While reminiscing of my experiences of holidays past, I can’t help but smile. Not a half smile, or smile of whimsy, but a full out ear to ear grin.
On a holiday, we would get all cleaned up, dressed in our special holiday clothes and bundle into the family car. Off to visit the grandparents.
Going to the grandparents’ house was always a treat. What now is a quick 35-minute trip on freeways, once was a full blown 2 hour + drive over surface streets, snow and all. But we didn’t seem to mind. We didn’t have any of the latest gadgets to keep us busy. We talked. We laughed. And we told stories. Oh, the stories! My parents always made every car trip an adventure. Dad especially. He always had a vivid imagination combined with a dry sense of humor. Good old dad, the longer the trip, the more involved the story became. Everyone was placed in the story in varying roles. Mom was always the “top sergeant” though. Rules were made and enforced by her. (Dad idolized her all his life, and had great respect for her.) Myself and my brother were always added in as active characters usually in some type of discovery quest that always ended with an “enormous find” of some kind and a wonderfully happy ending. We used to be amazed how the story always came to a close when we turned onto the grandparent’s street. The meal was the climax of the event, sure, but the interactions before during and after are what sticks with you. I can still remember it all, even all the delicious smells of the feast about to happen.
In those times family was the most important thing in life.
Not just living with them and chatting, but really understanding them. Knowing them inside and out. And appreciating them for themselves. Liking the good, and laughing at the bad. There was bad of course. You can’t have good without bad. When you were bad, you were punished and most likely spanked. Everyone knew why and you learned your lesson and behaved afterwards, or got punished again.
Sometimes it was not the really bad traits, but funny ones. Like that one particular Uncle who couldn’t have the gravy boat until everyone else was done with it because there was nothing left in it when he was done. The cousin who always snitched an extra chocolate thinking no one was watching. Or the brother that had you steal the chocolate for him and claimed innocence when you were both caught.
But through all the episodes and family gatherings…
…the overall theme was nothing took precedence over family. Sure, there was work, school, friends, and chores, but time was purposely made for family. To enjoy each other’s company. To have fun. To make fun. You never felt unwanted or unloved. (although sometimes you did feel below the salt) You were a member of the group. You belonged. You would do anything for them and they you.
With all the hustle and bustle. All the “I’m more important than you” attitudes and so many disintegrated families I wondered if that kind of feeling still exists today. Parents who have been taught family isn’t that important and extended that to their children. Schools who now turn out activists and teach that they should run in like-thinking packs which doesn’t include any family. You really do see it everywhere; movies, tv shows all warning about family gatherings and how bad they are.
Are they really? Or is it just hype to make you believe they are bad?
Some say they can’t spend 15 minutes in the same room as their parent, let alone whole families.
When was the last time you heard of a family reunion, and heard it spoken of in a positive way? Why is family being portrayed in such a negative way? Is it because as a family unit, you weren’t as vulnerable to so many of the evils we see now? As a family you always had someone you could talk to, take your problems to. Is it the pack mentality that one left out is easier to attack?
I wondered, has that feeling of family been diluted and manipulated by years of media assault on the family unit? Aided by vaccine damaged brains that can’t concentrate let alone reason and discern truth from fiction? There are Generations now affected by this general attitude of family = bad. Some have never known anything different. Some refuse to believe there ever was anything different. Many are being taught lies that there never were real “families”. Families were made up stories. So many have been taught a parallel history – loaded with lies and jaded assumptions. With no family unit for them to fall back on, no family history, how can they help but to believe the propaganda they have been fed?
Well, here’s a shock to those of you who don’t believe in family. They Did and Do exist. They may have different characters, different circumstances than days of old, but they DO exist. They may not be what the media tells you they should be, but they are there. You Can feel good about family; even with all their quirks. The media, the propaganda distributors have led you to believe in order to have a family it has to be a perfect one. It Is ALL LIES.
No family is perfect. That’s the nice thing. That is what leads to discussion, learning, caring and compassion. Embrace your differences. Learn to laugh at yourself. You may even end up with some funny times and fantastic memories.
With all this ill-will and negativity going around nowadays, don’t forget to take time for the family. Contact them. Share a meal. Hear the stories. Listen and learn. Absorb the feeling of the experience.
You may just find yourself, in that feast of the senses.
That’s my 2 cents
Sharon:
Thanks for reminding us what we have lost. Thanksgiving is supposed to be a celebration of sharing abundance that was actually an acknowledgement that capitalism had saved the colony. Socialism had failed.
Below is part of an article about this that came from notes kept at the time.
Too bad AOC went to a public school that didn’t teach history.
Elissa
“During this time the colonists were to “have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock and goods of the said colony.” It doesn’t get more socialistic than this because the government divvied out the goods and loafers received the same as those who worked.
The first two years the result was shortages and starvation. About half the colonists died. No one did more than the minimal because the incentive to excel was destroyed. The industrious were neutralized. Bradford wrote of the scarcity of food “no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any.” The socialist experiment Bradford added, “was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to the benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense….” In other words, socialism made strong men lazy. In another book written by the same author, History of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford spoke of another problem because of the government created famine—thievery. Even in this Christian community, “much was stolen both by night and day….”
After two years of such, with the survival of the colony at stake, they contemplated upon “how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery.” They opted to abandon the incentive killing socialist contract in favor of the free market. And so they “assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end…”
The effects were almost immediate. A delighted Governor Bradford wrote: “This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor… could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.” In other words, the free market is a much greater stimulus than governmental force. The Pilgrims now wished to work because they got to keep the benefits of their labor. “Instead of famine now God gave them plenty,” Bradford wrote, “and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God…. Any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.”
http://libertyunderfire.org/2011/11/1430/