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Christmas: Family, Fun and Festivity?
Julia Davies
Christmas: Family, Fun and Festivities?
Christmas is awesome! It’s synonymous with family, laughter, friends, dancing, gifts, a fight to get the Christmas tree up, terrible songs and mulled wine strong enough to knock Rudolf out!
Our tendency however is to romanticise this time of year expecting it to be perfect. This year of course it's going to be very different anyway. Even though we are allowed to see family the regulations will mean that there may now be families divided with difficult decisions about who can see whom. Lots of us may decide to avoid seeing family altogether with a vaccine likely so soon. Either way it's most likely to add more heart ache and pain for a fraught time of year.
The result is even the calmest person begins to feel stressed as the bank account haemorrhages cash, we can’t agree on who we get to see, every surface is covered to the point of madness and we expect ourselves to produce a Turkey worthy of Nigella.
Here are a few tips:
- Be kind to yourselves. If you or someone you know are experiencing poor mental health, then Christmas can either be a great balm or brutal.
- Keep a list of what is making you feel worse or better. Writing it down helps you to clarify your state of mind.
- Then focus on steps that make your day better. Maybe it’s regular exercise. Maybe it’s sleep. Allow yourself these things
- If work is adding to your stress levels, then chat to your manager or a sympathetic team member about how the workload can be better managed. If your boss isn’t interested, then get them to do a Mental Health First Aid course as they obviously need it!!
- Accept Christmas isn’t going to be perfect! It's the imperfections that make it memorable and fun.
- Manage expectations. This can be tough. It might be chatting with a loved one about what they want their Christmas to look like and then sharing your thoughts and negotiating this calmly. It’s a lot easier to do before Christmas then to add to the stresses of the big day. It may mean explaining to kids that there might only be a couple gifts this year but that instead you are going to play some great games together.
- Family and friends can be great to share problems with, but they may also not have time for deeper chats. Instead focus on asking for a time when you can sit down and talk or go for a walk. Talking is a great health preserver. If you can’t talk to your family then arrange a time with a buddy. Or ring Samaritans on 116123 or text SHOUT on 85258 for a text chat.
Finally, whilst it does not sound fun, if you are not feeling well then please don’t drink. Look up some good mocktails. An orange juice mixed with sparkling water/lemonade and a bit of ice can look delicious and make you feel so much better too. If you are not feeling well then drink and drugs will make it a lot worse. Please don’t be tempted.
If you would like to know more about supporting someone with a Mental Health illness, then find out more about our courses here