Aah, remember the days when the biggest worry you had to face at Christmas was whether that super-sized turkey would fit in your oven?
For so many of us, Christmas has long been a stressful time of year, of course. But it’s been a stress-based around the various practicalities of the season: the shopping, the decorating, the catering, and the hosting.
The type of stress that fades a little more every time you tick another task off your to-do list.
This year, we’re dealing with an entirely different form of Christmas stress — one that includes an element of loss, whether that’s the loss of a loved one, financial loss, or the loss of ‘Christmas as we know it’.
That said, before you go and throw yourself into a vat of mulled wine in despair, I want to make you a promise:
Christmas will be different this year, but it will still be beautiful. It will be joyous. And it will restore and uplift you.
How do I know? Because I’m no stranger to feelings of loss at this time of year…
Coping with loss at Christmas.
Most of us recognise Christmas as a time to celebrate with family and I’ve always had the double whammy of having my dad’s birthday on Boxing Day. So when the rest of the country sat around in their jammies mainlining leftovers and Ferrero Rocher on Boxing Day, we’d be heading out for another round of family celebrations.
It’s now been nearly three years since my dad passed away and we’ve had two Christmases — and crucially two Boxing Days — without him. And it has been incredibly hard.
There’s the grief, of course. That part is hard all year round.
But, there’s something about December that makes it feel like a weight of sadness.
- It’s the ever-present fairy lights twinkling in their suggestion that this time of year can be nothing short of magical.
- It’s the constant Christmas movies or adverts pushing the idea of the ‘perfect Christmas’ where families gather with matching festive pjs, magazine-worthy décor, and Christmas crackers that pop every time.
- It’s the memories of past Christmases, your children’s (at times) overwhelming excitement, and of course, the pressure we ALL put on ourselves to make everything as special as possible for those around us, despite how we feel inside.
However, while all of that is undoubtedly difficult to cope with, I’ve found that it is possible to navigate the festive season with relative ease while honouring your loss and the turbulent emotions it brings.
And it all centres on abandoning the notion of a picture-postcard Christmas.
It’s about striving for calm instead of striving for perfection.
Let me show you how…
1. Be prepared.
To be fair, this is good advice for a normal Christmas, whether you’re coping with loss or not. But this year it’s doubly important.
First up, there are the practical considerations.
What will Christmas shopping look like as the nation gets to grips with the new tier system? With so many people shopping online, will delivery times be longer than usual? Will your kids end up isolating (and under your feet) right before the end of term?
With so many uncertainties around our Christmas prep, it makes sense to order/shop/wrap a little earlier than usual.
Not only will this make your to-do list seem far more manageable, crucially it’ll give you the headspace — and the time — you need to deal with any unexpected or sudden emotions that may come up for you this month.
And if you suddenly find that you need to dedicate an hour or two to self-care, to chilling out with a book, or to forget about all of the festive hoopla, you’ll have plenty of leeway in your pre-Christmas schedule.
2. Simplify.
This year has been all kinds of crappy and the need to find something to celebrate or to distract ourselves from the pandemic is giving us a real urge to make Christmas this year bigger and better than ever before.
But before you dedicate an entire day to drying orange slices in the oven for homemade garlands, or teaching yourself to make royal icing, take a pause to think about whether you WANT to do those things or whether you just think you SHOULD do those things.
And if it’s the latter, please believe me when I say:
It’s okay to simplify.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with ordering readymade roast potatoes from M&S for the Christmas lunch (other supermarkets are available!), with decking the tree with last year’s decorations, or with serving a shop-bought Christmas cake and mince pies. Especially if, once again, making the preparations easier for yourself, gives you the time you need to address any tricky emotions that come up for you as we approach the 25th.
Everyone will still have a lovely time. And no one ever has room for the Christmas cake anyway…
3. Release expectations.
This is the real key to a simpler, calmer Christmas.
Because it often isn’t the reality of our Christmas that causes stress or sadness, but rather our expectations of what Christmas ‘should’ look like.
So, of course, this year, if we focus on the fact that we ‘should’ have a tree piled high with presents, that we ‘should’ have a different party every weekend in December, or that we ‘should’ have our family around the table at turkey carving time, we’ll crumble every time we realise that another one of those ‘shoulds’ just isn’t possible this year.
Now, I’m not for a minute saying that we can’t have our moments to grieve for the Christmas we wanted, for the cancelled parties, the financial cutbacks, the big family gatherings that won’t happen, and of course for the people who won’t be with us.
Feeling those emotions is both natural and necessary.
But it’s also worth remembering that sadness at Christmas is okay. That it’s valid. That it’s not something you should try to deny or suppress.
Because when you accept the full spectrum of human emotion at Christmas, it becomes easier to find the joy in the things that you do have.
Without a house full of guests to cater for, you might have more time on Christmas day to watch your kids open their presents. Without having to cook for 15, you might carve out a little time to read that new book you’ve just unwrapped. Without a million different presents to open, your kids might have the bandwidth to concentrate on actually playing with some of the stuff they’ve been gifted.
Yes, there will be hard moments over the next few weeks. There will be tears. There will be regrets. And that’s okay. Because there will also be joy, hugs, time spent together (whether virtually or in-person), and a whole load of Christmas cheer. Even if it doesn’t look quite how you imagined.
A little more calm at Christmas would be magical — but if you want to inject more calm into your life all year round, you’ll love The Balance Club. It’s a community of super supportive women who come together to learn, inspire, and lift each other up when life feels like it’s all getting a bit much. Doors open again in the New Year; pop your name on the waiting list and you’ll be the first to know about it when they do!
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