When we were in our early 20's a friend of mine called it "the turkey trail": Thanksgiving dinner at 2:00 at her mother's house, another full holiday meal at his parents' at 6:00. At each house, she and her new husband were obliged to eat enthusiastically and almost to pretend that the other family didn't exist. In December, they went through it again, this time in the form of painful negotiations about whose house got them first for Christmas.

Every year, I watch the turkey trail come up for friends and clients alike as the holiday season approaches. Some families manage to come up with creative solutions that really work. Others are painfully fair about who goes where, feeling vaguely guilty and unhappy no matter what they do. Still others greet every November with new dread as they try to figure out what to do this year. What's really going on?

Often enough, the problem is a developmental issue that people don't have a name for or a friendly way to understand. First marriage, then the arrival of children, mark important shifts in primary loyalty from the family in which we grew up to the new family unit. The negotiations about where and how we spend which holidays is an important exercise in establishing who we are in relation to each other as a couple and what roles we take in relation to our extended families. Done well, these negotiations lead to comfortable, healthy relationships among all family members. Done badly, there's a price. The new family may not develop a strong enough identity to sustain it through hard times. Tension stays between the generations that then colors every family event. Where people spend each holiday can become a point scored in a painful contest of loyalties.

The issue often comes to a head when the new family has children in the preschool years. There comes a time when it becomes very clear that it is just too difficult to pack up the kids, the kid paraphernalia, the gifts, and the contribution to the holiday dinner - all to make the sojourn "home" for the holidays. It becomes important for the new family to stop rushing to get somewhere else and to let themselves enjoy a leisurely Christmas morning or first Hanukkah night, to let the children enjoy the gifts they have just received, and to let the adults relax. In the natural evolution of a family, "home" is no longer where the parents lived as children. "Home" is right here.

Some families make this natural process so unnecessarily painful. The older generation feels rejected, unappreciated, and angry. The younger generation feels pressured, guilty, and resentful. Because they don't recognize that what is going on is a healthy shift in family loyalties, people start pushing at each other in hurtful ways. Sometimes awful things get said as the young family begins to try to establish their own traditions and the older generation tries to hold on to what is familiar. The family eventually does reconfigure, but the sting of how it was done shadows the holiday season for years.

It doesn't have to be this way. When this developmental shift is the problem, my job as a therapist and educator is to help the various family members understand that what is going on is a normal and useful stage. We can then work together to figure out how to re-negotiate what has always been to what is needed now.

The older generation can be enormously helpful in this process by sharing memories of how hard the same shift was when they were young and by giving a kind of permission for the new family to begin to make their own traditions. When the older folks take the pressure off in a loving, non-manipulative way, adult children are more likely, not less, to include their parents' needs in the equation. The younger generation can help by appreciating how difficult the change can be for the older folks. Further, adult children need to be mindful that the same issue will confront them someday from the other side. How they manage it now is a model for their own children as they grow. When the generations try out new solutions together, the issue becomes a problem that everyone is working on instead of a painful process of push and pull.

It almost doesn't matter what a family comes up with as a solution to the turkey trail. What matters is that people feel loved, included in the process, and engaged in making the whole thing work for everyone at least some of the time. Many families d o this without benefit of professional help. But sometimes calling in a family therapist, a trusted family friend, a clergy person, or some other "consultant" can help people manage their feelings and find new ways to cooperate. Whatever route people choose, working through the holiday dilemma in a way that leaves everyone feeling loved and secure in their family relationships is a lasting and wonderful gift for all involved.

Dr. Marie advises:

To reduce family tensions around who goes where on holidays. . .

• Remember that it is normal and natural for adult children to struggle with their need to honor their own families' traditions and the equally compelling need to create traditions of their own.

• Take the stance that holiday decisions are problems to be solved, not tests of love and loyalty.

• Don't get fixated on "the day" as the only day for a holiday. The point is to be together. Christmas dinner can be the weekend following Christmas. All the August birthdays in a family can be celebrated together at one big wonderful Saturday party.

• Be willing to negotiate trades. We get the kids this year for Passover. You get them for Thanksgiving. Next year, we'll switch. -or-Since you celebrate Christmas and we don't, you do the Christmas thing and we'll have a get together on New Year's.

• Try never to leave anyone totally alone during major holidays. There's nothing lonelier than eating dinner in front of the TV when the whole culture seems to be celebrating togetherness.

• Take care of yourself. If you are going to end up without family on a holiday, invite friends, feed people at a local homeless shelter, invite foreign exchange students over for an American meal, do something special for yourself. If you've all negotiated well, it will be your turn to have a family get-together on the next holiday.