Facing the Holidays in a Pandemic

 Holidays typically present a number of challenging decisions. During the pandemic, some of those decisions might be simplified for you, while some become more complex. The pandemic might help you simplify the question of whether or not you will travel to visit family, or who to include in a gathering. At the same time, it may ask you to become more creative in designing the experience you hope for during the holidays. 

The question of who to include in a gathering might happen in your family every year. For example, you might have a scenario similar to this Connection Gem reader:

Holidays are coming up and all around me I hear my family debating whether or not to invite my father. They know he won’t contribute to their needs for harmony and joy. They say that they might not come to the gathering if he does, because they fear stress and want peace.

We are planning to get together at my mother’s home. My father (her ex-husband) always stays way longer than we like, doesn’t stop talking, takes up a lot of space, and never contributes to the household. He might otherwise be alone for the holidays and we care about him, therefore, it seems we are facing a choice between his needs or our own. 

 If during non-pandemic times, you suffered about choices like the one identified above, you might find some ease when health and safety concerns direct these choices in an impersonal way. But whether you are still faced with decisions like these or not, the principles that can help you find your way through remain the same.

Holidays are strong triggers for thoughts about the way things should be. The media is rife with images depicting the perfect holiday — often including big families sharing loving connections, vacations in beautiful places, extravagant dinners, and meaningful rituals. You might feel pressure, disappointment, or grief when your thoughts tell you that you are not having the “right” experience. This is often a painful distraction from what you really want or need, and how you would like to create it.

If we use the example above, in which the family is struggling with the decision about inviting their father to the holiday gathering, we can guess that some “shoulds” are at play. This might include thoughts like: “You shouldn’t leave a family member alone on a holiday.” “You should include everyone at the same gathering.” “You should put up with a possibly miserable situation because that’s the right thing to do.” “You should decide whose needs are most important.”

With so much “should thinking” it's difficult to track what really matters. When you become free of these thoughts, you realize that needs are never in conflict. It is simply attachment to the strategies to meet those needs that creates conflict.  

In our example above, I would guess that our Gem reader wants to tend to their father’s needs for care, love, and inclusion. If she is able to focus on just these needs without the “should thoughts,” creative strategies to meet them will naturally appear. For example, she might discover that it would mean more to her father to have a one on one date with each person. Or perhaps, her family decides to divide up the day and spend a portion at his house. Perhaps they have a celebration with him on a different day.

Whether it is family conflict or the restrictions present in the pandemic, getting free of “shoulds” and focusing on the needs you most want to meet will help open the door to creativity. Here are some questions to ask yourself that might inspire the process: 

• What's most important to me about this holiday? What needs are alive for me, and what needs do I guess are present for others?

• What do I really care about with regard to each family member? What do I want them to know or experience? Do they want or need what I want to offer?

• What types of activities do I truly find nourishing when I have time off from work?

• What rituals live as “shoulds” for me? How could I bring back the joy or replace them with a more authentic ritual?

• What do I really want to share with others?

• What do I want to keep private or do in solitude?

• What are the elements that make up the experience I would like to have and try to create for others?

The pandemic asks us to examine the way we have always done things. It asks to try something new and notice what happens. The holidays are no exception. This is an opportunity to ask why you have done holidays in a certain way and what needs it met to do it that way. Perhaps it is an opportunity to experiment and see what new things might arise.

Practice

Take a moment now and focus on three full breaths. Then ask yourself what has been one of the most meaningful moments in any holiday for you. What made it meaningful?