Marla the Blogger

Holiday season is coming up and we're starting to make plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. As our son gets older, he gets more and more excited about the holidays. And this is the first year that he really remembers the holidays from last year, which makes it more fun for all of us. I'm excited to share our holiday traditions with him and create some new ones with him.

Traditions can be very enjoyable to share with your family, but what if you don't really have any traditions? Or what if your traditions aren't really that fun, but you keep doing them because you've always done them? I say just make some new ones. For years in my husband's family, everyone bought presents for everyone else. That meant we had to buy gifts for his parents, grandparents, his two siblings and their spouses. Every year we stressed about how to afford to buy so many presents and what to get everyone. Every year it took hours to get through the opening of the presents, and it left most of us feeling drained and overwhelmed. After a few years of lobbying, I finally convinced them that we should start a new tradition. So instead, we draw names and each buy a present for only one person. And we also each buy one exepensive, fun present or gag gift and have a "white elephant" exchange.  Now the opening of presents is more fun and doesn't consume the entire day. And the pressure is off of everyone to spend a lot of money. This is the fourth year of our new tradition and everyone looks forward to it.

So many traditions for the holidays involve food; if you're trying to minimize that, why not start a new tradition that incorporates exercise? When my husband and I lived in Colorado, we used to go snowboarding on Christmas morning and then go home for dinner in the evening and presents. The slopes were typically empty in the morning and we felt better about eating a big meal after we had been so physically active. Lots of cities have Thanksgiving Day races. Maybe you could start a new tradition and walk or run in a race with your family on turkey day.

Traditions should be fun and meaningful for the people who participate in them. Don't be afraid to change traditions that fall short of that. And come up with some new traditions that your whole family enjoys. You might be surprised at how quickly and easily they embrace a new tradition.

I have a co-worker who was confiding in me the other day about how things haven't been going great in her personal life and she realized that one of her problems is that she needs better friends. She has a few good ones, but there are also a few that take advantage of her, don't treat her with respect, and generally bring her down. In my opinion, life is too short to surround yourself with people like that. The great thing about friendship is that it's optional; especially as an adult, you don't have to be friends with some people. Sure, you still need to be kind and respectful to others no matter what, but you don't have to actually be friends with and spend your time and energy with people unless you want to.

In my experience, there are several kinds of good friends to have:

• Friends that are interested in you - you'd think this would be a given, but it isn't always. I had a friend once who used to call me, talk about himself and his life non-stop, and never ask how I was doing or what was new with me. The best friends want to know what's going on in your life, too.
• Friends that help you out - everyone needs a hand once in awhile. That's precisely what friends are for! Friends should feel free to ask you for help, but they should not take advantage of your kindness and constantly ask for help or make unreasonable requests. And they should be willing to return the favor whenever they can.
• Friends that stay friends through the years - I'm terrible about staying in touch with people; I just don't have enough time. I have some friends, though, who no matter how long it's been since I've called or emailed, are always happy to hear from me. They never give me a guilt trip about staying out of touch. And it's like I just talked to them yesterday; we pick up our friendship right where we left it last time.
  

As an adult I've tried to choose friends that are helpful, supportive and kind. The friendships that have lasted the longest and the ones I value the most are with people like that. It's meant that sometimes I've had to end friendships that weren't a positive influence on my life, but I don't regret any of those decisions. Surrounding myself with the best friends to have has made my life better, and helped me to be a better friend as well.

There's a woman at my work who couldn't be more different than I am. For every political, social and religious viewpoint and opinion I have, she pretty much believes the opposite. We are both aware of our radically different beliefs, and yet we are very close friends. On paper, it looks like we wouldn't get along at all, but in reality, we get along great. So how is it two very different people can be friends?

Well, for one we have other things in common. We're both working moms, we're both practical and value common sense and have very little patience for foolishness. And we're both content to let each other have her own opinion, without trying to change the other's mind. We don't avoid talking about topics that we disagree on, but we also don't dwell on them when they do come up. We each stick to our viewpoints without being confrontational and we don't spend a lot of time re-hashing the same arguments. We discuss and move on to other topics.

I reminded myself about my work friend and our ability to look past our differences the other night while watching television. There was news coverage about the current healthcare debate and an opinion expressed by one side of the argument got me particularly riled up. I was ranting and raving to the television (and my husband) about how I couldn't believe someone would be stupid enough to have a particular viewpoint. And then I remembered my friend at work. And I realized she probably would agree with the person on the news I disagreed with. I considered how my work friend is definitely not stupid or uninformed, but how her view of the world sometimes differs significantly from my own. However, in the end we're not so different. We just want to be good people and live happy, healthy lives with our friends and family.

We're never going to agree with everyone we come in contact with. But I'm going to try to always remember the benefit of looking past an opinion that doesn't reflect your own. You never know when you'll meet a friend that isn't as different from you as you think.