Happy back-to-school and general first real week of 2013, readers. What do you think of this lady's lament?

I am asking for your help in understanding a very distressing situation that has happened in my family. I have four grown children and twelve grandchildren , all of whom I have sent a birthday card and cash gift every year. The cards are always carefully chosen to be meaningful, funny, etc and mailed so as to arrive on or before the birthday. Over the years, when I was working, I was always financially generous with them, as well as emotionally available .I have always considered our relationship s healthy and on good terms. Over the years, they have also been thoughtful with gifts, and done special, well thought out things for me as well. 

I recently retired, and was finding it difficult to continue this practice, so, with each of my children's birthday, or their spouses, I enclosed a note saying that I would continue sending them a card and good wishes, but , due to my retirement and financial limitations, I would only give the grand kids ( their children) a cash gift. All of this was put into practice in January 2012, and continued through December, 2012. When my birthday arrived in December, I received no birthday cards at all...only a phone call from each of my children wishing me a "happy birthday".I was so hurt that I can't help feeling there is a connection between my decision and their lack of reciprocating ! I feel there is a "teachable moment" here somewhere, or was it used by my children to teach me something ? I cannot even bring myself to address this with them, as , I get emotional just thinking about it. There is no other issue or dynamic going on in the family that I am aware of. What is your take on all of this ? How, if at all, should I handle this ? Is it better to " suffer in silence " ? And 2013 is about to start up with a whole new round of birthdays.....

My sense is that the LW is blowing this way out of proportion. I doubt her children meant any unkindness. What she meant as a more calibrated statement, they simply took as "Whew, grownups don't have to bother with birthdays anymore." Unless my math is off, these adult children have an average of three kids apiece, which makes me imagine an extremely hectic Christmas season. I am imagining four busy, overcommitted people who aren't fussed by the distinction between a card and a phone call, and who would be dismayed and horrified if they knew that their mother was hurt.

However, this is a family matter, and in family matters, dozens if not hundreds of possible interpretations are possible. So what do you think?

... is online here. And I'm terribly grateful for today's Letter Writer, because it's such a great question:

How soon does one tell a prospective love interest that you are a conspiracy theorist? I did a little too soon, with dire consequences.

Like almost everyone, I suffer from a little social anxiety now and then, especially at parties where I have to make conversation with people I don't know. K.A. from Jamaica Plain saved me this holiday season! Whenever I got stuck in an awkward silence, I'd pop up with, "So, I write an advice column, and I got this question. What do you think?" 

I hope my advice is as helpful to K.A. as her (yes) question was to me. Here's a sample of it: 

Some people see politics (or religion or economics or science) as impersonal and vain, irrelevant between friends, lovers, family. Other people find these abstract ideas to be fundamental to their self and values and could never choose a life partner with whom they disagreed on the basic nature of reality. Some folks couldn't imagine dating a creationist--or not dating one. Others couldn't imagine . . . well, how to end this example without making a terribly tasteless joke about the big bang. 

Anyway, rather than laying your beliefs directly on the line, float some trial balloons in the general territory of relationships versus ideology. Ask a (potential) date whether there were any disagreements in his or her family during the election. Was there Facebook drama? Talk about your cousin who refused to date a perfectly nice girl because she was a Yankees fan, and what does this person think of that? Suss out whether your prospect keeps ideas and relationships separate or whether compatibility on certain questions is a requirement for intimacy.

A new 2013 feature -- Friday roundup of links, images, and thoughts.

Jean Harris, the woman who shot the Scarsdale Diet doctor, died last week:

The trial provided the fascination of a love triangle involving the cultivated headmistress of an exclusive girls' school, a wealthy cardiologist whose book, "The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet," had been a best seller, and an attractive younger rival for his affection. If Mrs. Harris was to be believed, it was the story of an attempted suicide by a jilted woman that turned into the unintentional shooting of the man who had rejected her.

Last month, I got to perform at a Story Collider event at Oberon Theater. Story Collider is a storytelling venture, akin to The Moth, with a particular emphasis on stories about science. The theme of the Oberon show was "It Takes Guts." My story was about two little rabbits, and how they started me on the path to becoming a psychologist. I was getting over a cold that day and the Oberon was packed, so I'm sort of hilariously nasal. Enjoy. 

(Want to hear more local stories, or tell one? The Globe had a good recent piece on the increasing popularity of story slams.) 

Join me tomorrow at noon for the first chat of 2013! Christmas kvetches, New Year's resolutions, party puzzlers--we'll tackle it all.

And Happy New Year from Milo and his snowman buddy. I was trying to get them to pose like the movie poster for "Django Unchained," which we saw on Christmas Day. That was my holiday in a nutshell: Quentin Tarantino and playing with the dog in the snow. Not too shabby.

(You probably can't tell, but Milo has the same intensely wary yet hopeful gaze of Jamie Foxx. I'll make a star of that dog yet.)

How was your Christmas? Did you do, or give, or get, anything particularly nice? 

zzbottom1 

My complaint is about shopping carts. I'm 46, and I can certainly recall that in my youth, you went into a store, you grabbed a cart, you did your shopping, you unloaded the cart into your car, and then you RETURNED THE CART. Do you have any idea how expensive these carts are? How many loads of groceries these carts have to bear in order to simply pay off their cost? To say nothing of the damage carts cause to cars, and the fact that a carelessly discarded cart takes us apparently vacant parking spaces. How long does it take to actually return your damned cart? Why should stores have to hire dedicated employees to have to walk around behind you and clean up after your laziness? Hell, they now even have conveniently placed cart corrals placed around the parking lot for you to return your cart and save that precious extra 20 seconds. 

cryan94 

Rudeness in the city of Boston? I don't believe it. 

GMV2 

People who walk in the street or bicycle at night wearing all dark clothing. Hellooooo! We drivers can't.see.you! 

xqqqme 

BDCs new-ish comment format. For the life of me I am unable to upload an avatar. The option doesn't exist. Please fix it. Thank you. 

JustMe2323 

Nastiness to the Cashier - too many times, after a customer is frustrated that the check-out line takes more time than they want, they snark at the cashier, fling their money at him/her, swear, and are just plain nasty and mean. C'mon - it's a 15-year-old minimum-wage kid who has NO POWER to make previous customers find their coupons faster, or reprogram the computers so that the sale price shows up correctly. Venting your spleen at the cashier might make your spleen feel better for the moment, but it ought to make your conscience ashamed for days. 

MBBR 

One of my pet peeves? Using words incorrectly. Miss Conduct, the

word is "regimen", not "regiment", which refers to a unit of ground forces in the military. 

It's that time of year again: Festivus!

And Miss Conduct's Annual Airing of Grievances is back.

In today's column, I wrote:

Calling out the good behavior of others is something we should do more often. I'm making it a resolution for 2013 not only to do more courtesies to others, but to pay more attention to the courtesies done to me. It's easy to notice rude people, because rudeness or cluelessness rips the social fabric. Noticing courtesy takes a sharper eye and a softer heart.

That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

So what are the social Grievances you'd like to Air this year? My first and greatest Grievance, ever since moving to Boston, is this:

People standing in stupid places. Look, I know that subway systems are difficult and counterintuitive. But please, tourists and newcomers, don't get off the subway and then stand right there in front of the door while you figure it out. Move to the side, okay? People have a trajectory of motion going on. This also applies to people who stand in the middle of the grocery aisle, with cart, consulting their lists and who have animated conversations in front of the bar at parties or in front of the sinks in the public bathroom. And many more. Bottom line: if you're going to just stand somewhere, consulting a map or your old college roommate whom you haven't seen since the early 90's or the still small voice within you, move to the side. Are you standing in the path of motion? Are you standing between people and their objects of desire? Then respect the trajectory of others and move.

This delightful New York Times article about manners policing ought to give you even more inspiration for your Festivus rants. The author, I'm happy to say, shares my intensity about open access:

My jurisdiction is the doorways of public spaces. Why do people congregate there? In the presence of these clogged arteries, I become Lipitor Man. I have made strange beeping noises. I have robotically bleated: "Doorway! Doorway!" Once, after I had cleared two chatty bystanders from a tobacco shop entrance, one asked me, "Is this a feng shui thing?" I responded, "No, I'm just very, very passionate about egress."

Are your own Grievances beginning to fester along nicely? Good! Share them in comments.

I'll choose the authors of five well-honed Grievances to receive a signed copy of my book, Miss Conduct's Mind over Manners. Disgruntled winners will be announced Wednesday, December 26 at 9am.

Airing Grievances is all about outrage, invective, and entitlement. That's what makes Festivus so special. It's not about bigotry, though. So you are free to Grieve about any behavior that you want, but Grievances about particular groups of people will get reported. Got it? Behavior, not group identity. And keep it light-hearted. 

Now,
On Nagger! On Whiner!
On Moaner and Kvetcher!
On Carper! On Downer!
On Loner and Bitcher!
From the top of your spleen, yell a hearty "Oy Vey!"
Now Festivus, Festivus, fester away!

Miss Conduct is a big fan of experiential gifts, especially those that can be shared -- taking a friend or family member to dinner, a whale-watching cruise, a Sox game, a concert instead of giving them yet more stuff. 

The American Repertory Theater's production of "Pippin" is about as perfect a winter solstice gift as you will ever find. Go, and take a friend. Or give a friend tickets. 

It's one of the most gorgeous productions I've ever seen, with an acrobatic troupe that rivals Cirque du Soliel. The sound is perfect, which is almost unheard-of in musical theater. And the story -- well, I saw it last Saturday, and this is what I wrote: 

It's a show about growing up. Which the Newtown kids will never get to do. They'll never fall in love with magic shows and then be disillusioned. They didn't live long enough to be embarrassed by their parents, let alone to coming around again and learning to appreciate them. And it's a show about what it means to be a man. Do you go out in a blaze of glory, or do you learn to love?

If you are struggling this season, because of events in the world or events in your own life, and you'd like to hurt and heal a bit through a show that will squeeze your heart up through your throat, go see "Pippin." It helped.  

"Think about your life, Pippin

Days are tame and nights the same

Now think about the beauty in one perfect flame ..."

During yesterday's chat, the seasonal question came up of what those of us who aren't Christians should say when asked what our Christmas plans are: "Do I tell them I don't celebrate, that I'm Jewish, that I'm eating Chinese?"

I responded,

I do. Not everyone who does movie and Chinese is Jewish, either. In fact, I know a Christian minister who will be doing the same thing on Christmas Day, after service! It's a federal holiday that over 90% of people observe in some way, so I think it's legit to ask; it's also not, like, confrontational to say, "I'm helping out at a soup kitchen and seeing 'Les Miz' in the evening."

Later discussion of "spiritual Christmas" versus "Santa Christmas" led me to write the following:

One thing that keeps me fascinated about Christmas is how many different Christmases there are. I guess that's why I don't consider the "Do you celebrate Christmas?" question to be a particularly relevant one. It's more a question of which Christmases you celebrate, or don't!

Let's look at some of the different Christmases on offer in 21st-century America:

Pop-Culture Christmas: Phil Spector's Christmas Album. "A Charlie Brown Christmas." "It's a Wonderful Life." The Rankin-Bass specials. Christmas episodes of your favorite sitcoms and dramas. The local theater's annual production of "A Christmas Carol." There's a huge amount of dreck out there, but American pop culture has produced an outstanding canon of Christmas art and entertainment, and it's one of the few canons almost everyone is familiar with. Fatemeh Fakhraie and I were earnestly discussing the Christmas episode of "The Office" yesterday: A Muslim and a Jew discussing a television episode about  blackface in the German/Scandinavian Christmas traditions of a character played by a Ba'hai actor. Because this is America. 

Also, Belschnickel was hilarious. Impish or admirable?

Family Christmas. Family Christmas is about kids, and traditions. Family Christmas is the first image that comes to mind, for most of us: a family gathered around a Christmas tree. I'm going to go out on a pine tree limb and say that this is the Christmas that probably causes the most problems. Because people who don't have kids and/or a big family (which is more and more people) get the message pretty loud and clear that they aren't having a "real" Christmas. Those who do have kids and/or a big family have ongoing challenges keeping traditions strong yet flexible--families are inherently dynamic as people grow up, move, marry, die, convert, and so on.

Yuletide Merriment. White lights and pine boughs and mulled wine. The Christmas of choice for the religiously unaffiliated but aesthetically intense, the Christmas that is more tied in to nature and pagan traditions. These are the folks who like to point out that every culture has a festival of lights during the longest nights of the year. Accept an invitation if you get one: The Yuletide Merriers tend to be excellent cooks, although they may insist you refer to the house punch as "wassail." It gets easier after the first flagon.

Spiritual Christmas. More inward than Yuletide Merriment, but similarly focused on the universal theme of darkness overcoming light. In light of the tragedy of Newtown, I think many Christians--and probably non-Christians as well--are tuning in to Spiritual Christmas this year. Hanukkah is very close to "spiritual Christmas," focusing as it does on the need to hunker down and keep your light burning throughout difficult times.

Religious Christmas. Advent and Christmas services and Epiphany and celebrating, not the renewal of the earth or the hope in the human spirit or anything vague like that, but particularly the birth of Jesus as the Christian savior. Not all Christians observe Religious Christmas.

Decadent Christmas. Spending too much and drinking too much and eating too much and being a lazy, regressive couch potato just because you can. Making virtuous New Year's resolutions. Decadent Christmas can be destructive, of course, but it can also be wholesome fun: staying in your pajamas all day and having cake for breakfast. Tends to be the Christmas Day observation of choice for childless folk who don't have to work; also, tends to be somewhat hard to avoid for everyone. 

What versions of Christmas do you tend to observe the most? What versions have I left out? 

Christmas and similar festivities give us a boost through the winter solstice, but just because we've made it through the longest night of the year doesn't mean that there aren't a few grim, cold months ahead. It's a good time to start planning events and projects for January -- especially if the crush of the holiday season means that some of the people you like most have gotten shortchanged time-wise. January is a terrific month in which to throw dinner parties: few people are traveling, and everyone is desperately grateful to get out of the house. (A ghost-story-telling party is also a marvelous way to spend a winter evening with friends.)

When I was a teenager, or anyway old enough to get with delayed gratification a bit, my mother used to put some of the Christmas gift budget aside. In January we'd take it and shop the post-holiday sales at the local mall, taking advantage of the bargains and having a little mother-daughter bonding time in the process. 

Do you have any particular January, or post-Christmas, traditions or plans? 

Etiquette question: Given the well-known fact that many people are afraid of clowns, would it be impolite to wear this skirt to work?

What if one were a psychotherapist?

... is online here, on a couple of basics -- hosting and thank-you-note-writing. A sample:

A gracious host must communicate clear expectations to his guests. People often don't want to do that because it feels too authoritarian, but guests can only relax and be comfortable if they aren't constantly second-guessing themselves. People should know how to dress, how much they will be getting to eat, whether any activity other than conversation will be required of them, what they ought to bring, exactly who from their household or retinue is invited, and so on. All sorts of answers to these questions are acceptable, but the point is to be clear.

On Friday, my holiday-themed posts ran because I forgot they were scheduled in the system. I apologize if that struck anyone amiss. Aside from that, I'm going to keep business as usual on this blog, because I simply don't have anything valuable to say about the shooting in Newtown. Whatever is wrong with American culture right now, some part of it has to do with a 24/7 media cycle that simply cannot shut up. And I don't want to participate in that hyper-reactivity, that franticness. Not if I'm only raising my voice for the sake of hearing it.

And, the end! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.

Don't Expect Perfection. Chances are good you won't have a sepia-toned Norman Rockwell fantasy of a Thanksgiving or a sparkling New Year's Eve party straight out of Noel Coward. Don't make yourself crazy about what your holiday isn't - try, instead, to appreciate what it is. And accept that there will be times when holiday preparations will be stressful and that some of the time spent with family or friends may feel more obligatory than joyful. There may be times when the blandness of "Happy Holidays" annoys you or when you feel as though you're going to rip your hijab off and scream if one more person says "Merry Chri-" and then turns beet-purple and stammers apologies at you. All worthwhile things have their moments of boredom, stress, and anger. Let yourself feel what you feel, and move on.

Give Yourself the Best Holiday Present: A Margin for Error. Don't expect life to go on as usual during The Season. Accept that you probably will spend too much, not get as much done at work as you'd like, and gain some weight. Decide in advance how much of a margin of error you want to allow yourself (say, 10 percent over budget or a 5-pound weight gain). And decide where you can afford to err and where you can't - perhaps you can spend time but not money or indulge in sweets but not alcohol. A little forethought can prevent regret later.

Expand the Circle of Joy. Finally, keep in mind that the holidays are not only about love and joy for you and your family and friends. Take some time to be extra-kind to those who may be struggling (remember my list earlier of those for whom the season can be difficult). Be patient with other people's moments of holiday-induced stress, boredom, and frustration. And be extra-polite to salesclerks, please!

More ...

Accept That There's No One Right Way To Do the Holidays. People who prefer all-white centerpieces and truffle stuffing are not snobs brainwashed by Martha Stewart who have forgotten the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Those who go for gemutlich decorations of construction-paper hand-outline turkeys and Stove Top Stuffing are not hopeless rubes who should have gone back home to Nebraska the minute they finished grad school.

Well, perhaps they are, and perhaps the albino-pumpkin people are pretentious twits. But you don't know that. Don't accuse people of moral failings based on how they decorate their tables or what they put on them, or how much or little they spend, or if they celebrate any holidays at all. Some wonderful and generous people prefer to spread their wonder and generosity about year-round and not make a huge deal of the holidays. Some people who spend lavishly to make their families joyful on Christmas day never put a bit of effort into making them happy otherwise. We all do the holidays based on our own idiosyncratic traditions and emotional needs. So don't try to jolly up the "Grinch" in the next cubicle who spends Christmas alone with a good book or sneer at "Cindy Lou Who" across the street who wears a different Christmas sweater every day in December.

Accept That There's No One Right Way To Do the Holidays, Part 2. And just as ways of celebrating the holidays differ person to person, they differ year by year. If you haven't celebrated Hanukkah since childhood, but this year you are in special need of spiritual rededication, it's time to break out the menorah and prayer books. Or if you have suffered a loss in your family and just can't bring yourself to do the traditional Thanksgiving at Aunt Bessie's, why not suggest the family go to a restaurant instead? Just as you shouldn't make others feel guilty or inadequate for not celebrating the holidays the way you do, you shouldn't make yourself feel bad for not celebrating them the way you have in the past. Holiday traditions are lovely, but they shouldn't be a straitjacket. Instead, they should be more like a really great pair of black trousers - something that goes with everything and with which you can be creative. (Yes, I do realize that after all my efforts to stay sensitive to readers of all religions, I have now just alienated practically all of the men. But it's a really good metaphor, guys! Stay with me!)

Whew! Home again. One nice thing about being in an interfaith family is that you can travel between the Official Holidays. A heartfelt good luck, keep calm, and carry on to those of you who'll be traveling closer to Christmas proper.

Here is Sunday's column, after a bit of a delay.

The holiday advice I posted last week got a bit of pushback, as I'd written "Gaudy or refined, all outdoor holiday decorations are utterly grotesque by early January. Please, take them down." I'm still going to stand by a narrowly legalistic reading of that sentence. Some folks mentioned Epiphany, which I'd considered--January 6 is still early.* And I'd hairsplit a difference between "holiday" and "seasonal." I liked what jstarr wrote:

Regarding the outdoor decor...I think there's a difference between some tasteful landscape lights and greens to brighten up the winter night and the full on multi-colored Clark Griswald type of display with the giant inflatable Santa, moving reindeer etc., which really should come down (or at least be shut off) by mid-January.

I think we're all in agreement on the basic principle here.

* If you wish a person "Happy holidays" and are responded to with an aggressive "Merry Christmas!," a good response is a gently surprised, "I'm sorry, I assumed you celebrated the Epiphany."

Happy weekend, everyone! Starting tomorrow, I'm off to the midwest for a few days, to visit the ConductMom and a whole big passel of cousins. Family time!

Hanukkah starts Saturday night, so happy first night for my Jewish readers. I should pick up a dreidl and some Hanukkah gelt today so I can teach my little grandcousins how to play. I'm Jewish now, but my family was Christian, and I'm amused to report that when I was a little kid, my father of blessed memory would make me an Advent calendar for Christmas every year. An edible one. That he would make with Hanukkah gelt.

I had no idea at the time. Now I feel kind of guilty about it. We lived in a series of not-terribly-diverse midwestern towns; I'm sure that there were only a handful of Jewish families to begin with, and my father was out there buying up all the chocolate coins in town like they were hotels on Park Place.

In blog news, Impstrump mentioned that the chat didn't appear in an RSS feed until well after it had occurred. I'll start posting those a day in advance, when possible, so that doesn't happen anymore.

Lots of good comments on Monday's question! I agree about the necessity of keeping adult friendships independent of one's kids friendships. For me, the big question about including Rudegirl is to what extent this party is for the LW's kids. If it's really for them, like a birthday party, then they ought to have some say over the guest list. If it isn't, that should be made clear in everyone's mind. 

Finally, some more advice from my "Surviving the Holidays" piece:

Make the Preparations Part of the Celebration. Don't think of the holidays as events; think of each holiday as a process, and try to let the process be as social and entertaining as possible. Preparing for the holidays alone makes the work feel like chores and makes you feel isolated and resentful of all the people you're doing it for. So have some fun. Go present-shopping with friends and stop for lunch or a coffee or a cocktail somewhere along the line. Set aside evenings or weekend days for the whole family to bake, clean, and decorate together. If you live alone, invite friends over to wrap gifts and have hot chocolate - or crank some tunes, fix an indulgent snack, and turn the gift-wrapping (or online shopping) into a little party for one. Yes, of course these all sound like unbelievably dorky ideas that no urban hipster would ever do. That's because you must . . .

Admit That the Holidays Aren't About Good Taste . . . "Good taste" in the sense of kindness and sensitivity toward others, absolutely. But not "good taste" in the sense of albino-pumpkin-and-white-chrysanthemum Thanksgiving centerpieces or Christmas trees of Art Deco perfection that no yarn-and-Play-Doh kindergarten ornament will ever desecrate. If that's your thing, by all means have the holidays as you like and revel in your tasteful splendor. But if, deep down, you really want to wear reindeer sweaters and listen to Andy Williams, or go outside and bang pots and pans at midnight on New Year's Eve, or throw all the Hanukkah gelt down on a roll of the dreidel like a riverboat gambler - then the holidays are the time to let those nerdy impulses hold sway. When it's cold outside, baby, why be cool? The holidays are the one time of year we're allowed to regress and wallow in nostalgia and anti-hipness.

This goes for outdoor decorations as well. If you want splashy colored lights instead of tasteful white ones, go for it. If the theological weirdness of Santa and Rudolph worshiping at the manger makes your heart fill with Christmas joy, put 'em up. (Tasteful minimalists can express holiday-season love and tolerance by being patient with their gaudy neighbors.) Just one, quite serious, caveat: Gaudy or refined, all outdoor holiday decorations are utterly grotesque by early January. Please, take them down.