Pajama Thanksgiving
This week someone told me about a tradition she has created in her family. They call it Pajama Thanksgiving.
She and her husband and their two young children get up on Thanksgiving Day when they feel like getting up, and they stay in their pajamas. She gets a turkey into the oven when she does, and when it’s ready, they sit down and have a meal, the four of them together.
It’s the most relaxed and easy day in the entire year for them.
This is otherwise a very, very busy family. Both parents work full time, the kids go to school and extended day programs and do the kinds of activities that many kids do: music lessons, sports, theater, Sunday School, and so on.
The parents crave time with their children with no agenda, no schedule to adhere to, no competing commitments. The children crave time with their parents. So there is no multi-tasking on Pajama Thanksgiving, no Blackberries in use, no company to get ready for, no time that everyone has to be “ready.”
A Pajama Thanksgiving may not appeal to YOU in the least. But for this family, this is just heavenly. They love spending this day together. The parents read to the kids. The older daughter reads to her little brother. They play games. They make up games.
When the little guy naps, the parents nap too, and the daughter watches a movie. There might be a cookie-baking project. There might be a crafts project. There might not be. As a family, they let the day unfold and they are each present to create and experience it with each other. It is their authentic holiday.
They have created their TG tradition from the inside out. It’s not about the appearance of it; it’s not about the form. The form is simply the result of the deep inner need that’s getting satisfied: the need for connected down time together with these particular people. The need for a safe haven from the loud, incessant demands of daily life. The need to not have to be “productive” in the task-list sense of things.
Many of us have created holiday traditions that are patterned after our workdays: there’s a schedule, there are people to see or people who come over, there is a timetable, there is pressure, there are people depending on us to deliver in certain ways, there are expectations to live up to.
The Pajama Family draws a strong boundary around this day and creates for themselves the holiday they truly need.
[...] balance coach Sharon Teitelbaum for telling me about this article — and for her post, “Pajama Thanksgiving.” SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “The Benefit of “Chunks of Empty Space””, url: [...]