Hi, all! It’s Dr. Becky’s assistant, Tiffany, back again with another guest blog! I don’t know about you but I’m ready for fall weather. I’m finally looking forward to the holidays. I wasn’t always so eager to embark on a new season, though. As I’ve stated before in my introduction to this blog, I’ve dedicated a large part of my life to being a classroom teacher before having enough sense to step away. During that time I looked at autumn with very weary eyes. Year after year when the leaves started to change color it meant that another stressful school year was underway and it would feel like an eternity until Thanksgiving break and Christmas vacation. Days feel like months when you’re spending most of your waking hours around children who are old enough to talk back. To add to an already bad situation, I never really enjoyed those coveted holiday breaks because I’d feel like I was going off to battle on another front. I would have to spend time with my family.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m crazy about the holiday season but I like it a lot better when I get to pick and choose who I spend time with…and this kind of selectivity is rare for a lot of people. I grew up with strong feelings of obligation to others. My family used Thanksgiving and Christmas as the grand high holidays of obligatory behavior – we HAD TO go have dinner with family members who we really didn’t enjoy being around. Why? Because it’s family, of course. Show up without a gift for the cousin or aunt you only speak to twice a year? That was unimaginable in my house. It didn’t matter to my family if the dinner ended up in an explosive shouting match or awkward silence and tears. We were all together in the house, and it was Christmas. I have only a few ‘good’ holiday memories as a result, because most of the time we were forced to be somewhere we didn’t want to be.

Now that I’m much older I realize that I have options when planning my holiday season. I also understand that there are toxic people who should be avoided at all costs, even if they’re family. Above all else, I’ve learned that ‘home’ for the holidays can mean sending gift cards from the comfort of my living room sofa and not having to go anywhere or entertain anyone. I felt very liberated the year I decided to stay at my own place for Thanksgiving simply because I wanted to spend time with people I actually wanted to see. If any family member’s feelings were hurt by my absence, they’d eventually get over it. I was no longer a child, but an adult making my own choices and deciding and where I felt comfortable. Seriously, though – we live in the 21st century. If Aunt Judy feels slighted that she didn’t get to say hello to me from across a well-decorated Thanksgiving table, she can poke me on Facebook. I’ll get back to her by New Year’s Eve.