Have a Not-So-Perfect Christmas

Have a Not-So-Perfect Christmas

The trouble with Christmas is not the commercial underpinnings or the trappings of food and wine that see us creeping back to the scales in shame. The trouble with Christmas, is how it perpetuates the myth of perfect. This is an old post but one that still rings true. So here’s an updated version for 2015.

1. Christmas gives perfect stereotypes an unfair spotlight.
I love Christmas movies but I hate the stereotypes they portray. Career girls being visited by ghosts of Christmas past to learn that family is the most important thing. Childhood sweethearts being reunited. Even the most loved and abhorred ‘Christmas’ movie ‘Love Actually’ has very little to do with Christmas and everything to do with tragic romance gone wrong. Christmas is not about romance, nor are those stereotypes realistic.

2. Christmas creates an expectation that we should have ‘perfect’ moments, from family dinners to carol services.
Those perfect moments come with their own set of expectations too – perfect food, perfect decorations, perfect happiness. This shallow view of happiness is ill-informed and unrealistic. The nuance of emotion that is layered into a truly happy moment will touch the spectrum of joy, sorrow and everything in between. Therefore the kind of happiness we see depicted or try to create is largely an inaccurate and unachievable kind of emotional experience.

Of course – the expectation or desire for creating something ‘perfect’ is largely only something that hinders those who have not found peace with defining their own sense of perfect.

The biggest challenge around Christmas and its myth of perfection, is the annual challenge it poses to those who are still wrestling with their own imperfection, or still seeking the ability to find perfection in the imperfect.

What’s the perfect Christmas?
It starts with acceptance that we have the opportunity to participate and create new traditions and meaningful moments by acknowledging and communicating our needs and hopes thoughtfully with one another. Not inspiring enough? A perfect Christmas is one where everybody comes openly to a shared experience and are actively involved in creating a celebration that expresses shared meaning.

Even if you have found a sense of acceptance and self-awareness within yourself, Christmas thrusts many people and their hopes (expectations) together. Therefore, while you may find contentment, others who are seeking to ‘get it right’ in hopes of meeting their own Christmas expectations may still look to you to play a part.

Is this selfish? Is this wrong? No. It’s a natural part of human interaction but in the same way that weddings can, a shared celebration and experiences creates a set of dependencies on others to try to achieve satisfaction.

1950s-Vintage-Americana-Family-Photo-Kids-Cowboy-Christmas-Movie-Projector-Holiday-Advertisement_0Whatever ideals you hold regarding your family and close relationships, it is nearly impossible to remove those from the way we celebrate and come together.

So where does stress, anger, frustration, emotional outburst and tension come from at Christmas? It comes from trying to meet these expectations, often relying heavily on others to do, say, make and be what we hope for. This tension of hope and expectation can squeeze our emotional and mental capacity beyond breaking point. Our hope that ‘this year will be different’ pushes against our expectation that ‘it will be the same as it was before’.

It may be you have not experienced this before, but for increasing numbers of people who come from divorced and mixed-families, those who are adjusting to the loss of partners or children, those who have suffered abuse or trauma in family relationships – this is an unspoken norm at Christmastime. Even for those away from home for the first time, Christmas takes on a significantly different shape.  It can simply be overwhelming for those who are lonely at other times of the year, to experience the pronounced focus on close relationships and family during this season.

At the most basic healthy level, balancing the needs and desires of multiple family units is challenging. Making decisions about which grandparents get to see the grandkids on Christmas Day and when can be tough. But if a single person in that family has a deep emotional need to feel validated during that time – instant complication. Most tension and emotional escalation comes from a core human need – trying to get what we want, to get our needs or expectations met.

The habits of family arguments, old behaviours and our oldest vulnerabilities and insecurities flying unchecked can escalate before we have a chance to grasp hold our control of the situation. And again, this is normal. Human beings are creatures of habit, therefore choosing alternative ways of being – particularly in family units where the oldest ingrained behaviours usually begin, requires discipline and self-control.

When we fear that others will not meet our expectations or the ghosts of Christmas past raise their voices in our heads – we have a choice.

1. We choose numbness. We intentionally pull back our emotional investment so as to navigate complex situations with the least amount of stress and emotional impact.

2. We relent to the power of old behaviours. There is a strange comfort and security in patterns we are at least familiar. We play our parts in arguments that we have every Christmas. We wrestle with the same feelings of disappointment over unmet expectations. The most dangerous phrase is “I was secretly hoping for.” An unvoiced hope is like an illness, affecting us day by day.

3. We reset our expectations and apply tactics to resist old behaviours. This is the hardest choice, because it requires a certain commitment to your personal emotional stores. It requires doing some internal work to rationalize what the unmet expectations and unbearable feelings around those relationships are. This requires a bunch of work, but for good reward.

So, it’s December 8th. You have 23 days, give or take a few hours. Seeing you can only work on yourself, not others – here’s a list to get you started for a less stressful Christmas. As with most things, good communication is the start. Communicating what we need, what we want, what we hope for and then listening just as hard to all other people involved.

  • Identify the insecurities and vulnerabilities that feel particularly present this time of year.
  • Pinpoint any obligations you feel or where you are striving to meet the expectations of others. Are they really reasonable?
  • Rebalance expectations or obligations – what can you actually do, what do you want to do?
  • Deconstruct your insecurities – what can you do to build your esteem? You’ll feel the benefits as soon as you start.
  • Identify your own expectations and hopes for the Christmas season – are you hoping for particular feelings or certain shared experiences? It needs to be a little more specific than ‘I just want everyone to be happy’. Ask yourself the question ‘what will happiness look like, or sound like?’. The answer to that question is probably a great description of what you really want.
  • Be realistic about how much of your circumstance you can control or influence. You can make choices to control more or less, but each choice has a consequence. Start with being realistic about what is inside and outside your control.
  • Acknowledge that no one person is likely to have all of their hopes and expectations met. Accept that you might compromise some of your own hopes in order that others might also experience fulfilment. It’s highly likely many hopes will be shared.
  • Peacefully communicate your true hopes, desires and expectations to other people in your family. Invite them to do the same.
  • If possible, find other family members who are willing to talk about new strategies and tactics for meeting some of these hopes.

Good luck. The bonus is that using this strategy of good, simple communication will bring benefits into many other parts of your life.

The Lonely Advent.

The Lonely Advent.

The Advent season starts for each of us, alone. No matter that by Christmas Day, most of us will find our way to be connected with some others –  family, friends or communities. But it starts with people alone.

Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary, is carrying a child in her old age while her husband is struck silent. Elizabeth is very much alone.

Mary, the teenage girl engaged to Joseph is visited by the angel Gabriel while she sleeps. She is alone, left to wonder if she is going mad and what will become of her.

Joseph is also alone when visited by the angel, who assures him he should still take Mary as his wife. Joseph had been secretly planning to break off their betrothal; in secret and alone.

Eventually Mary gives birth alone in a stable, no mention of midwives, mothers or sisters to accompany her on this journey. Mary, the mother of God spends much of the Christmas story alone, if not lonely.

Nativity-Scene

Although the traditional Christmas story ends with Mary, Joseph, Jesus and a motley crew of shepherds, wise men and innkeepers gathered together in a stable; for each person the journey starts alone. Nativity scenes paint a picture of otherworldly peace and calm, but the story itself is actually full of human anguish, anxiety, fear, rejection, anger and loneliness.

It is the same for us. Whatever our thoughts or beliefs around the Christmas season or story are; we begin the season alone.

This aloneness is an extraordinary opportunity.

When we are alone, we are left with no choice but to be confronted with ourselves. Our fears, hopes. Our sense of hopelessness. Whether it’s the pressure of unreasonable expectations created by us or other; perhaps it is the secret list of disappointments, perhaps it is our aloneness that confronts us when we are alone. But the story starts in Alone.

That’s where Hope emerges from too.

Why remember Advent?

It’s healthy and good to give pause at this time of year. No matter where you are, the season is changing from hot to cold or cold to warm. Business calendars roll over and many of us find ourselves pondering family, lovers, friends and community. We ponder our sense of togetherness and our sense of aloneness. We wonder what the New Year will bring. We try and navigate a season that is increasingly complex – multiple families, multiple faiths.

The Advent season follows four themes – Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. These eternal ideas are human ideas, not restricted to religion alone. Yet, Advent seems a useful time to refocus on them. Hope emerges from our sense of frailty and our imagination. Peace is a life-long human pursuit and we are living in times of highly publicised civil wars. There is much to be said for meditating on these themes and bringing deeper meaning to our day-to-day existence.

So this week, take a moment and be alone.

What do you see in the mirror?

What are you pregnant with? What rumbles inside you and will not let you go?

What are you reaching into – what newness?

What are you afraid of? What is lonely? What is crowded? What is finished?

Advent is about expectation. The expectation of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love arriving. Interrupting, expanding and challenging the day-to-day human experience.

How To Have An Imperfect, Less Stressful Christmas.

How To Have An Imperfect, Less Stressful Christmas.

You’re done for another year. You can put away the tree, the tinsel, the decorative napkins and put the furniture back into place. Throw the tents and sleeping bags into the back of the car with a cooler of left-over Christmas ham. You’ll stop at an orchard on your way to whichever beach or river is calling you. You’re in the safe zone – Christmas and Boxing Day done for another year.

Of course, that’s a Southern Hemisphere Christmas. But you get my point – regardless of snow or sun, there’s often a palpable sense of relief in the air once Christmas is done. So here are some strategies to help you have a considerable less stressful, angry, bitter and a more imperfect Christmas next year.

This year, our Christmas was quiet but entirely pleasant. People contributed food and drink, exchanged gifts, quality time was spent with people we love. But in the build up to the day, many of my conversations with friends revolved around the juggling acts of meeting all sorts of expectations and hopes from complex and emotionally weighty family situations.

What we don’t acknowledge regularly enough, are the ever-increasing numbers of people who experience Christmas as an annual anxiety trigger, full of non-consumer related stress and emotional trauma.

Christmas – That Myth Of Perfect.
The trouble with Christmas is not the commercial underpinnings or the trappings of food and wine that see us creeping back to the scales in shame. The trouble with Christmas, is how it perpetuates the myth of perfect. (more…)

Urgently Seeking A New Tradition.

Urgently Seeking A New Tradition.

The kitchen is thick and sticky and my skin feels damp like the back of a post-it note, catching every piece of dust and flour in the air. I’m drinking sweet bourbon on the rocks, feeling the condensation gather on my fingertips when I lift the glass for a sip.

This is what Christmas in New Zealand feels like, December’s slow crawl into oppressive 93% humidity. The rain doesn’t fall, it just sinks from a sky that’s become a thick grey blanket over the city.

It’s terrible weather for baking anything, let alone shortbread. Shortbread and gingerbread belong in a Winter Solstice for precisely the reason it is easier to work with buttery short crust when it’s freezing outside.

But it’s Christmas time everywhere, including here and the Western world is largely caught up in a wave of tradition – baking, feasting, carol singing, tree decorating, maybe even a church service or two. Traditions that have been formed over centuries and decades in order to create festivals of remembrance and stories of celebration. And I’m baking, because that’s what we do at Christmas even though I am not meant to eat sugar or gluten.

There’s a science to baking – use a trusted recipe and trustworthy tools. Measure, mix precisely and follow the damn instructions. Just do it the way people have been doing it for centuries and little can go wrong. Unless you’re trying to make Scottish shortbread in a New Zealand summer. Then you have to figure out how to keep the essence of the tradition alive with a method that works in your new environment.

Except I’ve fallen short. My mother has a recipe book full of childhood memories and her shortbread is the best. But the book has a frayed spine, faded ball point pen and sellotape that has lost its stick. It’s almost become too precious to touch and certainly too precious to borrow. So when I should be using my grandmother’s and mother’s fail-safe recipes, I’m using the Internet. Instead of copying by hand the recipe safely tucked into the handwritten kitchen treasure, I’m scouring Pinterest and Google. It’s a sham. There is nothing traditional about this baking exercise. I’m using my laptop instead of a recipe book and rather than being a trusted source, I’m just giving it a go. I’ll try a new one next year if it doesn’t work out.

But I’ll be leaving out the best parts of the story. What worked and what didn’t. How I managed to keep the butter in the crust cool, how I learned to test the oven for hot spots. There is so much that we miss if we forget to write our new traditions beside the old. Even the Christmas tradition we celebrate now, was built on top of another ancient tradition and we can’t forget that is not just about the product of our efforts but also the practice and journey towards it that matters.

Baking shortbread is about understanding the relationship of butter, flour and temperature. It’s as simple as that. Too warm, the dough won’t hold, too cold it won’t be malleable. Baking requires patience on an ordinary day; whether letting dough rise for cinnamon scrolls and bread or waiting for custard and ganache to set. In 24 degree heat, waiting becomes part of the tradition because the relationship requires it.

Similarly, traditions (or rituals) are the way we understand the relationship between the past, where we have come from, the present, who we are now and the future, including who we long to be. Think about the ritual of communion, of breaking bread at the beginning of a feast, of wedding toasts, of honeymoons, of bar mitzvah or coming-of-age rituals. They are ways of marking what has been, what is and what we hope for.

When you cast aside tradition too hastily, you risk losing a connection to what propels you forward. Advent requires a certain amount of ritual regardless of your spiritual belief because it connects to things of old and things of the future. Find me a man or woman who doesn’t recognize some symbology of newness or hope in the Advent/New Year season and I’ll show you a liar or a fool.

I am both trapped by tradition and freed by it. Trapped by always looking back into history but freed by learning from it. We urgently need a connection to the future that makes sense of our past, particularly when it comes to religion because our current traditions aren’t enough. But it appears we’ve stopped creating new traditions – instead we are trying to find more meaning than ever in the old ones. The trouble is, the old traditions need help expanding to meet the requirements of the new landscape.

When someone new joins the family, people have to rearrange their favourite chairs to make room at the table. Something old must make way for something new that adds new meaning.

In the same way I need to write down the recipes that are now mine – the ones I’ve tried and proven regardless of where they came from. A recipe book that ball point pen won’t fade from, pages that can take the heat of my Antipodean kitchen. I need ways of capturing the recipes that are shared with me, borrowed by me and the ones I create myself to share with others. And it needs to be permanent. A chronological recipe book that begins with my grandmother and moves through each generation including my own; collecting our traditions, what we’ve learned along the way and passing something into the future.

Religion is the same. There are dozens of families who will get up this Sunday morning and head to church services because that’s what they do at Christmas. A moment in time inspired by the past and possibly very disconnected from the future.  We’ll likely be turning up all week at midnight masses, carol services and Christmas productions. What are the rituals of religion worth keeping and which ones should be recorded as part of our history but replaced or evolved to something new?

Why so urgent? Because for the next week I’ll be encountering people who need the shortbread and gingerbread I’m baking tonight. I’ll expand the metaphor – all this week, the Advent season brings all sorts of people into connection with spiritual communities because of tradition, but I don’t think that tradition is going to cut it.

There are plenty of traditions and rituals that have been meaningful and worthwhile through our history. There are also some that are probably long past due for retirement. Others that should be resurrected. We should be mindful that our spirituality is changing before us all the time, therefore our expression and our storytelling also must change to reflect that new environment. It is not a crime to reinvent tradition, in fact we do it every year.

Our traditions need to be both old and new – old enough to connect us to the essence of our story and new enough to point the way to a future that is approachable and makes sense in our new land.

Leaning In, Expecting, Waiting.

Leaning In, Expecting, Waiting.

I watched a crane put together a 10-metre tall Christmas Tree in the city a week or so ago. Piece by piece it was lifted into place while a group of 5 or 6 workmen in high visibility vests perfected the placement of shiny glass baubles. What a sight.

Bright neon vests screaming ‘pay attention’ to what is going on here, while traffic trundled past below and pedestrians marched quickly, bracing against the wind.

That’s the Advent season these days. A race against the clock, constructed by the most unlikely people while everyone else races around completing their business. But Advent, deconstructed or otherwise, still matters regardless of your religious beliefs. It screams out, ‘Notice me – I have something to remind you of.’

Advent is a story about leaning in, expecting and waiting. It’s a story about how we hope for better days, the kind of story our humanity needs to hear at least once a year.

You see, I’m beginning to think that a dream alone is not enough to keep us going. In fact, I have been convinced that a dream isn’t powerful at all. The only power a dream has is the focus and motivation it gives you to take the steps required to achieve it.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, save money, shake a habit or create a new one – then you’ve tasted a tiny piece of what it’s like. The dream requires lots of action, but they are mostly very human actions. They are based in the natural world.

I’ve become more convinced that dreams need action and longing. Longing and desire are what keeps a dream alive, when hope seems lost. Hope is a supernatural kind of thing. Action comes from within us, but hope is something external and internal that we hold on to. Longing taps into the spiritual within us and dreams need both. Without longing, the dream can become dry and our motivation can ebb away. We lose both our internal and external power.

I’ve got a dream that feels out of reach and almost impossible to realise. So over the last few years, I’ve stopped praying for it, hoping for it and believing in it. I’ve stopped letting the longing for it dwell anywhere but in my deepest secret heart. Slowly, I’ve been starving my dream so that it’s easier to live in the Not-Yet reality, but it’s having an impact on what actions I’m prepared to take to achieve the dream. I’ve leaned back out of my dream, I’ve stopped hoping and expecting.

I’ve got to long for it again, letting the longing bubble up into my conversations with others. I can’t hide it away and pretend like it has no hold on me. I’ve got to seek it, praying and asking others to believe alongside me is crucial to help me lean in and get stronger in pursuit of it. Sharing my longing so that the dream stays strong and alive within me is necessary.

Advent is a season of expectancy and waiting. We eagerly await holidays, Christmas parties, gift-giving, time with family and friends. We await the New Year with expectation of what will come and what we have the chance to leave behind. And in the ancient story the Advent comes from, there’s an extraordinary example of what it means to lean into a dream – something so out of the ordinary and hard to understand that Mary’s only option is to lean forward and say, ‘Ok, let it be with me as you have said’.

Regardless of whether you believe the story to be myth or truth, this story has had a remarkable impact on our human history. Nobody questions the courage of a young teenage Jewish girl under Roman rule to lean in and say ‘Ok, I’m in it for the ride’.

Look, sometimes I feel afraid to share that longing and pursue my dreams because I’m scared that I’m asking for the wrong things. But there is no Plan B  –  so by sharing my longing and seeking ways for my dream to become reality, I am inspired to steps I should be taking along the way or to realign my heart to alternate pathways. At the very least, by praying and meditating more regularly on my dreams – I am comforted in the Not-Yet season.

Pursuing a dream out of nothing but our own strength is sure to wear you down. No matter the dream, we are spiritual beings and we need to integrate that into every part of our lives. So a dream by itself is not powerful and human actions alone are also not enough. Deep resonant dream-pursuing requires our whole self… spirit, mind and body.

I’m re-aligning my dream-chasing muscles with longing, expectation and leaning in to hope. What are you dreaming for? How are you leaning into it? There are 15 days left until the New Year begins. What will you enter it dreaming of and longing for?

This post was originally written for World Vision USA and adapted here for tashmcgill.com.