Christmas is a time when many factors converge that can pose significant emotional maturity challenges. On the one hand, the consumerist fever and the logistics of fitting in purchases and family meals. On the other hand, encounters that are not desirable. Furthermore, the little ones are on school vacation and have a lot of free time and there are plans to organize, to which is added the madness of the over-gifted child. As icing on the cake, the change in family routines and the sadness due to the absence of loved ones. All together, a good emotional cocktail.
How do we face these dates with calm, serenity and good spirits? Eva Bach is a pedagogue, teacher, writer, lecturer, counselor and family therapist, as well as a mother of two children, and is also a pioneer and promoter of emotional education in family and school settings in Catalonia and a specialist in personal development, emotional intelligence and educational communication. She has written several books: How to take care of emotional health (2022), Influential mothers and fathers (2019), Educate to love life (2017) or The divorce that unites us (2007; 2023), recently republished.
Is Christmas an especially difficult time emotionally speaking? Do many things come together?
It is an especially difficult time emotionally due to many factors. Repeating rituals and customs year after year, but with emotions, situations and people that change, makes everything that is not as it was or as we would like it to be, revealed. It also encourages us to take stock. It's like passing an annual exam that can generate unpleasant emotions, such as sadness, anger, disappointment... Having to get together with whoever is there by decree, who is not who you would want, makes us sensitive and susceptible. Coming home is not always as nice as it is shown in the advertisements, coming home for Christmas sometimes makes painful family issues surface again and appear on the table.
And it seems that everyone has to be happy and content, the Christmas social mandate...
That happiness is prescribed to us socially is an additional imperative that clashes with everything we said and with internal feelings. When the streets are filled with light and the tables are filled with celebration, sadness also makes an appearance in a more penetrating way than at other times of the year. If everyone is happy and you are not, you have the feeling that you are even less happy. Sad people feel sadder at Christmas. The voids get bigger. If we are sad and it is a storm that lasts fifteen days at most, it will spread soon. We can afford it; If the sadness persists we will have to ask for help.
The madness of capitalist fever begins with the children: toys, sweets, shopping, activities, frenetic pace... What do you recommend to manage it?
I find it crazy overconsumption. When it comes to children, what we have to do is not impose our rhythm on them, which is what we do from the moment they are born: tame them to immerse them in frenetic adult life. We have to try to adjust to the children. If you look, they don't need all those toys. They play in a symbolic way with anything, because they have a great imagination. A piece of wood can be a toy, they play stores, a piece of paper is a card... and thus they develop all their abilities.
There are methods and strategies to reduce gifts at home. What would you recommend?
No matter how austere we are, everyone wants to do something, and it is normal to join in. We have to reach an agreement among everyone who wants to give something to the child and opt for toys that promote good values, fantasy, cooperative play and sharing with other children and adults. There must be non-material gifts, for the soul, things to do together, giving ourselves an afternoon or an outing: grandfather with the grandchildren, for example. Enjoying time to be together is what should be present in all homes, and also on the table, not just material things.
About the toys, any indication?
Few and very well chosen, because some will last very little. Creatures have their priorities. There will surely be toys that will not generate much interest. They have to be toys with many possibilities and, above all, many stories, which feed the soul, knowledge, reading and the presence of the adult who explains the story next to it.
These days it is easy to hear: “Behave well or the Kings will not bring you anything”...
We don't have to go into this. The Three Kings and Santa Claus love all children, because they have a good heart. If they do things wrong, we will have to try to correct them, because they are good and have to do good things. If they make mistakes, we will make them see it, because everyone makes mistakes and there are things that we cannot tolerate. But if they make mistakes, we will love them the same, because we trust in their ability to improve. If the recourse you have is to tell a creature that “If you don't behave well, the Kings won't bring you anything,” it's a disaster.
More and more families do not follow the “magic” of the Kings, the Tío in Catalonia and Santa Claus, and are sincere with the creatures… What do you think?
I respect all the options of each family. But if you tell them the whole truth, make sure you're not doing it because of your own childhood hurts or frustrations. Or to do it differently than they did with you, because you are not right with your family and you are against how they raised you. As a pedagogue I think that imagination and fantasy are a gift; Well managed, it does not generate any trauma. But sometimes we put on so much drama that it seems like an orchestrated deception. You have to create a serene, balanced, sufficient fantasy... In just the right measure. We have to maintain the fantasy and let the creature realize things, explaining slowly as it asks. The story that fathers and mothers help the Kings so they can reach everywhere seems like a beautiful thing to me, even as adults.
You mentioned that not everything on the table has to be material. What do you recommend there be, besides food and drink?
On the table there must be details that feed our soul. Things that do not emphasize excessive consumerism, that pamper us and nourish us from the inside. For example, dedications for each one, a poem dedicated to each person, a nice message to share, explaining moments that we want to remember as a family, each one saying what they would need to feel good... All this puts strength in the bond. , and downplays food, drink, and material gifts. Almost all children ask for more time with their parents, to pay more attention to them, to play with them more; We want to give them the best, and the best is us.
Every Christmas table is missing some loved ones who have already died. In some cases, absences weigh a lot, and we don't want to mention them so as not to be sad...
Sadness for those who are not there is natural and human, synonymous with esteem. Let's look at sadness not as a bad thing, but as a tribute. If it were me who had died, would I want my family to remember me and talk about me, even if it made them cry? I would like. It will make us cry to talk about those who are not there, but this way we can help and console each other. Otherwise, everyone is sad, acting as if nothing happened, and from this the creatures learn that each one is alone with their feelings and that those who are sad are not talked about.
What small actions can be done to remember those who are missing without it hurting us too much?
Each family has to do it as they want and can. There are families who leave an empty chair, but this is very strong and not everyone can do it like this. We cannot be overwhelmed by sadness and have everything be tragic. Maybe a gesture, a reminder... If someone can't handle it, nothing happens if it is postponed, but it is said that now we cannot cope and we postpone it.
School holidays, lots of time with family, days full of stimulation and change of routines. Patience is more necessary than ever. You talk about the traffic light technique…
We have to connect with the emotions and the body, observe ourselves. When you see that you are getting angry, that a primary emotion has to come out impulsively, stop. Look for ways to calm yourself, repeat to yourself: “Calm down, calm down, calm down.” When you have calmed down you can talk and continue, perhaps you will no longer need to say what you were about to say before you exploded. On the physical level, it is good to release it with some activity such as a walk, playing sports, doing a dance with percussion... Release the accumulated stress from the saturation of these days.
At family gatherings we meet brothers-in-law, uncles, in-laws or cousins with whom we do not have much trust. And sometimes they make judgments about us or our way of parenting.
These are days to avoid controversial topics, and this is totally controversial. It is always best to divert the topic, not get into an argument. Assertive techniques say that you have to listen and let it go, neither refute nor agree. We can also openly refuse to discuss. We have to leave the reproaches of the past aside. At Christmas we don't have to have attacks of sincerity, let's stop the sincericides. What has not been fixed in years, you will not fix on Christmas Day, it can even get worse when we are at the table, interacting a lot and with alcohol in the middle, for example. Always think that if someone criticizes you or says something about you, that says more about them than about you. Before meetings, you can think of nice phrases to say to sour or unkind people (“What a nice detail”, “Thank you for hosting us”, “You are fantastic”), which can defuse the aggro.
This article was originally published on RAC1.
