I flew with my kids to Cleveland, Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with old friends, the most loved of American holidays, Although sometimes the food ingredient combinations perplex me as an Australian, you just cannot go past Americans’ open-hearted hospitality and their love of tradition and ritual.

I find the American’s dedication to ritual both fun and reassuring. It’s a stake in the ground used to tether our affections, reminding us of who and what we really value and love in our fast-paced life, and to nudge us to devote our time and attention accordingly.

It seems to me, though, that the trick is not to be too attached to what the ritual celebration actually looks like in the end. This is where many a family relationship seems to falter. Relationships built on decades of loving care crash on the rock of inflexible and intransigent expectation, splintering into the lesser states of duty and obligation.

We all love our family and want to spend time with them when we know it will be a happy and peaceful experience. The most common obstacle to this is expectations based on past experience. Some people are so attached to the past they want to see it played on re-runs over and over.

But we all change and we all want and need different things as we change. Ritual celebrations like Thanksgiving, and Christmas, would be so much more fun - and more in the spirit of their purpose - if families could adjust and expand their notions of what these holidays can look like.

After all, the pumpkin which would sit alongside the turkey in Australia is customarily baked in a pie with sugar and pecans. Even more bizarre to the antipodean taste, sweet potato is sometimes combined with marshmallows (I kid you not!) or baked, instead of apple, with a crumble topping.

Family members might come late, with their tattooed and/or gay partner, or not at all.

Whatever the details of the celebration look like, they are irrelevant. It’s all about the love that binds us which, like the turkey, just never changes.

Eileen McBride
Eileen McBride is the author of Love Equals Power 2, a spiritual seeker and teacher. This article was published on December 3, 2011.