How Not To Sabotage Your Holidays and Find Joy Instead
If we’ve had one bad holiday, we have a tendency to believe they’ll all be bad.
“We eat warm grapefruit covered in maple syrup.” My best friend Lauren is busy explaining her family’s Christmas traditions. “Then we eat huge slices of coffee cake from a local bakery.“
Listening to her story, my mouth watered as I dreamed of a brown sugar filled breakfast. The conversation wasn’t enough to hold my attention, however, and I soon drifted into my thoughts counting down the days I had left before winter break began for my college.
While Lauren was counting down the days with excitement, I was figuring out how many days I could prolong leaving school before I hurt my mom’s feelings.
Should I go home on Christmas Eve? Maybe I could pick up a shift at work?
I did the mental math I’ve done for the last four years to figure out the least amount of days required at home while on break. You’re probably tempted to believe the reason I want to stay is that I have a toxic home environment with abusive parents who don’t love me, but nothing could be further from the truth. My mom is as kind as she is God-fearing. My father is a successful businessman who reminds me that of all of his accomplishments, I am the one he is the most proud of. I come from a happy home — full of support, love, and patience — and my parents are my role models and friends. I love spending as much time as possible with them provided that it isn't in my hometown during Christmas. I’m sure you can relate to a degree. Most of us always feel like we’re still 17 years old when we return to the places of our youth. It’s not that Christmas is bad even. My extended family lives out of state, so the holiday is limited to direct family and siblings. The problem is me.
By December 23rd, the slow descent leading up to Christmas begins. I've always struggled with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) amid the cold, winters in Wisconsin. I try to stay warm, snuggled close to a fire praying that demon of depression stays at bay, instead of retreating to the covers of my bed. For whatever reason, my mood seems to always cool with the temperature.
By December 24th — where my need to be surrounded by noise and people takes hold — the stillness of my small town also feels suffocating. I sleep-in as long as possible on Christmas Eve, that way I don’t have to wait as long for my siblings to arrive.
Christmas Day might be the day where small, translucent tears slip down my cheek. I’ll think of the people who won’t be here to celebrate. I'll think of my best friend. He committed suicide on a cold winter’s day not too different from a typical Christmas Day. I might think of a fellow teammate who died in a car accident last New Year’s Eve. Sometimes the loss is less tangible. The boyfriend I never seem to have, or grandparents I wish were closer.
By the 26th I feel a sense of hope, knowing the return to normal looms on the horizon. I won’t be forced to focus on the emptiness and a stifling sense of home and loss. The looming festivities should create a sense of joy and anticipation. But for me, it’s created a fear reflex instead.
The Fear reflex
Most people can let their past experiences and pain predict the future. Instead of allowing joy or hope to fill our hearts, we shift our focus to what we fear about the holidays. This negative mental shift makes it impossible to enjoy even the most magical or fun moments with others.
The reason people can struggle for years during the holidays is because of the same way we remember nasty/traumatic news over positive stories. It’s called negativity bias. Our brain has an innate tendency to put more weight on negative experiences than positive ones, and thus we focus on the negative and let it predict our future. The hard part on all of this is that our negative experiences outweigh our positive ones by a ratio of 5:1. That means that for every negative experience we have, it takes five positive ones to offset the feeling.
Because we allow our negative experiences — which are easier to recall — to impact the way we think about the future, we assume the holidays this year will be just as bad and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our holidays don't actually have to be horrible, we just project they are and then they become that way. But that's always the easy way out. The much more hard and braver way to see the future is a positive one. Instead of becoming Eeyore, the gloomy donkey from Winnie the Pooh, it will take work to see the good, the joy, and hope.
The trick is recognizing when you're speaking negativity into existence. I have no one for the holidays to love. Grandma is gonna ask where my boyfriend is again. It’s the anniversary of my friend/parent’s death. Instead, we must see the good and come to expect a joyful event. My friends annual Christmas party is this week and will be a blast. I get four days off work. I got a present I really wanted. Try to expect a joy-filled season — a truly MERRY Christmas — and you may end up surprised. At the very least, you won’t spend weeks of anticipation leading up to the festivities with an anxious and heavy heart. In the best-case scenario, you might actually enjoy yourself.
It’s easy to be Scrooge during the holidays, but why not be the Grinch after his heart grows three sizes? This Christmas, work toward seeing the good over the bad. Expect joy. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up like Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol infecting others with joy.
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