Don't spike the eggnog with acid feelings

If you scored miserably on Luskin’s test in the blog below, you may want to consider forgiveness before you tackle those holiday festivities. It won’t be just too much Manishevitz that makes queasy the next day. You holiday eggnog may be spiked with acid feelings of your own concoction.

In any family, how we parent is passed down to our children. We model Mom and Dad’s behavior. This is a good time to think about not handing that rage and blame down to your own kids.

If you grew up in the ’60s, remember “Be Here Now,” the Ram Dass line that translates into living in the present and not the past. What happened 40 years ago, can be your Guantanamo of the past As Luskin says in Forgive for Good, let those airplanes you’ve had circling for decades —all that room in your head taken up by anger—let them land.

Mid-life sisters and brothers face care of aging parents. You and your siblings may make only minor decisions about parents care , or maybe there are big choices looming, like how to get Mom and Dad to accept care, how to pay for it, which adult child will take the lead. If you are still angry with your sibs for childhood wounds, it makes it harder and harder for all of you to work together as a family team.

On the other hand, if you are still really mad at your parents for negligible nurturing or neglect or abuse, you may not join the family team. When your parents eventually die, how will that make you feel? Will you look back and wish you had let those planes land, allowed that forgiveness and reconciliation to finally lead to a mature relationship with your mom or dad? More about this tomorrow from one of my favorite holiday stories- “ A Christmas Carol”, by the great Charles Dickens, who knew a thing or two about forgiveness?