Five Ways to Survive Christmas
By: Emily Rowe
Tags: Grief, Family, Loss, Christmas, Self Improvement

When Just the Idea of the Holiday Season is Weighing You Down…

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

I stopped into the local mall the other day to pick up my daughters’ medication and was hit by the massive consumer assault that is the Christmas season. Tinsel and trees are everywhere alongside Christmas editions of everything from makeup to chocolates.

When your bank balance is lean, Christmas can create a lot of anxiety.

When you have had a really rough year, perhaps dealing with the loss of someone you loved or your health is suffering, Christmas can be very stressful.

When you are expected to return to the fold and participate in family time with family who you no longer share similar values and principles, Christmas can be painful.

When you are estranged from your family for whatever reason, Christmas can feel very lonely.

Many commentators talk about the physical consequences of mindless consumerism and the landfill that Christmas produces.

Equally important are conversations about the emotional and psychological consequences of holding people to an unreasonable expectation of happiness around a tree exchanging gifts. It just isn’t that for so many people. Willingly stepping into toxic environments for the sake of appearances can be unhealthy and dangerous.

You can say no to other peoples’ Christmas expectations. It is just one day. They will survive the disappointment.

Below I am going to outline various ways that you can navigate the Holiday Season without too much emotional distress.

One — Establish Meaning

Firstly, define what Christmas means to you personally. Is it different this year to what has it meant to you in the past? Just because everyone else makes a big deal out of it doesn’t mean that you have to. Maybe you are a Christian and you are celebrating the birth of Jesus. It doesn’t need to involve tinsel and turkey.

It can be confronting to celebrate Christmas with other family members that like to spend a lot of money. It can be humiliating if Christmas is being used as some kind of economic scoreboard. I experienced a Christmas when I was told that we were not buying presents for each other, and we were just giving small gifts to the children only to turn up on the day and find that everyone else had disregarded the agreement. The ‘givers’ couldn’t see how their actions had created an awkward and uncomfortable situation for me. If there is a rule in place about gifts, stick to it. The giving might make you feel better. The receiving might make someone else feel worse. I didn’t accept the gifts that were being handed to me. I stuck to the agreement that also included not receiving gifts. It wasn’t popular but I stuck to my principles.

Two — Be Realistic About Your Spending

Make a decision about how you feel about spending money at Christmas time. Stick to it.

You do not have to buy gifts for everyone you know. You do not have to buy gifts for anybody. If you are under financial stress, park Christmas. All the tinsel in the world isn’t going to turn into a credit card payment in January. If you still want to give, consider a heartfelt handwritten letter to friends and family letting them know how much they mean to you and why. It will have a greater impact than hand cream or a gift card I promise.

Three — If You Need to Retreat Do So

The timing of Christmas may not align will a feeling of celebration and joy in your life. Maybe you have suffered a major loss. Your partner may have died, or your relationship may have fallen apart. You may be coming to terms with personal health issues or losing your job. How do you navigate your way through the holidays? (Merry is not the word I would use to describe Christmas after my husband’s death).

I lost my husband in June 2011 and that Christmas I was just coming out of what I would now describe as a trauma coma. The holiday season was a brutal reminder that time marches forward despite your need to stop and regroup. There was a family expectation that I turn up and celebrate Christmas with the people around me that wanted to minimise my profound sorrow. They wanted to sweep me up in festivities and see me laugh and smile. I just didn’t have it in me. In hindsight, I would not have tried the ‘back to normal’ approach. I would have stayed home and not suffered through the day of trying to make everyone else feel ok by insisting I was ok. I was not ok at all. And a Christmas lunch with a running dialogue on the vintage of wine, the size of the turkey and pudding appraisals did not make me feel any better. It made me feel worse.

Having been there, my advice would be to do what you need to do.

It is okay to say no. You don’t have to participate to make everyone else feel better. And you don’t have to explain. The people who love you don’t need it and the people who don’t love you won’t believe your explanation.

Four — Don’t Let Sentimentality Override Reality

If all you have in common with most of the members of your family are memories of the last holidays, it might be time to reassess how you are spending your time. There are families that spend a lot of time together and really enjoy each other’s company. They are functional families with appropriate boundaries and realistic perceptions of each other.

There are also fractured families held together only by the Velcro of Thanksgiving and the safety pins of Christmas. Just one pull and the whole thing can fall apart. Add alcohol and year-long grudges and it often does.

According to systems theory, it is very difficult to be healthy in a toxic environment. And if you spend your Christmas day having to validate everything from your current partner or your lack of relationship; if your lifestyle choices or your career is not approved of, the day can feel more like a field littered with landmines ripe for explosion.

As a therapist, I have people checking in with me as early as July with their anxieties about Christmas. They are already terrified of what feels like an impending psychic onslaught. A day filled with expectations of togetherness and joy registers as a day of potential psychological and emotional assault.

It is ok to say no. You are allowed to spend your time how you would like to.

If you are still close to your parents but are estranged from your siblings, find time to see them independently. And that works the other way too. Forcing togetherness because ‘that is what you do at Christmas’ in a family system that is toxic can have disastrous results. If you are already working on and healing from any kind of trauma, the wrong environment can delay your recovery as your healing trajectory is put on hold to deal with the wounds of Christmas day.

Five — Create New Rituals

If you have suffered through any of the above scenarios and decided that you are no longer willing to be a participant in an unhealthy charade, you are well within your sovereign rights to decline the invitation.

Start your own Christmas rituals. For my daughter and I, we have our Christmas meal on Christmas Eve then exchange small gifts. We don’t do stocking fillers and mindless crap. Anything with Christmas packaging is not purchased. The gifts are meaningful, useful and appreciated.

On Christmas day, we go for an early morning swim at the beach. I’m in Australia so it is Summer and perhaps this is not a possibility for those in the Northern Hemisphere. We eat chocolate for breakfast and spend the day relaxing. Sometimes we go for a bush walk or a bike ride. Often other friends who have quit family Christmas drop by for chocolate cake or cheesecake. (But never for Christmas cake).

If you are alone but still want to be a part of something, there are many community initiatives that need volunteers to help. You could also book to participate to a Christmas lunch celebration at a local restaurant or hotel.

When I was alone in my younger years, I had the luxury of geography that enabled my solitude. I was living in Manhattan and there were many diners still open on Christmas day. The movie cinemas were also open. There were options. I would love to curl up in my apartment free of the imposed tyranny of togetherness. I made new rituals and you can too.

It’s ok. You don’t have to do Christmas the way your family does it.

Resist the urge to please everyone but yourself. You have my permission.

Putting your needs first could be the best Christmas present you ever received.

Wishing you all a very peaceful holiday season.

If you need further support, you can find me at goodgriefcoach.net