No more holiday nostalgia! Our psychologist deciphers the origin of this discomfort and gives his solution.
Christmas tree, songs, gifts, family meals… Some looking forward to the Christmas holiday season while others don’t want to hear about it. For good reason, the end-of-year celebrations have an impact on morale.
A marker of passing time
If Christmas is a good time to spend for the vast majority of us, it is also a marker of passing time. The passage of time takes us further away, each year, from childhood and innocence. “End-of-year family reunions also remind us that some members of our family are no longer herethat there are empty chairs… So many details which bring us back to our finitude, the fact that Nothing will ever be as it was beforearousing sadness and nostalgia”immediately poses Johanna Rozenblum, clinical psychologist.
We plunge back into an uncomfortable family atmosphere
We spend Christmas with family because socially, that’s how it should be, whereaswe don’t necessarily want it and it’s not always a good time. “Sometimes it happens that the‘we plunge, despite ourselves, back into a previous family atmosphere : we once again become the child of our parents, the little sister, the little brother, the baby of the family… This puts us back in an uncomfortable position, reminds us of moments of life which were not necessarily very happy“, describes the clinical psychologist. The Christmas celebration is then perceived as a family obligationan event of the year which goes back in time and in its history and not as a joyful event at that moment. These family reunions can also rekindle the pain of an event which has changed the family balance (death, divorce, argument).
A false image of Christmas that makes you feel guilty
The media convey a fantasy image of Christmas where the families appear happy and united. They evolve in joy and good humor, more united than ever. Gold, these are just staged. “In real life, the perfect family does not exist and it is very rare that Christmas celebrations correspond to this ideal that we can see in the films. Family conflicts and financial difficulties that prevent us from celebrating Christmas in opulence are more often the norm.argues our interlocutor.
“It is very rare that Christmas celebrations correspond to the ideal that we see in the films”
Some people are solitary and have a hard time coping with the injunction to socialize during the holidays. In other cases, it’s the loneliness that makes the end of year celebrations unbearable. Where most people attend a large family gathering, we find ourselves isolated.
Take the initiative to create your own Christmas
The end of year celebrations are the opportunity to take stock of the past year and future projects. A questioning that can be particularly painful for people suffering from low self-esteem, particularly in that it brings us back to our own failures and disillusionment. As a result, the goals seem all the more unattainable and remind us that we are not up to the task. To no longer fall into this temporary depression, it is up to everyone to try to understand why this story weighs and resurfaces during this family event. “It is essential to learn to leave in the past moments that proved difficult in order to recreate a new way of operating today. We can also take the initiative to create our own Christmas, one that is more like us, with people we really want to invite and by imposing your own rules to avoid the situation“, affirms Johanna Rozenblum. In all cases, it is essential to get rid of guilt : we have the right not to like Christmas and the New Year and to not wanting to force yourself to talk to people you don’t like.