A few weeks ago, I received my first Christmas card from a carpet-cleaning company I sometimes use. A garish green and red, I opened it to read: May the Joy of Family Light Up Your Christmas, followed by the suggestion that I might like to “freshen” up my carpets for the coming seasonal guests.
This card, which was selling the idea that family is the true spirit of Christmas and the source of all happiness has, of course, some truth in it. But it’s no great secret that the festive season can also place big demands on our most intimate relationships.
While seasonal stresses don’t cause relationship problems in themselves, these additional pressures can expose unacknowledged cracks in a partnership – cracks that can turn into canyons over the holidays. All of which makes January an extremely busy time for couples therapists like myself and divorce lawyers.
So, at the risk of putting myself out of business, here are my thoughts on how to turn down the stress barometer during the festive season.
It might seem obvious, but I’m always struck by how much Christmas triggers childhood memories. Sessions with couples before the festive season are often filled with discussions about childhood wishes and disappointments, while sessions afterwards can be consumed with experiences that have reminded them of difficult times as children.
Last year, around this time, I remember having a session with a couple called Mac and Antonia. Antonia told me that she’d decided to marry Mac in part because she was so enchanted by his large family’s lavish Christmas celebrations. The only child of two busy medics, she described how her own childhood Christmases had been lonely, utilitarian events. She’d been brought up to treat Christmas as an indulgence – a commercial opportunity for the stupid and greedy – and she described how her parents would often volunteer to work shifts over the holidays.
Her best Christmas, she reminisced, was when she was 13, and her parents had volunteered for Crisis at Christmas. Despite spending a large part of the holiday washing up in the large, chilly, institutional kitchen, she’d loved the sense of camaraderie, the singing, the glitter balls. Now, however, with three children of her own, she and her husband were arguing about what to do that year. He wanted what he’d always had – a large family event with all the trimmings. But she felt oppressed by his expectations and was keen for the four of them to escape to Margate for a low-key celebration in the caravan they had there.
She’d loved his big family Christmas when his parents had provided the celebration. It had given her the opportunity to be the child who got the sparkly Christmas she’d always longed for. But now, when she was expected to put on Christmas for their children, his siblings and his now ageing parents, she found herself feeling resentful and overwhelmed.
Childhood wishes and disappointments were all at work in this couple’s disagreement and it took some weeks for them to find a solution to this dilemma, which involved compromise and creating something new that was neither her family’s spartan tradition nor his family’s lavish celebration. This process of a couple creating their own Christmas traditions can be very bonding. But it probably means giving up some of those old ways of doing things and letting go of the “perfect Christmas” that has been ingrained from childhood.
There isn’t really such a thing as the “perfect Christmas”. The very nature of the event means there will inevitably be disappointments, and, in a way, the trick of a good time is to accept those limitations and frustrations from the outset. Children expect adults to try to meet their hopes and dreams and, in my experience, doing this for the children in your family is all part of the pleasure. But we need to remember that once we’re grown up, we can’t really expect that kind of treatment from our partners. Once we’re adults, perhaps we have to accept that at least, in part, the holiday will often be about meeting the hopes and wishes of others, and perhaps that means it can never be quite so magical.
That doesn’t mean we should be martyrs to our family – it just means we have to take some ownership of making Christmas work for us. So, well before December arrives, start a conversation with your partner in which you share memories of childhood Christmases (or other celebrations if Christmas hadn’t been part of your background) and discuss your hopes and expectations for the holiday. Then, jointly, begin to decide what kind of Christmas you want now, so that you can start to create a new family culture together. If Christmas means being visited by relatives, come to an agreement about how long your guests will inhabit the spare bedroom or living-room couch.
If, on the other hand, you’re joining in with someone else’s celebrations and travelling to see family, make time in advance to decide together how long you want to stay. And remember that even if Christmas and Boxing Day are curated by someone else, festive traditions before and after can be designed for your fun and pleasure as a couple.
Keep in mind that it can take years for you and your partner to develop your own family traditions which mean deciding how much money to spend, who to invite and how to spend the day. But if you can keep talking and keep being creative together, then the divorce lawyer and the couples therapist will need to look elsewhere for January business.
