10 August 2008
Holiday Survival Tips
Posted by Holiday under: Holiday ( General ) .
The holidays can be a time of dread for many people, for many different reasons. They can be particularly painful if you find yourself all alone at a time when families are sharing a time of warmth and good cheer.
But being single in a couple’s world isn’t the only reason you may dread the holidays. We can place unrealistic expectations upon ourselves of what the perfect celebration “should “ look like, then fall into disappointment when we don’t measure up.
Survival Tips
Whatever the reason for your holiday blues, please take some comfort from the fact that you are certainly not alone in how you feel. Here are 5 tips to help you navigate through this holiday season.
Let go of the past!
Do you get caught up in trying to make the holidays just like the past? The reality is, our rapidly changing times are bound to “rock the boat” of what your “perfect” holiday celebration looks like. “Reduce your anxiety by acknowledging your opportunity to maximize your current circumstances to build new traditions, build on old ones, and abandon unrealistic expectations.”
Pace yourself.
Unlike any other time of year, the holiday season is a time of celebrations, family gatherings, winter activities and entertaining visitors. If you are divorced, you may be juggling kids schedules and fighting financial restrictions. These variables added on to an already busy lifestyle can cause unnecessary anxiety and hopelessness when things start falling apart. The key to managing additional responsibilities and social commitments during this time is to pace yourself and organize your time. Make a list and prioritize your most important activities. Accept help, and allow for quiet time at regular intervals.
Acknowledge your feelings. The holiday season does not automatically banish reasons for feeling sad or lonely. If you have experienced the loss of a loved one, are far from family and/or friends, or are generally affected by changes in weather and light, it is ok to acknowledge that these feelings are present — even if you choose not to express them.
Practice Self-care. Eat well. Get plenty of rest and keep alcohol intake moderate. Excessive drinking only perpetuates anxiety and depression. If you are prone to depression around this time of year, keep your alcohol intake to a minimum.
Create a support system. You are not alone in how you feel at this time of year. Spend time with people who are supportive and care about you. If that isn’t your family, then spend this time with friends. If you are far from home or alone during special times, make a proactive effort to build new friendships or contact someone you have lost touch with. Take it one day at a time and you will be fine.
Getting past the holidays without going crazy
The holidays are upon us and for anyone who is going through a divorce, the season ranks right up there with root canals as a fun time. And why shouldn’t it? It’s a time when families get together and share all the warmth and love they’ve stored up all year long for each other. Only you’re alone. And perhaps you’re not even welcome in the family setting that you’ve enjoyed for so many years when your marriage was going along so well (or at least that’s what everyone thought). What do you call in-laws when you’re no longer married? Ex-in-laws? It’d be nice to be able to call them friends. But probably not this year. Maybe next.
Of course your kids want to see their father or their mother, your ex or soon to be ex, and they’re not too happy that you won’t be spending the holidays together like before.
There’s a bright side, though, they get two Christmas mornings, one at your house, one at the other house, and that should mean double the presents. Only you don’t have a lot of money and your ex does so you’re going to come out looking a bit shabby in the kids’ eyes when they compare their presents.
Holiday cards are a problem. Do you send them from the “family” and hope nobody pays any attention? Or do you send them from yourself and the kids and hope nobody notices your spouse’s name is missing? Maybe no cards this year is the best answer.
What about the phone calls from relatives and long lost friends, the ones who keep in touch once a year. The phone calls when they ask “how’s Dave?” and you have to say “oh, didn’t you know? Dave and I are divorced…” and then there’s the awkward silence, or the gasp, or the need for explanation. Maybe a chatty newsletter with a little “PS” at the bottom “PS, Dave is living with his new wife, kids and I are fine.” Maybe not.
What the holidays do is open the wounds, make them hurt particularly painfully during a time that you’re supposed to be happier than usual. It’s the holidays! Hey, be happy! How does that stop the pain that comes from having a husband say he’s tired of being married, or having a wife say she needs to find herself - alone. What do you do when everyone around you is celebrating the New Year and you’d give anything to turn the clock back to two years ago when the two of you were celebrating the holidays together?
How about those holiday parties everyone is having and they’d like to invite you, but your ex is going to be there so, maybe some other time. Or you’re invited but now who do you invite so you don’t spend the whole evening wishing you’d never ventured from home. Or you’re invited and your hostess has already decided that she’s got the most fantastic person for you to meet except that the two of you take an instant dislike to each other and the evening drags on forever. Or you go with or without a date and you let everyone see you having a good time even though you’d rather be anywhere but there, but you know that sometime you’ve got to get over the pain, and the healing might as well start now.
I remember a Christmas many years ago when I was newly divorced and away from family and friends. A friend from work invited me to her home for Christmas dinner. It was four of us around the dinner table, she and her husband, their five-year-old son and me. It made a big impression, that lonely feeling as I shared the holiday with their young family. It’s one of the few Christmas dinners I remember, and I treasure the memory even though she and I haven’t seen each other in years.
Take care of yourself.
More Blues
At the holidays more than any other time of the year we are supposed to feel particularly warm and fuzzy toward our family and friends. It’s a nice goal but the holidays are dreadful for people involved in unhappy relationships. I just put a lot of different reasons for dreading the holidays into the phrase “unhappy relationships.” Being alone because of divorce isn’t the only reason you might dread the holidays.
From an early age we’re bombarded with images of smiling families sitting around the holiday table. It’s obvious they’re well-fed, well-loved, and in love with life itself. Unfortunately, that’s not the way real life is in a vast number of homes. Having a movie family as our ‘benchmark’ of family success, we can only feel extremely disappointed when our family doesn’t make the grade.
If you have chosen to work through problems in your marriage, it may be extremely difficult to maintain a smile during the holidays when your heart is breaking. As much as you may want to celebrate the fact that you and your spouse are together for the holidays, it may be that trust still isn’t there or the healing process hasn’t progressed far enough.
If you’re thinking of divorce, or planning to divorce soon, it’s difficult to get together with family and friends and pretend that all is well and toast the new year as though you’ll always be in your current relationship.
If this is your first holiday since your divorce, no doubt there is a change in the family and friends with whom you have celebrated the holidays in the past. You may now be estranged from your in-laws, and, depending upon the nature of your divorce, you may be estranged from your own family.
Whatever the reason for your holiday blues, please take some comfort from the fact that you are certainly not alone in how you feel. As a matter of fact, you just might be in the majority if the holidays don’t thrill you. Take them one day at a time, and you’ll be just fine.
Take care of yourself.
Source: www.edmontondivorcesolutions.com/ articles/Holiday%20Survival%20Tips.doc
