5 Top Tips for thriving at your family Christmas
Tip #1. Manage your expectations...
Christmas can be a great time to catch up with family and friends and share time together. This year has its own joys after periods of sustained lockdown, especially for those who live in Melbourne. Managing our expectations and the expectations of others is a key to navigating family gatherings. We sometimes think that though there has been some tension throughout the year, this will be put aside at Christmas, and all will be peace and joy. This can lead to disappointment when tensions arise.
Tip #2. Negotiate in advance how you are going to navigate difficult topics
For example, if you know that your family has different views about Covid 19, politics or another topic, and you know these conversations don’t usually end well, bring this up in advance. Call your relatives in advance and say, we have different views, how are we going to navigate this? Perhaps it is a truce about the topic, or a “Covid free” event. It is usually better to ask open ended questions rather than prescribe how you see it is going to work. Asking the question: “How are we going to navigate this?”, vs “I think we should do this” will usually bring more “buy in” to a solution and may surprise us with ideas that we hadn’t thought of. A Plan B if the topic is raised is to consider ‘parking’ difficult issues. Sometimes we may feel the need to challenge comments that are made. The advantage of “parking” these challenging conversations is to offer an opportunity to process things at a later time. This allows us time to consider how much it matters to us, whether the issue was something you felt for a moment, or whether it is something that needs follow up. You may want to process this with a counsellor.
Tip #3. Consider the purpose of food and catering
Some have a firm idea of the Christmas menu. It is important to think through what is going on for us as we contend with potential food controversies. What is the bigger picture here? What are some ways in which your family can work together to make the day work in terms of food, and in other areas of the Christmas gathering? What has worked well in the past? What have you learnt from previous years? What is your primary purpose for gathering? How does the food and catering support (or detract) from this primary purpose?
Tip #4. Ask yourself, are you repeating unhelpful family behaviours?
You may have felt in your family of origin that you needed to rush in and save people from arguing with one another or save those not on speaking terms. As an adult is it is helpful to recognise patterns from your past. A key response with these insights is to recognise you have a choice. If you believed that you had to save one family member from arguing with another, you have a choice as an adult to step away and consider other response options. This can be very empowering when we recognise that we have choice. You may increasingly notice this behaviour in yourself at a family event, and choose to process with friends or a counsellor later on.
Tip #5. Take a deep breath or two
Perhaps someone may say something that offends you, perhaps someone criticises your cooking, or the egg-nog when they have over-indulged in the Christmas drinks. Before responding too hastily, take a deep breath or two. Deep breathing can help us to get perspective, calm the brain from a defensive position and engage the calmer thinking brain, and potentially prevent us from saying something that we may later regret.
The team at Best Life Counselling hope you have a wonderful Christmas and that these tips in some way help to provide support for you during this time.