The beauty of Facebook is being a fly on the wall for people you know but who inhabit a different demographic than you do.
A recent article in the Washington Post entitled "How Millennials are Cooking up New Thanksgiving Traditions" got some millennials in my feed plenty riled up. Witness:
Z: You get fired from the WaPo (or The Atlantic) if you think anything isn't millennials' fault.
P: Surprised they don't have a devoted whippersnapper beat yet.
R: Pure applesauce!
Z: Well, they're not writing for young people, they're writing for boomers who are scared of them and actually pay for newspapers to learn how scared they should be.
I must not have taken my Boomer Booster, because my I can't really cop to any fear of millennials. Occasionally a bit of disdain or pity is directed their way, but afraid of them? Sorry, no. And the reason I read a newspaper is because I appreciate the tactile quality of it and how much more pleasant reading the news is on paper at that size than one more thing to view on a screen.
And something else. If you go back to archives from the '60s and '70s, you'll no doubt uncover articles about how Boomers were reshaping Thanksgiving with new-fangled conveniences such as canned, jelled cranberry sauce or frozen broccoli instead of creamed peas.
Cultural evolution (devolution?), that's all that is, and certainly not millennial-specific.
So we'll move beyond that.
Today, a piece called "Soldiering On for the Kids" details how hordes of Boomers are over having to do the full-on Christmas decoration extravaganza, but still bother to turn their homes into a winter wonderland for the sake of their millennial children, who insist on maintaining the holiday rituals of their rosy-colored childhoods.
Seems plenty of Boomers are downsizing their Christmas decoration stashes, meaning that many thrift stores now get so many donations of blow-up reindeer and Christmas ornaments that they maintain a year-round Christmas department.
Parents are trying to gift their children with decades of holiday paraphernalia (Boomers being up till now the "holders of the legacy") and the millennials are saying no, thanks. But those kids have tiny urban digs and a minimalist aesthetic and want no part of storing Frosty and posse for 11 months of the year.
All they want is for Mom and Dad (or either) to faithfully recreate the elaborate decorating of the house and tree that they remember fondly.
So, I'm reading this and thinking surely it will set off another wave of hilarious commentary posts because while the piece makes the point several times that we're at the point where it's necessary for both generations to decide how to reboot the winter holidays, it could be taken as a millennial issue, much like the Thanksgiving one was.
And it struck me. This is a timeless issue, not another BB versus Mill thing.
My parents are part of the Greatest Generation and they went through a phase when we were in our 20s and 30s where they tried to pawn off some of their vast Christmas inventory to me and my five sisters.
Did we want it? Of course not. We wanted them to continue putting on the ritualized family Christmas that they'd been doing since we were a cohabiting family unit. Granted, some of us did have the legitimate excuse of small, urban apartments at the time but some of my sisters had far more generous houses in the suburbs and they didn't want my parents' decorations and ornaments, either.
Maybe we just wanted to do it our own way, secure in the knowledge that Mom and Dad would maintain the Christmas status quo. Mom's dime store-bought manger scene still delights me for the prices stamped on the bottom of each figure's base (generally 29 cents), all except the baby Jesus, because he doesn't stand on a base.
Maybe you got him free for buying the rest.
Some people stayed out of the fray. I have a friend who married late in life and never bothered to acquire Christmas trappings, which was fine until she had a family and her Mom and Dad decided to visit for Christmas. All of a sudden, she felt obligated to get her first decorations. Oh, the pressure.
I'm willing to bet that in 40 years, the media will still be writing pieces about how the younger generation wants to do things differently than their parents did and trying to make sense of it.
But, wait, aren't generational reactions sort of the point?
It would be wildly amusing to have the analysis of that from our dedicated whippersnapper beat reporter.
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Monday, November 29, 2010
Of Memories and Offerings
I set out to be a good daughter and ended up with a trip down memory lane, followed by another turn as the sacrificial offering.
No one but parents can provide those two experiences over the course of a mere twelve hours.
With the holiday season looming large, my parents had asked for my assistance in getting Christmas stuff down from the third floor of their over-sized waterfront Northern Neck house (it should be noted that they raised six daughters in a 1300-square foot suburban rancher and only moved to spacious digs once we were out of the house, but that's okay).
I spent the day schlepping box after box of stuff down two sets of steps so they can begin over-decorating their house.
What I hadn't expected was all the detritus of those years in suburbia to still be filling the top floor of this house.
I opened the shades up there for the gorgeous and panoramic views while we worked and suddenly light was shed on all kinds of long-forgotten reminders of childhood.
Like so many post-war houses, ours had been "improved" by adding a bar to the basement rec-room.
Much to my surprise, the adornments of that bar still live on in a room upstairs with a beautiful eyeful of the widest stretch of the Rappahannock River.
The gray knitted poodle cover made for a bottle of booze? It's up there.
The tilting stand that holds the 16" bottle of Galliano? Dusty, but present.
The bobble-head Redskin figure that all the teen-aged boyfriends commented on? Check.
But it wasn't just bar stuff they inexplicably kept.
By the time the cultural revolution had trickled down to suburbia, my mother was in her crafty phase.
Hanging upstairs was a colorful, framed needlepoint piece she'd done proclaiming, "God Bless Our Pad."
Maybe it was a preemptive thing since we weren't church-goers.
Still, really?
In any case, I stumbled across more forgotten family treasures than I had any need to, so I had to tease them unmercifully about hanging on to such crap.
My mom assures me that it's my dad who's the pack rat; she said she's even threatened to call the fire department for an inspection just to make him deal with it.
Apparently there are many ways to say I love you after decades together.
After that kind of day, it was good to know that we'd be heading out to dinner at the historic Lancaster Tavern, built in 1790.
I was a tad surprised to learn that it wouldn't be a family affair, though, because they'd invited a neighbor along to "even up the numbers."
That and I have no doubt that they're still seriously worried about me being an old maid.
The neighbor came over for drinks first and I shared with him some of the surprise finds I'd made today, much to my mother's mortification.
No doubt it was more than she wanted a neighbor to know, but considering I had a stranger to entertain, I was going with some recent material.
Anyway, he seemed to find it funny.
We were amazed to discover a nearly full restaurant at the Tavern considering it was a Monday night. I know Chef Adam Ginsberg has been getting some good press for his "traditional comfort foods in untraditional ways" but it made for a far more festive ambiance to be surrounded by a full house.
I had the grilled bone-in pork chop with buerre de pomme and traditional green beans, long-cooked with salt pork but not to the point of mushiness and with the unexpected addition of bits of red pepper.
Given the water's proximity and the season, tonight's special was rockfish with crab meat Hollandaise, ordered by the male contingent (and rated very highly).
The fish was cooked perfectly, exactly the way the fisherman would have wanted it done.
The formerly-crafty one had the hot crab dip (the fact is, they're still awash in crab here) and the soup du jour, a hearty beef noodle with peas.
It was almost a stew and bone-warming good, especially with the hot-out-of-the-oven crusty bread.
Despite my presumption that my parents had an agenda in inviting a fourth, the conversation flowed and we enjoyed a most entertaining evening.
I even got the offer of a tour of the 18th-century county jail and clerk's office just across the street, should I decide to offer myself up again to the company of my parents' neighbor.
I am a nerd for history, so you never know.
But as I reminded my parents before they went off to bed, I may be their love child and the reason they got (happily) married, but they're going to have to let the old maid thing go.
Chances are, I'll get it right sooner or later...and without any assistance.
No one but parents can provide those two experiences over the course of a mere twelve hours.
With the holiday season looming large, my parents had asked for my assistance in getting Christmas stuff down from the third floor of their over-sized waterfront Northern Neck house (it should be noted that they raised six daughters in a 1300-square foot suburban rancher and only moved to spacious digs once we were out of the house, but that's okay).
I spent the day schlepping box after box of stuff down two sets of steps so they can begin over-decorating their house.
What I hadn't expected was all the detritus of those years in suburbia to still be filling the top floor of this house.
I opened the shades up there for the gorgeous and panoramic views while we worked and suddenly light was shed on all kinds of long-forgotten reminders of childhood.
Like so many post-war houses, ours had been "improved" by adding a bar to the basement rec-room.
Much to my surprise, the adornments of that bar still live on in a room upstairs with a beautiful eyeful of the widest stretch of the Rappahannock River.
The gray knitted poodle cover made for a bottle of booze? It's up there.
The tilting stand that holds the 16" bottle of Galliano? Dusty, but present.
The bobble-head Redskin figure that all the teen-aged boyfriends commented on? Check.
But it wasn't just bar stuff they inexplicably kept.
By the time the cultural revolution had trickled down to suburbia, my mother was in her crafty phase.
Hanging upstairs was a colorful, framed needlepoint piece she'd done proclaiming, "God Bless Our Pad."
Maybe it was a preemptive thing since we weren't church-goers.
Still, really?
In any case, I stumbled across more forgotten family treasures than I had any need to, so I had to tease them unmercifully about hanging on to such crap.
My mom assures me that it's my dad who's the pack rat; she said she's even threatened to call the fire department for an inspection just to make him deal with it.
Apparently there are many ways to say I love you after decades together.
After that kind of day, it was good to know that we'd be heading out to dinner at the historic Lancaster Tavern, built in 1790.
I was a tad surprised to learn that it wouldn't be a family affair, though, because they'd invited a neighbor along to "even up the numbers."
That and I have no doubt that they're still seriously worried about me being an old maid.
The neighbor came over for drinks first and I shared with him some of the surprise finds I'd made today, much to my mother's mortification.
No doubt it was more than she wanted a neighbor to know, but considering I had a stranger to entertain, I was going with some recent material.
Anyway, he seemed to find it funny.
We were amazed to discover a nearly full restaurant at the Tavern considering it was a Monday night. I know Chef Adam Ginsberg has been getting some good press for his "traditional comfort foods in untraditional ways" but it made for a far more festive ambiance to be surrounded by a full house.
I had the grilled bone-in pork chop with buerre de pomme and traditional green beans, long-cooked with salt pork but not to the point of mushiness and with the unexpected addition of bits of red pepper.
Given the water's proximity and the season, tonight's special was rockfish with crab meat Hollandaise, ordered by the male contingent (and rated very highly).
The fish was cooked perfectly, exactly the way the fisherman would have wanted it done.
The formerly-crafty one had the hot crab dip (the fact is, they're still awash in crab here) and the soup du jour, a hearty beef noodle with peas.
It was almost a stew and bone-warming good, especially with the hot-out-of-the-oven crusty bread.
Despite my presumption that my parents had an agenda in inviting a fourth, the conversation flowed and we enjoyed a most entertaining evening.
I even got the offer of a tour of the 18th-century county jail and clerk's office just across the street, should I decide to offer myself up again to the company of my parents' neighbor.
I am a nerd for history, so you never know.
But as I reminded my parents before they went off to bed, I may be their love child and the reason they got (happily) married, but they're going to have to let the old maid thing go.
Chances are, I'll get it right sooner or later...and without any assistance.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Maybe This Christmas
I already knew that this was going to be a weird holiday season for me, for reasons big and small. It'll be my first Christmas since all the seismic personal changes that happened to me in 2009. As a result, I'm not looking forward to my usual holiday traditions because I know they'll just serve as reminders of what I'm missing in my life these days (the same thing that happened during my annual fortnight at the beach this summer). But what's a girl to do?
So, feeling half holiday and half hopeless, I went to get my Christmas tree today. Last year I discovered a tree lot on Chamberlayne Avenue with a good selection and decent prices, so I went back this year. Actually, just being surrounded by all those trees and inhaling that wonderful pine and fir scent lifted my holiday spirits some. A couple of the guys working the lot offered to assist me, but they were both smokers carrying a tobacco cloud around themselves and that didn't seem too appealing, so I declined. If they were smart, they'd use the profits from tree sales to invest in some nicotine patches; cigarettes and rapidly drying out trees don't seem like the best combination.
The good news is I found a well-shaped White Pine that is already perfuming my apartment; now I just need to decorate it before I have friends over next week. Another plus is that since recovering from pneumonia, I no longer concern myself with what I eat or how much I drink, so overindulging at holiday parties and drinking too much dark rum-soaked eggnog will be new pleasures for me. And fortunately I was never big into the gift thing, so I won't feel any loss there.
No, what I'll most likely feel this holiday season is all the same emotions I've been dealing with most of this year, except with a pine scent, a festive soundtrack and more to drink. Maybe this is why some people hate the holidays. But not me; I'm going to do my best to have a holly, jolly Christmas. Just don't scratch my holiday surface too deeply or you might discover the truth.
So, feeling half holiday and half hopeless, I went to get my Christmas tree today. Last year I discovered a tree lot on Chamberlayne Avenue with a good selection and decent prices, so I went back this year. Actually, just being surrounded by all those trees and inhaling that wonderful pine and fir scent lifted my holiday spirits some. A couple of the guys working the lot offered to assist me, but they were both smokers carrying a tobacco cloud around themselves and that didn't seem too appealing, so I declined. If they were smart, they'd use the profits from tree sales to invest in some nicotine patches; cigarettes and rapidly drying out trees don't seem like the best combination.
The good news is I found a well-shaped White Pine that is already perfuming my apartment; now I just need to decorate it before I have friends over next week. Another plus is that since recovering from pneumonia, I no longer concern myself with what I eat or how much I drink, so overindulging at holiday parties and drinking too much dark rum-soaked eggnog will be new pleasures for me. And fortunately I was never big into the gift thing, so I won't feel any loss there.
No, what I'll most likely feel this holiday season is all the same emotions I've been dealing with most of this year, except with a pine scent, a festive soundtrack and more to drink. Maybe this is why some people hate the holidays. But not me; I'm going to do my best to have a holly, jolly Christmas. Just don't scratch my holiday surface too deeply or you might discover the truth.
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