It’s Christmas! Gifts to give and receive. Eating and drinking as much as you like. Meeting friends, family, loved ones. The atmosphere of goodwill and cheer. What’s not to like? Quite a lot, actually. Christmas also reinforces this stark contrast as it is often a source of great stress for many. And the reasons are more varied than you might think. Many people have good reasons to not like Christmas, be it estrangement or loss of their own family and friends, trauma experienced during the festive period, and so on. But, if you look at the modern manifestation of Christmas, it turns out there are a surprising number of elements that can (and probably do) lead to an increase in stress, rather than the opposite.
Great Expectations
The traditional image of Christmas is, let’s be honest, incredibly optimistic. Nearly every portrayal shows a cozy cheerful, tastefully decorated home, in which a happy family gathers to share a large dinner cooked to picture-postcard perfection.
Sadly, life is just too complex and messy to ever guarantee the mainstream portrayal of a perfect Christmas. And yet, we still expect it. The human tendency to expect the best is the result of a well-known optimism bias, something seemingly inherent in our brains. This, coupled with the planning fallacy (a related phenomenon where we repeatedly underestimate how much time and effort tasks will take despite previous experiences) would lead to many people expecting a fun, pleasant, relaxing Christmas and ending up with a messy, chaotic, stressful one.
Feeling left out
FOMO – or fear of missing out. This is a season where social comparisons are heightened. Who is doing what for Christmas? This can be a time of year when we feel the need to keep up with others and have as much fun as others. Of course, this pressure isn’t obligatory but it seems to be human nature – the competitive streak can win. These days, social media means we can see how great everyone else is at their Christmas efforts, inducing extra pressure to conform, and even do better to maintain your status in your group/community.
Festive Workload
While it’s nice to think of all the pleasant aspects of Christmas, they don’t just “happen”, or pop out of nowhere because you wished hard enough (despite what many Christmas films would suggest). Someone must do the legwork to put it all together. Traditionally it’s mum or the family matriarch, but whoever ends up bearing the brunt of it is bound to be at risk of greater stress.
Workload and stress are clearly linked, but just because it’s Christmas it doesn’t mean the regular demands of maintaining a household go away. If anything, because of work and school closures and more regular visitors, those demands increase. And heaped on top of this are countless other duties (decorating, food and gift buying, etc), many of which are pretty pricey at a time when money is increasingly tight.
All of this would undeniably combine to create a situation where stress is far more common, not less.
Family matters
Christmas is a time for families if you’re lucky enough to still be part of one. However, while family support and involvement can often be an important facet of wellbeing, in the short term your family can be a cause of stress. The obvious example of this is political or cultural clashes caused by generational or even geographical differences, which result in tense atmospheres or furious rows over the dinner table. Even if there’s no obvious source of disagreement or even conflict, a prolonged period in close quarters with a lot of your family can still be stressful. There’s the relative lack of privacy that comes from having your house full of people, as well as the loss of control as everyone is chipping in or in your face, even if it’s with 100% good intentions.
Christmas Feast
Christmas is traditionally a time for overindulgence. Given how stressful it can be, it’s no wonder, people, quickly resort to stress-reducing acts, namely eating rich food and drinking alcohol. High-calorie foods and alcohol indeed reduce feelings of stress. But in both cases, it’s a very short-term fix. Our bodies seem to store more fat when we’re stressed, and alcohol consumption can quickly cross the line from being “pleasant” to “not pleasant”, leaving us bloated, hung-over, miserable, and with a worse state of overall health than when we started.
Accidents, injuries, and violence
The combination of excitement, stress, tiredness, and alcohol can create unexpected health hazards such as falls, cuts, and burns in the home at this time of year. Furthermore, there are about one-third more incidents of domestic assault on Christmas Day than the daily average, as pressures lead to conflict and then violence.
As we all live it we can therefore witness that Christmas is a time of extra responsibility as it is a radical shift in our daily patterns. An overload of people, alcohol, food, spending and over-excited children can all contribute to increasing levels of stress, which can be passed off as tiredness or a hangover.
This isn’t to say that Christmas is, by default, a hard and stressful time. It can be brilliant, providing all the good things we expect and more. But it’s important to recognise that this isn’t a given, or automatic. It all requires time, effort, and investment. Ignoring this will just make it an unpleasant season in the long run.
Writer: Awotarowa Ridhee
Editors: Krishta Soobanah, Adweita Beehary
Khisha Callicharrun