agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: When my grandparents were still alive, we all got together to have a real New Year’s Day feast with black-eyed peas, cornbread, pork, and greens, like only my grandmother could make.

This year my cousin is hosting New Year’s Day at her house and she is going to have it catered from some Gucci catering place that does everything, including the setting up and clearing away. Those things used to be part of the fun, with everyone pitching in to make it all special.

I know my cousin works hard, and both she and her husband are well-off. But all that is nothing to me compared to having a true and traditional family celebration.

I am half of a mind not to go, but my husband says just let it be and be glad the family is still getting together like we did when everything happened at my grandparents’ house.

Is there anything wrong with wanting things done the way they always were, just one day out of the whole year? --- WANT MY TRADITIONS

DEAR WANT MY TRADITIONS: Closely observing some traditions can be useful in helping organize and direct hectic or even overwhelming days and events. There’s likewise an element of comfort in continuing certain practices at certain points of the year.

That said, I believe that traditions have to be at least a little flexible to survive the changes that naturally happen. In the case of your family’s upcoming holiday get-together, your cousin has chosen to do what works best for her.

Perhaps one way to preserve the traditions you love is by offering to host the family New Year’s Day gathering next time around. If you do have the opportunity to have the event at your home, you could divvy up the menu among the guests, thereby not only taking some of the burden off yourself and your husband, but also giving others a chance to keep treasured traditions alive for themselves and future generations.

https://www.uexpress.com/life/ask-someone-elses-mom/2022/12/23

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I know that when people are grieving they can find themselves hyperfocusing on the weirdest stuff, but seriously, LW needs to get over whatever the hell this is.

"like only my grandmother could make" sounds like LW would be disappointed even if the family tradition were continued ("it was okay, but it couldn't hold a candle to my grandmother's feasts").

I agree with Someone Else's Mom that if LW wants this tradition so much, they should offer to host it in future.

Edited (wrong user pic) 2022-12-28 09:35 (UTC)

I am a cynic and wondering whether everybody else in the family is heaving a great sigh of relief that they are no longer obliged to chaw their way through the time-honoured trad feast while merrily pitching in to set up, clear away etc. I feel there are all sorts of possibilities there for family strife issues to emerge.

I was going to ask what the hell is Gucci catering, but I see that it is in fact A Thing, though it may be a bit of a switch after grannie's down-home fodder.

I just thought it was a turn of phrase meaning "some fancy caterer" until I saw your comment.

Google is failing me, I can’t find a definition of the phrase, just some catering places that have it as a keyword.

Halp, please?

But, yes — if LW wants a specific kind of celebration, they should offer to host it themselves, and WITHOUT making snarky comments about the event that their cousin was kind enough to put on this year.

Personally, I’m happy to host a party bc I have a well-laid-out space for it, but I am not physically capable of doing all the work of feast-cooking and cleanup, so the idea of hiring that part out sounds great, if it were in my budget!

I usually make a fancy homemade dish or two, then buy some prepared foods or have guests bring potluck, and ask folks to pitch in on some of the cleanup afterward (I’m disabled and in chronic pain, so this stuff exhausts me.)

Is there anything wrong with wanting things done the way they always were, just one day out of the whole year?

Not at all, but this isn't the right question.

I feel like I'm reading in here some resentment over the fact that this year is not only going to be different, it's going to be Rich Relative using their wealth to do something Grandma (and presumably LW) could never have afforded. There's probably an aspect of that resentment which is unjustified (it's OK for your cousin to use her money to give everyone a nice meal!) and an aspect which isn't (it's entirely possible your cousin is trying to demonstrate that she's better than those lower-class traditions involving black-eyed peas and collards, and it's ok to feel a little resentful about that!)

But the deciding factor is not how much you miss grandma - and you are allowed to miss grandma and want it to be the same! There's nothing wrong with that! Let yourself feel it. What is wrong is using that as an excuse to justify spoiling everyone's day.

The deciding factor though should be that it's that cousin is the one who stepped in to do it, so they get to decide how it goes. LW in particular, you're not clear on how long the grandparents have been gone - is this the first year (or the first post-covid year) when they won't be hosting? In that case, it might actually be a good thing to have one year that's very different, so that people who are still grieving (but differently from you) can have a nice gathering that's not all reminders and comparisons. If it's been multiple years, who's been doing it in the interim? Nobody? In which case, why haven't you? If cousin is reviving a get-together after years of nobody even trying, then let them do it their way! And if somebody else non-grandma has been hosting a beans-and-collards get-together until this year, they're the one you should talk to about this.

But either way, as long as you're gracious about it, nothing's stopping you from having a grandma-style get-together later - for a long time my family had two, one at Grandma's on the day and one at her much wealthier brother's the next weekend, and it was nice because both hosts had a chance to relax and not host, and people who couldn't make it to one or the other still got to see everyone. And there's also nothing stopping you from dibsing next year's (graciously!) when you attend this year's.

I like your distinction between what LW feels and what LW should do about it.

LW, if you want it done right / exactly as in the past, do it yourself. Cousin may be a working person with more money than spare time rather than a retiree with all the time to spend days at home cooking, for instance.

LW needs to pull their head out of their ass. A catered celebration may not be the family's traditional celebration, but there's no reason it can't be a true family celebration. Or has LW forgotten that the vital ingredient isn't Grandma's recipes, it's the people who gathered together to eat the food?

And agreeing that if LW feels this strongly, LW needs to volunteer to host.