I recently had the pleasure of seeing Bradley Cooper play Leanord Bernstein (“Lenny”) in the film Maestro. As a former violinist, I was reminded of so many of my own musical experiences.

The message of “happy holidays” is everywhere right now. It’s the go-to greeting for at least another week, and even when we’re not saying it to each other, we’re all still thinking it as we’re bombarded with images of happy families, mountains of gifts, sumptuous meals, and snowy adventures. But are the holidays really as happy as they’re depicted? The answer as we all know is that holidays can be… complicated.

Leftovers are a very polarizing thing. And I don’t just mean cold pizza. We all maintain endless artifacts from childhood. Consider the topics of exercise, cooking, pets, communication styles — chances are high that the ways you approach these things are direct results of behaviors you saw and values you learned growing up.