Holidays and the women we love
View(s):
I for one simply love the holiday season and have enjoyed the benefits of Christmas lunch, dinner and presents from the day I can remember. Despite being a Buddhist, I always celebrated Christmas when I was growing up – probably primarily because we grew up in a mixed faith household. We were often the envy of most of our friends who did not celebrate the holiday, because in effect, in our household, ‘Christmas’ came twice a year – with multiple celebrations no less! However, as I grew up, I realised the beauty of ‘Christmas’ was so much more than simply celebrating a religious event or a traditional holiday, as it were. It was much more about families spending time together, over a holiday period at the end of the year, when everyone needs that moment to recharge their batteries and top up their fuel tanks. A time to reflect on the year that’s passed…the successes and failures we have enjoyed and suffered…extend the message of tolerance and good will and most of all, a time to enjoy family ties and bounds of friendship. It’s an almost perfect time of year. People are generally in a festive and happy mood and although the rush of shopping for that favourite or forgotten final gift may take over every conceivable moment in that crucial final few days before Christmas, in the end, things settle and everyone is happy again. But what about the women?Whilst most people envision this holiday season as being one of festive cheer and relaxed winding down, the reality is that most women are working double time. Dealing with all the usual routine things, but in addition to their regular hectic workload, there are all the extras that this particular holiday brings…the presents, the shopping, the family meals, the decorating, the visiting, the meticulous planning…ranging from activities for children home from the holidays to how to get that mountain of home work completed to perfection with the dawning of the new year…the already over burdened list gets….heavier…the harassed wife running around and creating domestic peace seems to be the order of that day for most adverts focused specifically on the Season and it all results in orderly and perfect bliss the moment everyone sits down for the big family meal of the day, whether you celebrate for religious or traditional and festive reasons.
Times have changed and ideas have evolved, but author India Knight has a very interesting take on Christmas in the UK and the flutter and image that goes with it. She observes that “…’Tis the season to be really harassed and run around like a…(headless Chicken), getting Christmas ready while…(others)…in your life lie around….(relaxing)…. At least that’s the impression the ‘festive’ adverts give, a whole slew of them featuring the same theme: knackered Mum narrowly avoids becoming a fatality of exhaustion while her loved ones mooch around not doing much at all…Is the Fifties-style division of domestic labour that features in many of this year’s ads the reality?
Are women really happy to work themselves into the ground during the Christmas period, because it’s all worth it in the end?…It is certainly true that the harassed wife and mother breaking her back to make Christmas lovely for everyone used to be the stark reality: in the Fifties, the period the advertisers seem to be harking back to, women generally speaking stayed at home and men went to work. The domestic sphere was an exclusively female one, and what was true for 11 months of the year became even more so for the 12th…I want to object to these ads – and plenty of people do – on the basis that they are retrograde and dimly sexist, but I recognise myself in them. Not just myself but my mum, my sisters and all my girlfriends… And I don’t think the ad speaks to me because I am a doormat: it speaks to me because it’s utterly familiar. I have no shortage of obliging, helpful males around: some of them are even pretty good cooks, and it’s not that I have to do everything on my own. But here’s the thing: I want to. This isn’t because I am a drudge or a martyr – it’s because I know what works. And what works, in both senses, is me…People who don’t understand the peculiar joys of domesticity often forget that, for many women, domesticity is control. It’s a whole self-contained world, and you’re the boss of it. You don’t make your children dinner because the men don’t know how to boil an egg. You make your children dinner because it is an expression of love. Obviously it doesn’t always feel that way, but the fact remains: you are the queen of your kitchen, and what you say goes. That may not necessarily be true of every other part of your life. Not everyone is busy bashing at the glass ceiling. Home, and what goes on in it, is far more real. It’s not a game, or playing at being a housewife: it’s your world and it keeps on spinning every single day, and at some point you have to make it work…”
An interesting take on a women’s role during this holiday season. In the end however after all the hustle and bustle of the actual day has passed, and each subsequent day morphs from one holiday to another, my fervent wish is that all the mothers and daughters, office workers and home makers alike, take a moment to breathe. To enjoy the season of course, but most importantly to reflect on the monumental task they undertake, day after day, of being the pivotal entity that holds families and everything important together…and we take a moment to be grateful for the veritable glue that holds us all together.
Let this Christmas and Holiday season be a rare moment in time, where we collectively revere and celebrate the women who influence and affect our lives, every single day. A special time to give thanks to the mothers, daughters and sisters in our lives who make the world our perfect place and make the holiday season, simply….brilliant.
So please, allow me then to take this moment, to wish every single one of my readers a Merry Christmas and boundless compliments of the Season. May this year have been filled with genuine happiness, objectives reached and promises kept. A new year beckons and may that too, bring special dreams and peace of mind and don’t forget that all important…New Year’s Resolution…! Happy Holidays to one and all!
All comments, suggestions and contributions are most welcome. Confidentiality guaranteed.
Please email: KJWVoiceforWomen@gmail.com