Over the holidays, we were fortunate to spend time with both sides of our family. Separated by just a few hours drive, my husband's brother and my brother both live in two ends of one state, along with their extended families.
A hallmark of our family time is sharing food. Not the peanut-butter-sandwiches of sustenance but the redolent feasts of roast turkey, tamales, and buttermilk pies. We ate. A lot. We played games, we cuddled our sweet two-month-old grand-nephew, we were eccentric aunt and uncle to our older nephew and niece who are growing into clever and thoughtful kids.
An otherwise ideal holiday was marred by the fact that our daughter, while advancing in her career, drew the short end of the holiday coverage stick and couldn't get time off enough to travel to be with us. It was our first Christmas without her and it felt weird. It didn't help that we had just seen her a couple weeks before and exchanged gifts with her and her boyfriend. Seeing her face in a Christmas morning video call on my cell phone was like a consolation prize.
Many of us grew up in the Brady Bunch generation. Even Hollywood's idea of a nontraditional family may have left much to desire in our own. The Brady kids were mischievous but respectful, and the parents were fair and respectful. Even the live-in maid (what, you didn't have one, either?) was efficient and respectful. No temper tantrums in the grocery store over cereal; no month-long groundings for sneaking out of the house to toilet paper a rival; and subsequently, no great embarrassing stories to bring out at future family gatherings.
The Bradys gave us a benchmark that was impossible to achieve. Perky mom Carol with her cute little beauty mark seems eerily content in retrospect... wonder if she had a Mother's Little Helper prescription tucked away in the pantry behind the cupcakes. When work-from-home dad Mike invited a recalcitrant teen into his office for a "big talk," he was preternaturally calm when you expected to witness a grand-scale whupping.
While we struggled with real-life problems and heartaches, the Brady Fam happily whistled their way through picture-perfect situations. Ones that had real solutions. It was a high bar to reach and I doubt that many of us achieved it.
I recently spotted a game on a friend's FB page that sounded intriguing - Dysfunctional Family Bingo. Played like the usual senior center parlor game, instead of numbers and letters, you gain points by identifying family situations that are a tad strange or generally inappropriate. You score points for "unsolicited advice" and for "sibling rivalry" or "inappropriate attire" and "story repetition". All in good fun, for a change you can win if you have the goofiest or most annoying family. Not that I could ever play this game and actually WIN because my own family is without flaw and beyond reproach... (whew, dodged that one!)
Unlike the Brady Bunch, real families don't always agree, don't have to be carbon copies of each other. All that's necessary is a combination of somewhat-flexible tradition, filial love and a wee bit of respect. And really great food.
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