By Elayne Savage, PhD
Last month, just before Thanksgiving, I shared some tips for navigating family gatherings. Some of you asked for more tips for surviving the upcoming holidays.
So here we go . . .
Holiday Hype
It helps to separate the hype from actuality. This year those ads of 'make believe' started appearing even earlier than usual. The purpose, of course, is to build up your Great Holiday Expectations.
Weeks before Thanksgiving arrives, we're thoroughly indoctrinated by the 'Happy Family' and 'Perfect Present' ads.
Wow. What a set-up for disappointment this is!
And I'm here to remind you that unrealistic expectations usually lead to disappointments.
All too often, disappointments feel like rejection.
Tips for Handling the Holidays
Besides the tips I offered last month for 'talking to the turkeys at the table,' the best way to deal with family stress is to be creative in taking time-outs to collect your thoughts and regain your composure.
Excusing yourself, doing some slow breathing, and counting to ten all work wonders to help regain your balance (and your dignity, too.)
– In the living room, before or after dinner, if someone says or does something inappropriate, you can excuse yourself to get a drink of water.
– At the dinner table, you can always say a simple, "Excuse me, I'll be back," walk into the bathroom, close the door, take a few deep breaths and strategize: "OK, how do I want to handle this?"
– If you are visiting from out of town consider renting a car. This lets you be independent about your transportation and your time and space. You even take a day-trip during your stay to escape from the stresses of too much family time.
When someone's behavior is too obnoxious to ignore, rather than overreacting, why not try a different tack?
– Try to find something about that person you can like, maybe even respect. For example, they have a terrific laugh or the color of their shirt is very nice and looks great with the color of their eyes. Then while you are talking with them concentrate on that redeeming feature.
When the person sees respect in your eyes, they are more likely to respond positively to you. Are you wiling to give it a try? It sure beats time spent glaring at each other.
As you've probably figured out, these descriptions and tips are applicable to many life situations – including the workplace.
Each Family has 'Their Way'
It's not surprising there are so many hurt feelings and misunderstandings about the holidays. After all, each of us grew up in different families with different traditions for celebrating and different expectations about exchanging gifts.
I often coach young families in creating ways to make their own traditions around birthdays, Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Chanukah, New Years and other holidays important to them.
They can incorporate the best memories of their childhood years and fill in where pleasant memories might be lacking. They can decide together what traditions they want to bring to their immediate family, what's important to them about giving and receiving presents or whether to decorate or not.
Gift-giving Dilemmas
The Holidays are prime times for gift-giving dilemmas. All too often someone gets their feelings hurt ands takes something personally.
Giving and receiving gifts can surely make the Holidays stressful. Who hasn't felt some anxiety about shopping for just the 'right' present?
Gifts are a huge source of disappointments, hurt feelings and misunderstandings. It's so easy to take it personally if you don't get what you've been hoping for.
Most of us have felt some disappointment on the receiving end as well. Especially when you feel the giver of the gift just doesn't 'get' you at all because they are so off base in their choice of present.
You might tell yourself it really doesn't matter. And maybe sometimes it doesn't. But what about the times your feelings get hurt?
And you know how difficult it can be to try to keep the disappointment from showing on your face.
But wait, maybe you're not quite done feeling rejected yet. Maybe you even tell yourself the gift-giver doesn't care enough about you – because if they really cared, they'd have guessed what you were hankering for.
Another sure-fire way to get disappointed and take it personally is when you are the gift-giver. Do you shop for the 'perfect' present for someone, then wait with baited breath to see the look on their face when they open the present you so carefully chose?
Do you try to 'read' their reaction through their expression and body language? What do you tell yourself?
Again, these are situations where disappointments feel like rejection.
Some of us have never forgotten childhood disappointments and when any new disappointment comes our way, it brings up some of those old feelings of disappointment.
Caring is Not Symmetrical
Sometimes we expect caring to be symmetrical. There are probably as many ways of showing it as there are people. There are probably just as many ways of missing someone's intentions because their style of caring is different from our own.
We learn styles of caring the same place we learn styles of gift-giving – in our families.
Whenever I present a program on expectations and disappointments, there is really a charge to the subject of gift-giving. This generates so much discussion, it could
easily be an entire presentation.
Gift-giving Tips
– Know what you want. If you don't know, how can you expect anyone else to figure it out.
– Don't 'hint around.' No one can read your mind. Be direct about what you want. Surprises are great as long as you can keep from getting disappointed.
– You could offer two or three gift suggestions. OR even pick out two things you really love at your favorite store or online site. asking the person who will buying you a gift choose which one to buy for you. It even has a bit of surprise element as well because you don’t know which gift they'll choose. It’s worth having a little less surprise in order to have lots less anxiety for both of you. They’ll love you for making it easy and you get something you really want.
Look for more ideas about gift-giving in the February blog – just in time for Valentine's Day.
© Elayne Savage, PhD
Happy Holidays everyone! Wishing you a healthy, adventurous and wonder-filled New Year.
Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking relationship books published in 9 languages.
You can order books and CDs directly from my website:
http://www.QueenofRejection.com/publications.htm
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WITH REJECTION from Amazon:
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