how not to behave like a teenager at christmas
hands up if if you’re surprised to learn that new research from Relate has now found that 55% of people say Christmas places extra tension on relationships. Anyone? Thought not. No surprise either to learn that the counselling charity has a 58% rise in website users every January, as the nation picks up the pieces after a thousand festive fallouts.
I know the feeling. I’m a professional 35-year-old woman who left home 16 years ago. Yet, ensconced in the family home at Christmas, I become a sensitive 13-year-old who, one recent year, sobbed on the single bed in the spare room all Boxing Day after a turkey-related argument with my sister (also grown-up and a parent herself ).
Going home for Christmas can be a bit like stepping into a parallel universe. In the real world, I have been holding down a career in journalism for 12 years; to my family, however, I am the teenage sloth who sleeps until lunchtime. ‘Are our eyes deceiving us?’ my father and uncle guffaw hilariously if I come down for breakfast before 9.30am. In the real world, I am calm and reasonable; after 24 hours with my family, I become the person who snaps, ‘No, my period is NOT due!’ at my mother before storming out of the room, Santa hat bobbing ludicrously on my head.
Those of us able to spend Christmas with family we love are hugely lucky – but that doesn’t mean it always brings out the best behaviour. Quite the contrary, in fact: many of us find ourselves regressing to old childhood habits and resentments within minutes of stepping into that environment. It’s not helped by the fact that very little goes on outside the home on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, and it’s a time of year when a home is often packed with more people than it’s designed for; no wonder it can feel like being trapped in a festive pressure cooker.
Linda Blair, clinical psychologist and a columnist for the Telegraph, says it’s absolutely normal to feel this way. ‘Here we are in the most stressful time of the year: it’s dark, it’s hard to take exercise – which would regulate and balance our mood – and we’re overtired because we pack two thirds of all socialising for the entire year into the weeks before Christmas,’ she says. ‘And when we’re tired, those old patterns of behaviour come back up.’
The good news is that there are things we can do to stay sane. ‘Make sure you get outside over Christmas for at least 20 minutes a day in natural light,’ explains Blair. ‘Move while you’re out there – take a fast walk or a jog or a cycle ride. You’ll get more feel-good hormones, which again will start to make you rational again.’
If you have children in the house or are partial to a late night, you’re probably sleep-deprived too. Blair recommends the power nap. ‘Lie down on the floor or in a comfortable chair for 10 or 15 minutes with no noise or distractions – preferably not on a bed, because you’ll have the tendency to go into deep sleep straight away and then feel awful when you wake up. A power-nap is the equivalent of getting an hour and a half of sleep at night.’
And if after all this, you still find yourself telling your brother to eff off following a misjudged joke about your roast-potato consumption, chalk it up to experience and move on. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself,’ says Blair. ‘Christmas is one of the toughest times of the year.’
If all else fails, I can only recommend retreating to the spare room with the Quality Street until your mood improves.