One Holiday Gift Your Family Will Cherish: Choosing Peace over Perfection
Everyone wants to give their loved ones a thoughtful gift during the holiday season. As parents, we dream up the best recipes, the best holiday activities, and the best traditions to make a magical Christmas for our families. But all that planning can also lead to parental burn out, and a burned-out parent = stressed-out kids. That dream of a magical holiday season is suddenly soured by perfectionism, unnecessary conflict, and a lack of familial connection. In this post, I’ll offer three ways to give your families the gift of peace and family bonding this holiday season.
A Burned-Out Parent = Stressed-Out Kids
What makes the holidays so tense? Maybe there’s just too much to do and not enough time. Maybe the holidays are making your budget tight, so you want to make sure the family gets the most out of the activity you are paying for. Maybe you have a particular vision in mind of what Christmas “should” look like and become upset when expectations don’t meet reality. Maybe this vision isn’t even yours – you’re trying to live up to someone else’s expectations of what your family Christmas should look like. Maybe you want to make sure your kids learn about your religious beliefs, your culture, or your family history, but you feel a lot of pressure to “get it right.”
In the meantime, our perfectionism sets the tone of the holiday. Rather than feeling intimacy around the holiday table, kids walk on eggshells to not upset a tense parent. Rather than feeling the fun of Christmas morning, kids feel the pressure of the perfect photo. Rather than exploring the deeper meaning of the holidays, kids internalize that the least stressful part of the holiday is the presents.
Here are three tools I want you to try this holiday season:
1) Take a moment – I want you to look around you right now. Notice how beautiful your holiday decorations look. Notice how wonderful that Christmas candle smells. Notice how lovely it is to hear your children laugh. Take the time to be in this moment, right now. You get 18 Christmases with each of your children. Take the time to soak up these moments, even if it means slowing down.
2) Let go of expectations – Christmas will not be perfect. Something you bake will burn, your daughter will spill on her nice new dress, or you will be late to the candelight service at church. Something will go awry. You want to know who is keeping score? Who is watching you and tallying your every mistake? Only the people who aren’t worth your time anyway.
3) Practice what you preach – No matter what holiday you celebrate, the holidays offer opportunities to teach our families about our beliefs, our culture, and our values. Many of us try to emphasize the meaning of the holidays through our words. But children notice our actions more than they remember our words. For example, if you want your children to learn more about God’s forgiveness this Christmas, the best way to teach them is by being forgiving toward yourself and others.
Holidays are a wonderful time for family, traditions, and meaningful values. This holiday season, let go of the dream of the perfect holiday and let yourself find peace and joy in the reality of your beautiful family. If you have your own history of holiday-related trauma, this will likely be difficult to do on your own. A therapist can guide you through building meaningful and peaceful holiday traditions. If you’re in Clovis, CA or open to telehealth in California, I’d love to help. Learn more about therapy and take the first step toward healing today.
