Home for the Holidays - 3 Stress-Management Tips to Make Your Holidays More Merry!

How to Have a Merry Covid Christmas at Home with Your Family

Going home for the holidays is complicated. This year it’s more complicated than ever, because we are all worried not just about being exposed to Covid-19, but also about being the one responsible for passing it on to someone in our family who is more vulnerable. This just adds to all the holiday angst about managing whatever unhealthy family dynamics exist in our “family of origin” (or, as we say in psych-world, FOO).

Whenever I go to visit my family home, I head directly to the refrigerator. Why? Because in my food-oriented family, that’s where the love is. I stand there with the fridge door wide open, wondering why I am standing there just staring. Because I’m not actually hungry, and I don’t even really like this kind of food anymore.

This year, if you visit your family, take a beat before you ring that doorbell or put the key in the lock, to consider how you can find some new positive things about family visits. If you are going home with a partner, talk about what you can do together to enhance your (joint) holiday experience.

In years of talking to clients about their experiences going home for the holidays, here are some of the things I have seen that make the time at home more merry and bright:

1.Re-connect With Your Childhood Self

It can be bittersweet to be in your childhood room as an adult. You already feel like you are 12 years old again the minute you walk in the front door. The “sweet” half of the bittersweet comes when you imagine your childhood self, but it’s clear that you now have adult independence, skills and accomplishments. (I guarantee you have these, even if it takes a minute to identify them sometimes when we are feeling particularly childlike, or when we have taken a huge hit from the effects of COVID-19).

Take a minute to revisit that child self. Remember how it felt. Sit in your childhood room and visualize your younger self, from the vantage point of your adult self. You can even imagine going back as your adult self, to comfort your child self—Hey look, young self. We did okay! We are building an adult life for ourself, we are doing grownup things, we have a dog—whatever works for you. The important message is, “It’s going okay, and we get to make most of our own choices now.” Whatever crazy family dynamic we grew up with, we don’t have to experience it the same way any longer.

For a more powerful takeaway, you can take this even further.

One client of mine used this time revisiting her childhood room to re-connect with her childhood hopes, dreams, creativity, and enthusiasm. She decided to bring more of the colorful personality that created a childhood room that was full of color and energy to her life as an adult. She reconnected with her core spirit of creative individuality, and committed to integrating that into her adult life and her adult home.

One of my favorite movies about reconnecting with your child self is The Kid. It’s a feel-good family movie, so you might be able to convince everyone to watch it with you!

2.Protect Your Couple

If you are going home with a partner, that’s great! You will have a partner-in-crime and support for the times your family is making you crazy!

But…it’s easy for your “couple-ness” to get lost in the shuffle.

Make some plans before you get to your family home. Plan to have a time each day, even if it’s only half an hour, that is just for the two of you. Maybe you have your morning coffee alone together on the porch each day, or maybe you take the dog for a walk together each evening before dinner.

Set aside a specific time that you both commit to and show up for, without having to be asked by the other. Even if it’s only a short period, you will feel special if you know your partner is making a point of spending time alone with you.

If your partner is going with you to stay with your family, they may have their own struggles about spending time in an environment where they might feel like the outsider. Have a conversation about what makes them feel included, and what things make them feel pushed away. You may be surprised at their response.

Also note that your partner will probably need more alone time than you usually do when you spend time with your family, so make some allowances for that as well.

3.Take the Opportunity to Notice How the Family Dynamics Have Shaped Your Self Image

Time spent with the family can be a bit of a drama. Why is that? What is it about your particular family that is most difficult? Examining this can help you understand a lot about yourself—what makes you tick, why you respond to things the way you do, and how you feel about yourself.

Do you struggle with perfectionism? When you are home with your family you might notice that the only time you get attention is when you do something well. Or maybe you do something well and your family still doesn’t notice, so you get the message that it has to be perfect for you to feel the love.

Do you struggle with being a “people-pleaser”? Watching your family dynamics at home will shed plenty of light on the reason why. What I see most often with people-pleasing, is that it develops as a coping method when we are young children, trying to keep everyone happy to avoid family discord that is scary to us. That could be as simple as parents arguing, and your child self being afraid of the break-up of the family.

Are you a rebel? Chances are that if you are a rebel, the roles of people-pleaser and perfectionist were already taken in your family.

Understanding how you came to take on this role in your family, whatever it was, is the first important step in moving beyond the role and making a more conscious choice of who you want to be.

Going home for the holidays may be a prospect that makes you nervous, but with a little thought beforehand, you can use this time to improve your self-understanding, reconnect with old hopes and dreams, and also strengthen your bond with your partner. Hopefully that will make it all worthwhile when your parents start asking you annoying questions, or your family starts arguing over who makes the gravy, or Uncle Frank drinks too much and makes your mom upset.

Could You Use Some Extra Help Navigating the Family Dynamics or Recovering from Being Back Home?

Therapy can be a wonderful way to make sense of it all. Give me a call at 323-999-1537 or shoot me an email at amy@thrivetherapyla.com for your FREE consultation! We can chat about your specific needs and how I can help, because I want to help make 2021 your best year yet!!