The holidays bring predictable media images of large get-togethers with lots of smiling faces. People are laughing, wrapping presents and visiting friends who offer delicious treats to sample in front of a decorated tree. Perhaps your friends are looking forward to seeing family and watching parades before the football games. This is the time of year when being happy and having close relationships is highlighted as the norm and the way your life should be. Perhaps you wish you had that family that the commercials depict.
Perhaps every November and December you are faced with a situation that is painful in some way. You may not have close family or friends to join you in lighting candles or sitting down at a table covered with traditional dishes. Maybe you have family that you visit but doing so is far from joyful. Perhaps you dread hearing the same criticisms that you have heard year after year or you are tired of tolerating someone who always drinks too much.
A well-known metaphor for insanity is walking down the same road and falling in the same hole over and over again. This may describe your experiences during the holidays. How can you change your pattern this year?
Be Aware of Comparing. You know that the media images surrounding you are not real. Yet somehow, during the holidays you think about other people in a great family gathering in which every member gets along, gives meaningful gifts, and are full of joy in being together. Families struggle with finances, illnesses or just not liking each other at times. They argue and worry and complain. Comparing your situation to media fiction is not helpful or realistic. Comparing your situation to that of acquaintances is not likely to be realistic either. They aren't likely to share the conflicts and struggles they face. Even if you are the only person in the whole world who doesn't have a perfect holiday, comparing is not helpful. Comparing your holiday to others who seem to have it better only increases your misery.
Find the Gray. Maybe there are specific holiday issues that put you over the top with frustration and ruin your celebration. The issues aren't harmful or abusive but you focus on them to the point that you miss the positives of your holiday. Maybe you get angry just looking at your son's girlfriend or you are fed up with your cousin arguing with your wife. You think about the problem for weeks before the holiday, you are on alert for it all through the holiday, and you fume about it after the holiday. That's a recipe for unnecessary misery yet letting go can be difficult. One idea to try is that every time you think about the problem, then notice the thought and also think about something you really love about the holidays. If you do this repeatedly, you may find that the detested situation doesn't spoil all the joy.
List Pros and Cons. If you are dissatisfied with your holiday celebrations, how would you change them? Once you are clear on what you would prefer and that your wish is one that could be possible, consider the pros and cons of making the change. Perhaps you'll find that changing your holiday activities makes sense or maybe you'll see that there is a significant downside that you aren't willing to accept.
Practice Radical Acceptance. Perhaps your holiday plans are not at all what you prefer to do, and you believe you must keep them for excellent reasons. Perhaps you do it for your mother or your husband. If you decide you must keep plans you dislike or worse, and there is no way to problem solve, then radically accept that is the way it will be. Radical acceptance means that you completely accept an event or situation. You don't complain, wish it were different, or pretend. When you radically accept, you stop fighting the situation. You'll be less miserable.
Think Dialectically. When you think dialectically, you ask yourself what is being left out of your understanding of the situation or in thinking of a solution. So if your in-laws will be hurt and disappointed if you don't prepare dinner for twelve and you are exhausted, are there possibilities other than not doing it at all?
Live Your Values. How do your holiday celebrations fit with your values? Maybe your annoyance would be less at being a part of something you don't enjoy if you also celebrated in a way that had meaning to you. Consider if it is possible to do both.
Whatever the stresses of your holidays, think ahead to determine how you could be less stressed. Problem solve the situations that you can change. If what you'd rather do is possible in addition or instead of what you usually do, maybe this is the year to make the change.
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