As parents, we try so hard not to play favorites. Or, if we do, we do our best to hide our little indiscretions. But even when we are being fair, sometimes our kids will still complain that the other person is getting the piece of cake that has the most frosting, or is somehow getting the bigger slice of the pie.
Oh, you thought this would all go away just because your kids were grown up? You hoped that holiday time would be a pure delight, when old hurts flew away on the wings of little doves?
If the holiday is at your house: Who gets the better room? Who chooses the favorite meal? Or, if you are celebrating at the home of your delightful offspring: Whose house are you going to? How long are you staying? And the spooling out of it all, expressed or implied: Which grandchildren do you really love better?
My mother-in-law, at 98, musters her remaining mental capacities to address the sibling rivalry of her gray-haired children. She insists, as if no one had heard this script before, on doling out equal pieces of the (in her case theoretical) pie.
My friend whose children are only showing the first signs of gray has decided to make her own stand this holiday season. After years of bickering among her offspring about how many nights Grandma spends with each one, she has decided that this year, she will just put her feet up on her own footstool and stay happily at home.