Posted on: Sunday, November 25, 2001

Rituals aid family togetherness

USA Today

Maybe your sister and her family are too afraid to fly in this year for a Christmas visit. Maybe your parents think the new airport security rules are just too much to negotiate. So your family won't be together at the holidays this year.

But you don't have to despair.

New family rituals can help relatives negotiate the holidays in this era of uncertainty, says Evan Imber-Black with the Ackerman Institute for the Family, a nonprofit agency dedicated to the treatment and study of families.

Many, while choosing not to travel, can still stay connected to distant family members in a meaningful way, she says. Develop "a tailor-made ritual that will speak to your family," Imber-Black says. She is the author of "Rituals for Our Times: Celebrating, Healing and Changing Our Lives and Our Relationships."

"Tonight, take some time to talk over what would honor your family tradition, what might honor our nation" and still preserve the past, while acknowledging the present. Maybe it is an empty chair at the table to commemorate those lost in the terrorist tragedies, as well as family members who cannot be present.

As well as having a long telephone conversation with Grandma miles away, you could recall fond stories about her at the dinner table, Imber-Black says. The kids could record them and send them to her.

"Make certain dishes that were Grandma's specialty, but you might not have tried yet yourself," Imber-Black says. "'Let me give that recipe a whirl.'"

Someone could verbalize what the nation has lost since the terrorist incidents, and what your family has done to cope and to help.

There just could be a ray of sunshine behind the subdued celebrations, Imber-Black says. "We could invest the holidays with more meaning. This may be the year where a correction is made in the commercialization of Christmas," as people concentrate on just what family means.

Rituals can provide a magic touch, she says. "They have a capacity for healing us and helping us stay connected to the human condition, to our values, to our families. They help us with continuity, to hold onto the past and to move into the future."