Shrinking Holiday Gatherings

As we approach the holidays and plans for gatherings of family and friends come into place, I have noticed aging through my 50s and now early 60s, a certain trend. The family holiday get togethers are dwindling in number of those attending. It is probably due to a combination of things happening both within the progression of families growing older as well as societal changes.

As a child growing up in Ozone Park, Queens NY, I can remember huge family gatherings. My Dad's sisters lived within a three block radius of us and early on often hosted Christmas Eve and or Christmas Day festivities. Now, when I say festivities, being Italian, it means they handled the food. Keep in mind, nobody was living in the lap of luxury back then, and it was either held in a basement converted to a kitchen or a not very large living/dining room area. I can remember a couple of Christmas' where we didn't even get the little kids table. I would have a plateful of food that my mom put together for me and would then sit on a step of the hall stairway with some of my other younger cousins. At the time, we thought nothing of it and it was fun not having to sit with the adults. In retrospect, in today's standards, if you tried that with your kids they might call DYFS(Division of Youth & Family Services) on you. Certainly different times. From the adults perspective I don't think they gave it a second thought. "They're kids, it's food and Christmas, what do they care."

As the years moved forward some Aunts and Uncles moved to the suburbs of Long Island, moving to the "country" we used to call it. At that point, more consistently Christmas Eve gatherings were at my home hosted by my mom. We would often easily have 15-25 people for dinner. It was conceptually the 7 fishes type dinner, but my mom only being 50% Italian, would lets say, cheat a bit on the menu.

One of the things that began happening as I got deeper into my teens, was to have some of my friends(mostly all Irish I might add) stop by my house later on Christmas Eve night after dinner. We would all sit around the dining room table with my Dad holding court with us. I don't remember what was said, but I do remember the feeling it gave me and my friends. We laughed a lot and maybe my Dad won favor as he would offer up a little peppermint schnapps to us. Drinking age was 18 back then, but my memory is blurry on whether we were all of age or not. To this day when my Dad comes up in conversation with these friends, they often bring up those Christmas Eve nights with Mr. C.

I could go on and on about some truly beautiful memories of Christmas gatherings past. When I often hear about the anxiety some people have about sitting down at the Holiday dinner table I realize how fortunate I am to not have that feeling. I won't delude myself into thinking they were all perfect, but it was pretty darn close to it.

After years of splitting time between my first wife's family dinners and mine, life has forced a hard right turn. Kids grow up, they have partners families to share time with, often the dinner table gets smaller and smaller. People move and spread out and the stress of traveling in 2-3 hours of traffic each way also helps to become a deterrent for many. This limits the aunts/uncles and cousins from willing to gather.

Finally as we get older(I mean deeper into life), we lose people. Sometimes it's not just the fact of it being one or two less people at the dinner table, but many times they were the matriarch or patriarch that was the keystone to having everyone respect gathering together for Christmas. Often they induced fear to say no to their invite.

So as I get ready to sit at a dinner table of 6 this Christmas Eve and perhaps 10 on Christmas Day, I still realize how fortunate I am. While it's a far cry from the crazy days of 20 plus people and small kids screaming about their desire to begin opening gifts, it is still a special time to reflect with gratitude. The memories cannot be taken away. The people sitting at the table have memories different than yours that can be shared. Time is fleeting, and so is life. For those of you fortunate enough to have a large family gathering this holiday season, embrace it instead of stressing over it. For one day,it will likely shrink down in scope.

All we have is now, so instead of lamenting about what was but is no more, soak up the moment. Even if it's just two of you. I remember during the first Covid Christmas it was just me, my brother & mother. We have some really fun memories of that day, as simple a get together it was compared to a typical Christmas.

While of course we would love certain moments in our lives to last forever where we are happy and together with all of our loved ones, life moves forward and challenges. Embrace it all.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy holiday season. May the spirit of the season bring you joy & peace.