I love my family. Most the time I really like them too. Which is why I’m excited to have twenty-six rel’s coming for Christmas lunch this year. But I also know that family dynamics can trigger some less than merry tension among the relative ranks.
Comedian George Burns once said: “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family… in another city.” Having lived in another country from my large, loving, caring and close-knit family for much of the last 20 years, I can’t subscribe to Burns’ cynicism. But there’s no doubt that those we’re related to can cause us far more emotional burn than those we aren’t.