed in her life if she and her husband had had them. I didn’t realize that this very intelligent and perceptive woman believed in the great fairy tale of what children and holidays mean.

Having children doesn’t automatically make you the Waltons. There is no secret handshake, no password to the inner santcum of perfection whispered in your ear as you take that first baby home. No one gives you the top secret notes on how to have the perfect holiday with children, because there is no such thing as a perfect holiday with, or without, them.

We have a child, but we have no hard and fast holiday traditions. Maybe it was because when I was a little girl the biggest goal for getting through the holidays seemed to be not having any relatives have a knock-down-drag-out fight. Part of the problem with our family get togethers was that one third of our family is Jehovah Witnesses; one third is Catholic; and then we have our handful of atheists with attitude. If the Jehovah Witness part of the family deigned to make an appearance at a holiday gathering, because they don’t believe in celebrating any holidays, not even birthdays, so the whole concept of Christmas is just not working for them. Jesus is not the son of God in their religion, and it’s his birthday anyway, and they don’t celebrate those. They also make a case that it’s very commercialized, and we couldn’t really argue that. So, no manager scenes, no baby Jesus decorations, and Santa Claus, don’t get them started. Then you have the Catholic contingent where they want to put the Jesus in the holiday. And the second most vocal religious group in our family after the Jehovah Witnesses, and second most likely to start a religious argument over holiday turkey were the atheists with attitude. One uncle in particular was very adamant in his lack of faith, and thought the rest of us were ridiculous for believing in anything. Strangely, he spent more time trying to convert everybody to his lack of faith than anyone else did to their religion. It made for a less than jolly holiday, since the big family gathering was usually held at my grandmother’s house where I lived with her, and we slaved for hours over food just to have a religious war break out over all that delicious and hard won food.

After a few memorable family dinners, my grandmother persuaded them all to not talk religion when we all got together. She did this by informing them of her religion, which was “Angry at God”. One well meaning soul at my mother’s funeral had told her it was the will of God. My grandmother decided then and there that if it was His will, she would have nothing more to do with him. She would also see that I had nothing else to do with him either. Yes, my grandmother had a vendetta against God for over twenty years. Say what you like about her, but that’s some serious moxy, how many other people will throw down against the Creator of Everything as if they have a chance of winning this fight. I guess we did have a holiday tradition, it was fighting. A lot of families, for many different reasons, have that as part of their holiday every year.

You could always count on a fight between Granny and my one aunt, and a fight between her and my other aunt, and . . . well you get the idea. There were moments that worked and everyone showed that they loved each other, but it was not a Hallmark moment at the holidays for us. Many of us that come from less than perfect holiday backgrounds put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make it up to our children. It’s not the kids we’re making it up to, it’s ourselves. We strive for that perfection we saw on sitcoms on TV, or in movies, where the holidays were magical, and full of that television commercial dream where once a year everything was perfect.

That is way too much pressure to put on any one season of the year, let alone one family meal. Since I grew up with few traditions that I wanted to repeat, I didn’t make many when I started a family of my own. I have friends that do have traditions that they do with their children every year. I have friends that get to gather every year with their siblings and bake cookies, or go caroling. There are wonderful, warm, families that seem to manage that TV commercial holiday, but most of my friends are like me. We struggle through the holidays with deadlines and work that does not take a break for the holidays, or very little. Real life with all it’s pressures continues while you frantically shop, and wrap, and cook, and try to pull off a holiday that only, barely, worked for most people when one parent stayed home full time, or had an extended family to help with the meal, and all that baking. Adding children to the mix doesn’t simplify anything. Children are the great complicators, they make everything a new test of logistics, endurance, and expectations. Because, most of us are either trying to live up to holiday traditions that took decades for our parents to perfect, or we are trying to make that perfect holiday that we never had, and share that with our children. It’s a lot of pressure, and pressure either makes diamonds out of coal, or cracks the surface of the earth and explodes. Most of us don’t end up with diamonds as January rolls around and we’re finally through the long list of holiday tasks.

So, to my friend, and all of you out there that don’t have children, it doesn’t mean your holiday can’t be full of traditions and joy. To all of you with children, having them doesn’t mean you know how to fix all the problems from your own childhood. We can avoid some of the issues by working on them internally, and just learning from the mistakes we saw around us growing up. I got quite a bit of therapy before I would chance bringing a child into my life. The family traditions I saw growing up were mostly not things I wanted to pass on to my child. To those of you who had the Walton’s family Christmas, or the perfect Hanukkah, remember it took your parents years to get it right, so give yourselves a break and allow yourself a learning curve with that new baby in the house. To those who seem to have perfected the holidays with their children so that it’s Hallmark Card perfect . . . Do I tip my hat to you? Do I ask, how do you do it? Or do I simply say the truth. I love the perfect wrapped packages under your tree, but I don’t have the patience to do it, and it would frustrate me to watch the all that pretty work destroyed in moments by eager ripping hands. I can cook and I’m good at it, though not an artist in the kitchen, but I don’t personally have time, or desire, make that flawless turkey, those sweet yummy yams, and the plethora of deserts iced and waiting for belts to be loosened, and Santa’s sleigh bells to jingle. And that is the truth, I think you can come close the televised holiday, but only by making it a second, or a third job, for weeks, or maybe even months in advance. As for the perfect holiday tradition, well, hug the person, or people, you love, let them know how much it means that they’re with you this holiday season, and you wouldn’t trade all the perfect family moments if it meant losing one minute of the messy, frantic, joyful reality with them. Whether your family is just the two of you, or dozens, loving each other is a tradition we can all do.