Christmas can be a very stressful affair. Here at Counselling Connections we try to keep our heads and not get lost in the hysteria. December the 8^th was the traditional shopping day for many, as people travelled to the capital in search of a festive atmosphere and presents for loved ones. And as we sat down to our weekly meeting someone made an off the cuff remark which got us all thinking. The talk was of all the work we put into preparing for Christmas at home. There are presents to buy, cards to send, food to be bought and prepared. There are Santa letters to be thought about, written and sent. There’s an amount of cleaning to be done before the decorations go up, not to mention the stress of where one will have Christmas dinner or who to invite. Then someone said ‘I won’t even get to sit down to the Christmas dinner; I feel like Christmas is devouring me’. That got us thinking.

Christmas can be an incredibly stressful time and yet we can get so caught up in it that we do little to prepare for it on an emotional level. All around us marketing messages spread the notion of family togetherness and reconciliation with images of families coming home for Christmas and having a meal around a beautifully laid out table. Wonderful idyllic scenes are conjured up with everyone smiling and snow falling gently outside. We can get caught up in this ideal and may try to aspire to this perfect Christmas. There is pressure to create the Christmas of our dreams and we will almost inevitably be disappointed when it doesn’t work out the way we expected it to. Tuning into how we feel in the run up to Christmas can help us manage our expectations around it. Accepting where we are at emotionally, provides a good basis for getting through.

Our experience of Christmases past will have an effect on us emotionally over this Christmas period. Memories, good and bad will influence how we feel at this time. In order to emotionally prepare, we have to be honest and real with ourselves. This means feeling whatever way we feel and being comfortable with that. It also means removing the pressure in so far as you can and refraining from placing too many demands on yourself. Making emotionally costly efforts to reconcile difficulties in relationships at this time is not always helpful as working through these issues is a process that can’t be rushed. Trying to have everything okay for Christmas day may mean differences don’t really get sorted but rather are swept under the carpet only to resurrect in the future. And families report huge stress in being cooped up together over the holiday period.

Those who have lost a loved one may feel their absence more over the Christmas season. This is particularly the case if the grief is still raw due to a recent bereavement or if it is the type that resurfaces because we have not yet come to terms with the loss. There isn’t a right or wrong way to feel, it is a personal experience. Nor is there a pre determined length of time that dealing with loss should take. Being aware of what is going on for you can help one to feel more grounded and therefore more able to deal with difficult situations.

Reflecting on these matters at this time helped us hereto put the stress of the preparations into perspective. It’s good to have friends and family around us when we can. And it is sad to think of those who we miss. How the Christmas season is spent has become prescriptive and while traditions can be comforting, it may be time to change the script so that it becomes a time for rest and repair, for resourcing oneself in order to face the challenges of the New Year. It is easier said than done and we hope that managing our mental health through the month will help us all through the holiday feeling renewed rather than exhausted.

Counselling Connections Dundalk. December 8^th 2011.