Multi-cultural Monday: Holidays + Disappointments

The first in a series on multi-cultural marriage/family

It wasn't until I joined an online group of multi-cultural families that I realized I wasn't alone. The pain I was harboring over holidays in my multi-cultural marriage was not isolated. So many marriages and families, whether they identify as multi-cultural or not, struggle especially around the holidays to incorporate traditions or build new ones that bring meaning to their lives. This is my experience in mourning and reinventing the holidays in a way that works for our family.

*** I was a new bride. It was our first Christmas together with my husband's family. There wasn't a Christmas tree at my in-law's house much less a trace of holly. There wasn't anything that qualified as a Christmas cookie or really anything sweet in supply. Presents weren't a big deal, nor was having a decorative manger or singing Christmas carols or gathering with a big group of family and friends. These were the accoutrements of a holiday that I had come to love and look forward to with my own biological family, in spite of the pain of divorce and the loss of family members that had placed a strain on the holiday in the past.

We sat, my in-laws, my husband and me, on the floor of their living room on Christmas night, watching "Pirates of the Caribbean." I went to get the pint of ice cream I had bought at CVS. I served a bowl to my father-in-law. "Why I can't understand they talking?" asked my mother-in-law as she tried to follow the movie. "Because it's pirate talk," my husband explained. Why can't I understand this Christmas, I thought. I feel like pirates have jacked my white Christmas. *** My in-laws immigrated from Korea to Canada in the late 1970s. Christmas in their post-war Korea was not about decorating or consumption. It was, like the rest of life, about survival. In my in-laws' faith tradition, to which I had converted, Christmas is celebrated but not not as a "high holiday" as in other traditions. They were just happy to have their children home and to eat well and celebrate blessings.

*** I was angry, and I didn't want to feel angry at Christmas, I told my husband. As a fixer, my husband asked me what I needed. (What I needed was an attitude adjustment, plain and simple, but I wasn't ready to see that yet.) I wanted a tree and lights or just some simple marker that this was Christmas, I said.

But of course, it wasn't really about the tree. It wasn't about the cookies or lights. It wasn't about watching incomprehensible pirate movies on Christmas.

I just wanted to feel that I had not given up all of my traditions in order to be a part of this new family. 

I think a lot of us feel this way, even if our marriages/families are not cross-cultural. The totems, the traditions, the reminders of from whence we come are important to us. It's not our job to impose these on others, but we get to bring strands and sprinkles of them into our new family. It's our job to do so. Frustrating though it may be, it's not our spouse's job to know what tradition is important to maintain if we don't share this with them, explain why it matters, and be willing to help institute it.

After ten years of marriage, my husband and I start thinking about the holidays, especially Christmas, around this time so we can look forward with anticipation rather than dread. We plan activities we can do with my in-laws, we think about the presents we'll buy or the acts of service we can coordinate with our church to bring more cheer to the season. The goal is not to do a museum installation of my childhood Christmas at my in-laws' house. The goal is to incorporate threads of my traditions with new moments that bring meaning to our family time which is a big fat Korean-Irish-Italian blessing in itself.

And you? Have you blended your childhood traditions with new ones in your marriage/family?

Is it too late to run for President?

With the Democratic Party debate tonight, I'm wondering if it's too late to toss my hat into the ring.

My candidacy represents a bridging of generations between Generation X, Y, Z and the digital natives. I offer a regional blend of Mid-western pronunciations, a regular bandying about of the New England modifier "wicked," and an abiding comfort with the Southern contraction "y'all." I was raised super Catholic but converted to Protestantism. So I've got a few sacraments under my belt, will happily place my hand on "a stack of Bibles," and have plenty of Muslim, atheist, and rabbinical pals. I'm married to a Canadian-Korean, so you can trust the White House would be the raddest melting pot full of kimchi potato stew you could imagine.I'll be running on the following platform:

- To adopt the Spanish siesta as a nationwide habit

- To eradicate the use of apostrophes when trying to pluralize words - To retain the separation of church and state but to promote single stream recycling programs - To promote the use of the handy can of Spray Starch you reach for when a burglar enters your home as the only legal weapon

- To enact Stevie Wonder's birthday as a national holiday for Motown-inspired song and for just calling to say I love you. - To require all schools to have hypoallergenic therapy dogs, especially for the teaching staff - To enact an exorbitant tax on abusers of handicapped parking spaces and drivers who hog the passing lane while talking on their phones - To require 300 hours of community service for anyone who mistreats school crossing guards, the elderly, the physically or mentally disabled, and the homeless - To incentivize millennials to have face-to-face conversations - To encourage more United States of Awesomeness

Whitey, Noise: On #BlackMass and our own bully

Lovey and I ran away from home on Saturday night. The nice neighbor couchsat while our littles slept sweet melatonin-infused dreams. We went to go see "Black Mass," which is the opposite of a sweet melatonin-infused dream, but which might be core curriculum for anyone who's ever lived in Boston. Even if you have no investment in the stories of Boston boys-turned-gangsters from around the way, Johnny Depp's performance is eerily good. I pretty much agree with everything Ty Burr wrote about the film, as I generally think he gets it so right. A major focus of Burr's review which was especially sensitive to the families of Whitey's murder victims is on the villainous portrayal of Whitey Bulger. His character in the film is not intended to be liked. He is to be feared, foiled with his statesman brother, aligned with his boyhood friend who became his FBI liaison.

The villain that is James Whitey Bulger, whether rotting in prison in real life or portrayed on a silver screen, is sometimes easier for me to confront than the enemy that lives with me. It is easier for me to vilify someone whom I will never meet and expect fair punishment for the crimes committed than the enemy I live with everyday. The voice of the enemy that whispers often enough to me, You are so far from the mark, girl. You haven't come close to your potential. No wonder you are unloved and uninvited. I have heard the lies that gangster spits long enough to recognize a bully. But because I've lived with this bully so long, I sometimes assume its permanence. When I skip my medication for a couple of days, the voice becomes louder to the point of deafening. When I stop recognizing the bully for what it is, I slide into some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, as if the lies are a defense for me, an excuse for self-loathing. It's been some years since suicide ideation was a part of my daily life and I'm grateful. But it doesn't mean the villain isn't lurking, stashing its venom behind the corners of my mind that I prefer not to visit.

A few months ago, I started working on some strength-training goals. Nothing too crazy, just a plan that an online trainer works out for me that is easy for me to follow. It's amazing what a difference having something spelled out like a recipe will do for one's fortitude. If I know what to do, what order to do it in, how to lift it and lunge it, and how many times, I can follow along and go hard with it. I still mostly look the same but I'm stronger and I realize that when I'm stronger, I'm less susceptible to listen to the lying liar. I'm sorry, I just lifted my kids' combined bodyweight, so that verse doesn't ring true, anymore. I don't talk much about the enemy that performs on the stage of my mind wearing the costume of generalized anxiety/depression.  When I do, I find that I'm not so alone, though. "You're too fly for that noise," my friend Trish once told me. And she's right. We all are--too fly to believe that the enemy that whispers lies about who we are and how we were made for eternity should be put away for a life sentence.