Survival Tips for the Holidays
If we can take a temperature check on all the items on our To-Do list to ensure that all of the tasks actually need to get done around the busy holiday season we might experience a few new moments of joy.
The holiday season carries a mixed bag of emotions, doesn’t it? We are taught to love the time of the year, and there certainly are a lot of lovely components to the December holidays: family get togethers, good food, exchanging gifts, family traditions, in some parts of the world, snow and sledding and hot cocoa. But of course mixed in that chocolatey and feel good moments, there is often also disappointment, regret, hurtful or painful memories, and loss.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason why the holiday season gets so much attention. Goodness knows, there really isn’t another time of the year when so much stress and fervor and effort is put into pulling off grand holidays. Imagine if we were to focus the same time and attention we give to Christmas to Labor Day. We’d have to learn dozens of union songs and build traditions of joyously picketing while marching around town with banners. Of course, I’m not advocating for another high stress holiday. I just mention this to make it clear that the December holidays are certainly a bigger deal in scope than most other holidays.
And maybe that’s not a bad thing. We dedicate time and attention to things we care about in the hopes that eventually we’ll receive some sort of a return on that investment in the form of happier kids, stronger relationships, wonderful memories built and shared with loved one, and so on. And no matter how much we might love for traditions to remain constant in the hopes of freezing the joy and meaning that we have grown to expect from them, families adapt and so traditions do too.
Over the years I’ve seen my own family evolve in the way we celebrate the holidays. When my siblings and I were young and still living at home with parents we did very different things than the sort we do now that all of my siblings have homes of their own spread around the country. I don’t think any rules of thumb designed to spell out the best practice method to deal with changes to our holidays or how to manufacture holiday spirit would be terribly helpful given the singular way each individual experiences major events such as the holiday season. But I have been reflecting on a few ways that we might be able to keep a bit more joy in our lives and to adapt to changes so that we don’t end up being quite as disappointed when traditions change or as loved ones grow up.
Being grateful for what happens rather than regretting what doesn’t: If the entire family can’t get together for a cherished tradition or if certain loved ones can’t make it to the gingerbread house making contest night, we can change the goal to making the experience as good as possible for those who can make it. And maybe by focusing on that rather than the disappointment of those not there it might even motivate greater attendance future years. If the tradition is sledding the day after Christmas and there isn’t snow, we can tap into the desired outcome of doing a fun outdoor activity together and maybe instead go for a hike to hang edible ornaments on trees for wildlife. You get the idea.
More elaborate isn’t always better: So I know just about every Christmas movie ever made has alluded to this idea, but I still don’t see a lot of adoption of this principle. A lot of the things that create that exciting buzz and busyness that we experience around the holidays can be very rewarding. But I promise we aren’t becoming Scrooge’s if we re-evaluate the worth of doing all of the stuff that we pack into these few weeks. Maybe a quiet evening here and there could even help us appreciate the good things in the season even more.
We can’t ruin the holidays: A lot of the focus around the holiday season is setting ourselves and family up for what we hope will be great experiences. But the reality is that the holidays will happen whether or not we set high expectations for their outcomes or not. So rather than stressing about every misstep, perhaps we could focus more on being where we are and what we’re doing right now. There are so many songs about longing for all the nice elements of the holidays—the lights, songs, food, trees, and get togethers. There are a lot fewer songs about really being in the present moment and trying to enjoy all the sometimes messy reality. So let’s try to focus on the love that is motivating us to work hard rather than so much focus being paid on the polish of the actual events and meals we prepare. Then we can build memories of feeling close and laugh about the pitfalls that we always experience to some degree around the holidays.
All of this being said while being upfront that I am a still a huge fan of traditions. I’ve tried to figure out why traditions add so much to the holidays and other times of the year, and I think at least a part of it is that traditions give us a reason to anticipate familiar good feelings that can get us excited long before the actual activities associated with a tradition take place. If we have a family get together each holiday season, the enjoyment comes to us long before we can taste the good food. In some ways, the meal itself is secondary to the fact that we are all together.
So maybe there isn’t a perfect way of simplifying our holidays very much, and maybe the stress and anxiety we feel around the holidays, in some ways, might be good because that emotional charge can take us to higher places of feeling connected and loved. But we can also take a temperature check on all the items on our To-Do list to ensure that all of the tasks actually need to get done. Who knows . . . we might even find some quiet moments to watch the snow fall while sipping a cup of a nice hot beverage and experience a few new moments of joy.