The Juniper Center Newsletter - Fall 2009
Tis the Season
By Dr. Margo Jacquot
It's that time of year again. Fall is a lovely time of year, at least in the Midwest. The air is crisp and the leaves are spectacular. It is also getting colder and light is getting scarce.
In addition, the holidays are nearly upon us. For some of us it's a time of joy and family celebration. For others it's a time of stress and disappointment. We may see the cracks in our relationships with people that we love. For still others it's a time where we find ourselves missing someone whom we have lost through a divorce, breakup, geographic distance or death. For some it's a bit of each.
I hear many people say that they are not looking forward to the holidays. The hype and expectation usually leaves them feeling let down and a bit lonely. They rush around to get things done, perhaps attend a few parties. They might even have some nice plans for the holidays, but each year it feels like something is missing.
Many of us want to feel warm, close connections at the holidays. We want to feel something special. It seems like these days should feel different than all of the others. For some reason, this doesn't seem to happen for many people. And each year they are puzzled by this. The reasons vary. However, what seems to be universal is that we expect and/or just wish for a feeling. One gentleman asked me last year, “is it too much to have just a little bit of Christmas joy? The question broke my heart because I could tell how simple and common and elusive this seemed to him. We talked about how he came to expect this. He didn't know. I sure don't. What I do know is that, just like most things, if we allow ourselves to get wrapped up in how things should be, or how we think things will be, we will likely be disappointed.
From my observation, many people who enjoy the holidays actually de-emphasize the importance of the actual day or days and with great thought and intention find things to enjoy throughout the season and well into January.
One particular client and I designed an experiment last year. She created a holiday calendar that began two weeks prior to Thanksgiving. She marked off days when she was committed with plans and used some of the open days to create something meaningful. She is a divorced mother with two children, and last year was her ex-husband's year to have the children for Thanksgiving. Her solution was to schedule two mini-thanksgiving dinners (complete with a pre-cooked chicken and dressing from a local grocery store) with friends and their kids, one right before Thanksgiving and one the week after. The actual day was spent with her mother's new husband's family. She hardly knew anyone but brought with her to the dinner a group picture from her first Thanksgiving with her kids. She also kept reminding herself that she had another dinner with her children and some friends in just a few days.
She only has her children every other weekend, so she decided to schedule some things to do alone and with her children and friends when possible throughout the holiday season. Money was tight so she had to be careful, but she enjoyed things like looking at the windows downtown. She took herself to an interesting new coffee house in the area, listened to some festive music and addressed her holiday cards there. She invited a few other families over to bake holiday cookies. None of these or any of the other things she planned were spectacular unto themselves. But her attitude of enjoying lots of little days and events, instead of all of her energy going into one, seemed to help her relax and accept the actual days of the holidays for what they were: get-togethers. Christmas was somewhat better because her children were home, but they were missing their Dad and she just needed to let them do so. The holiday itself was spent with her family, but it was still just a nice get-together.
One week into the new-year, with New Year's Eve plans being dashed by the flu, this resourceful person got together with a few friends (on a weekend without her kids) and they scrap-booked the last year in review. She is not much of a scrap-booker, but she enjoyed looking at pictures from the previous year and organizing them into an album.
At the end of it all, she said it was the best holiday season she has had as an adult. The key was in making lots of little events and celebrations enjoyable and making the holidays a season, instead of a couple of much anticipated days.
