Holiday obligations?
What if we dialed it all back to just what felt meaningful? And that which didn't exploit women's unpaid labor, huh?
Where do you feel lightness and joy right now? What practice this time of year legitimately gives you festival joy, as opposed to say, grin-and-bear-it obligation? Explore that in your writing practice today, and see where you might peel apart true joys from obligations and social expectations. Perhaps your truest joys rely not in any holiday tradition but in winter landscapes. Maybe parts of your family traditions are due for a rethink and overhaul, moving them away from rote and centering them more in meaning. Write into that today and see where you land.
For me, I regularly feel like an observer this time of year. As in years past, I am noticing a resigned sign when people tell me their holiday plans— oh, we must go by so-and-so’s then I need to bake this and this, then I gotta shop for more of this and then we’ll go to this house for one night and this other person’s house on the other and and and— I sometimes want to ask: do you enjoy any of that? And, I get that being the person in a family to overthrow an obligation or a tradition is not easy, but I’m… kind of worried about people this time of year. It always seems like a blur of consumerism and expectations but especially this year, it feels like it’s at a fever pitch. A trapping of late-stage capitalism, I suppose.
But, this year, I’m also noticing a lot of social posts from women on themes of “most holiday magic is from women’s unpaid and unseen labor” in which said people are also waving the white flag and saying: enough. I’m observing and curious how that’s playing out not just now but how it might continue to play out in the year ahead.
Write about your traditions and joys, but include what you want to set down, too. Let’s go.
