Holiday season 2025: Breaking generational trauma in dysfunctional families
They step into festivals with hearts already bruised, carrying silence instead of joy. From homes where love was conditional, chaotic or never available, they still learnt the art of holding themselves together, not because they are healed, but because someone else needs them to be. Old wounds almost always resurface during celebrations: laughter feels rehearsed, prayers feel heavy, and memories tend to haunt. Yet they stay. They choose not to unravel. They swallow the ache so the room can feel lighter for someone else. That someone is sometimes their child waiting for reassurance or a younger sibling looking for steadiness, and some other times, it is their own frightened reflection asking not to be abandoned. So, as the holiday seasons lights grow brighter, these they-s tell stories of choosing restraint where they were taught rage, of choosing tenderness where they inherited neglect. And in these stories, they admit how heavy it is to carry wounds they did not create, yet still refuse to pass on. Their stories revolve around boundaries gently held, new traditions carefully built, and festivals redefined. But above all, they speak of learning to steady their emotions before the season arrives, and giving grief the permission it needs to heal themselves, too. For Arulmozhi V, a domestic abuse survivor who raised her son alone, the nights leading up to the holidays posed the biggest challenge. I would feel so alone, and I would cry myself to sleep. My pillow was almost always soaking wet. I allowed myself to cry, hoping that there would be no tears left to shed when my son would wake up because I would have to put up a happy front for him, she says. Recalling the first holiday season after her violent husband abandoned her and her child, she speaks of how the excessive crying caused her vision to blur. The doctors said that since I cried a lot, a nerve in my eye had torn a little and was causing my vision to blur. I had to undergo treatment for it. Allowing space for grief also came with the pressure of making ends meet. She admits to the intense stress of figuring out how to afford a Christmas that felt enough, how to make the celebrations appear grand, and how to place a gift in her sons hands. Somewhere between budgets and heartbreak, she found herself wishing that small, material joys might compensate for the dysfunction he was growing up around. Meanwhile, for Deepika V*, a mother of two who lives with her in-laws, the days before festivities are all about regulating her emotions. All my in-laws want during festivals is compliance, and that should come without questions, suggestions, or any kind of resistance. If anyone breaks away from their routine, even when done unintentionally, they will start showing faces, arguing and so on, spoiling the mood for everyone in the family, she shares. So, Deepika and her spouse would prepare themselves mentally to comply, and oftentimes, even ignore and accept the elders whiplash of emotions. If we fight or argue, we will be making the celebrations worse for our kids, which we are totally against, she reasons. Wilson, a father of two, belonging to a conservative Catholic household, withdraws from the noise of the holidays and turns to his creative work, both as a refuge from past trauma and as a conscious choice to contain his emotions, so they do not spill over and become inherited wounds for his wife and children. While the world rushes with shopping and glitter, Wilson builds a crib the old-fashioned way. It is his labour of love: collecting haystacks, finding the right soil, and hunting for waste materials to repurpose. He would mix these into the earth, sow mustard seeds, and wait for them to sprout. Lately, he has also been experimenting with crafting entire Christmas villages from scratch. Redefining celebrations After regulating their emotions and moods comes the responsibility of taking on new weights. Wilson believes that breaking the cycle for his family comes with breaking the inherent societal bias. Raised in a patriarchal home where festive duties fell largely on the women, Wilson now maintains that roles and expectations should not be defined by gender. If there is a need, there will be sharing, he says. He emphasises more cooperation than hierarchy and how his partner, children, and relatives step up naturally. His celebrations at home are now shaped less by excess and more by adjusting. Deepika, on the other hand, confesses to trying to disrupt the rigid-celebrations by setting boundaries, even if they are not always stringent. She admits to choosing the homes of trusted family members or cousins during festivities, so her children grow up learning that festivals are about togetherness. I want my kids to look forward to festivals and celebrations. I dont want them to ignore, duck their heads, endure bad moods and arguments, and dread festivals in general, Deepika says, adding that she has been deliberately making excuses to ensure that her children dont spend a majority of their time during festivities with their paternal grandparents. She believes this is the first real disruption she is taking on deliberately, though it scares her, unsettles her, and leaves her uncomfortable. These boundaries, she says, are bringing with them new traditions. Since at home, the children are only used to watching food being made, and prayers commence at a set time, celebrations at her chosen familys houses involve more play, visits to places like the beach or the mall, presenting and receiving gifts and food, among other things. For Rhea Mathew too, building new traditions have been pivotal in breaking the cycle of holiday trauma she experienced while growing up in her parents catholic home. As a parent raising her child in an agnostic household with her spouse, Rhea consciously chooses to diverge from rigid customs, often agreeing with her partner to let celebrations unfold in new and spontaneous ways. Their on-the-go, flexible plans are not just for convenience but ways to heal. This heals me too, but more importantly, it ensures that my daughter experiences holidays not as templates bound by pain and tradition, but as open spaces for joy, presence, and togetherness, she says. As new traditions taking root is helping some, for others, keeping old traditions alive was essential to keep the holiday spirit alive. Arulmozhi explains that she needed to do all the things her son was used to doing during Easter, Christmas, and New Year, when the family stayed together, so he wouldnt feel any void. When we were a family, we spent Christmas mornings at the Church. After the mass, we would come home, and everyone would work around the house, essentially cooking and cleaning. Then we would eat kari soru and distribute cake to all our neighbours and family. Christmas evenings always entailed going for a movie, to the beach, or some touristy place, she says, adding that she continued these traditions with her son in the years she remained a single parent. While Deepika and Arulmozhi stay strong for their children, Namitha Rachel Sheri, a student who defines her family dynamics as maladaptive, does so for herself first. She calls herself a holiday toolkit full of reminders and routines. Breaking the cycle is a very internal process. More than the festivities themselves, for me, the challenge was building agency over celebrations. It is about realising that I am an active participant and not an observer, and that festivals are meant for me too. So, I celebrate everything first by myself. These celebrations look like treats to days I splurge on all my hobbies. After that come celebrations with my friends and family, she adds. Ultimately, breaking the cycle, they all agree, isnt easy. But they want to endure the process, even if they have to do so quietly, so that they all grow old knowing chaos and dissonance as stories that ended, and not as stories that continued. *Name changed
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