It is two days after Christmas which for you kids is mostly about getting gifts. But it is about a lot more than gifts. It is about ritual and I want to explain a bit about why rituals are important. The short answer is because they can pull you through when that’s all you have left.
When I was a child the kids would all gather in my parent’s basement waiting to be allowed upstairs and open presents on Christmas morning. We’d be gathered on the stairs, looking up at the door, waiting for the knob to turn. If my dad had to work that day, he was a firefighter, then the door would open before 7am. If he was just getting off work that day, then just after 8am. Once the door was opened we would rush to the living room and stare memorized at the pile of gifts. With eight kids, there were a lot of gifts. All the gifts were wrapped and my father would sit at the base of the tree and call out the name on the package and that kid would come excitedly forward to collect his bounty. We’d start out a gift at a time but invariably it would turn out to be a free for all with wrapping paper and giddy kids everywhere. With my dad being the way he is there was also an element of stress. Too messy, too much stuff, too noisy. You may recognize the same elements in your dad.
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