7 Tips for Feeling Your Best at Family Events this Holiday Season
The holidays are a wonderful time for connecting, but they can also be overwhelming. As a Registered Psychotherapist in downtown Hamilton with 10 years of experience helping clients navigate family dynamics, I know that holiday gatherings often come with their own set of challenges. Whether it’s the noise (if you’re a parent, and have read How The Grinch Stole Christmas lately, you’ll know the line - “oh the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise!”), tricky conversations, trauma history that surfaces during get-togethers, or just the sheer number of people, it’s important to have strategies to help you feel calm and in control.
Here are 7 simple tips to help you enjoy family events this holiday season, whatever you celebrate:
1. Step Away When You Need a Breather
Gathering together can be noisy and busy. It’s okay to take a break if you start feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated. Signs of overstimulation can include irritability, difficulty focusing, a racing heart, or feeling like you just can’t take in any more noise or activity. If you find this happening to you:
Find a quiet spot (such as the bathroom, the backyard, or tell your family you need to run out to get something you left in the car - like your favourite chapstick, whatever!).
Use this time to take slow, deep breaths: Inhale for four counts, hold for four, and exhale for four. Even just a few cycles of this breathing with intention can help you recharge and rejoin the group feeling more balanced.
2. When You’re Overwhelmed, Focus on One Thing
When everything feels like too much, if you can, find one of those quiet spots I list in tip 1 above, and try this grounding exercise:
Notice five things you see, four things you can touch, three you hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste. Helpful tip: Screenshot or copy and paste this list into the Notes section into your phone. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, you might not be able to remember the details of this activity without looking it up.
The important part of this exercise is noticing these things as they are in the present moment. You will have thoughts like: “I see the cobwebs in that corner over there; I should clean them.” When you have those kinds of thoughts, try to redirect your attention to what the cobwebs look like now and trust yourself to deal with cleaning them later when you aren’t working on simply being present and observing them. This quick technique brings your focus to the present moment, helping ease feelings of stress or overwhelm.
Even if you don’t find that quiet spot you can still ground yourself where you are.
3. Set Small Boundaries on the Spot
If a conversation or situation feels uncomfortable, you’re allowed to protect your space. Friendly, simple phrases can help, such as:
“I’m going to grab a drink—be right back!”
“Let’s catch up about that later.”
“I don’t know, I’ll think about what you are saying and get back to you.”
These responses let you gracefully redirect the situation without causing friction. You don’t need to use therapy words around ‘setting boundaries’ to do it effectively.
4. Be Intentional With The Moment You’re In
Trying to manage a room full of people at once or make this a good holiday for yourself can leave you feeling drained. Instead, keep things manageable by focusing on one activity or interaction at a time. Ideas include:
Have a conversation with just one person
Help with a specific task
Sit and enjoy a meal.
If you don’t have something to contribute to the conversation, try to focus on listening attentively to the other people talking. If there is a long pause in the conversation, see if you can notice what else is happening in the room during the pause, rather than thinking of how to keep the conversation moving. Staying present in the moment can make the experience feel more enjoyable and less chaotic.
5. Don’t Expect to be Happy Every Single Minute
The holidays can stir up a wide range of emotions, and that’s perfectly normal. Joy and laughter might mix with moments of frustration, sadness, or anxiety. In fact, someone I know, who loves Christmas, often cries on Christmas Day, due to a mix of excitement, overwhelm, and nostalgia for Christmases gone by. Give yourself permission to feel whatever comes up without judgment. Trying to force happiness can make those tougher emotions feel even bigger. Recognizing that it’s okay not to feel festive 100% of the time can take the pressure off and let you enjoy the holidays in a more authentic way after that uncomfortable feeling.
6. Burn the Dinner (Let Something Go!)
Things don’t always go according to plan, and that’s okay! Whether the turkey’s dry, the cookies crumble, or you forget an ingredient, remember that it’s the connection, not perfection, that matters most. Sometimes, the funniest memories are the result of small “disasters.” When the turkey burns or a child doesn’t like the present you bought them, it's easy to confuse the essence with the instant. The turkey is an instant of trying to be hospitable. The present is an instant of showing love for a child. When an instant doesn’t go the way it ‘should’, try to remember what the instant was trying to establish in the first place, and work from there. What is essential is not only revealed in the perfect moments. It’s in the imperfect moments too.
7. Find a Way to be Generous (It Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive or Exhausting)
Generosity doesn’t have to mean spending a lot of money or overextending yourself. It can be as simple as offering a genuine compliment, lending a helping hand, or giving your time to someone who needs it. Acts of kindness not only brighten someone else’s day but also boost your own mood.
For example, one of my favourite parts of this season are the 5 minutes me and my wife and kids take at bedtime each night in December to each have a drink of store-bought eggnog out of tiny liqueur glasses. It costs almost nothing, and only lasts 5 minutes, but it brings me a smile and I look forward to it each holiday season.
People have been gathering together on these darkest days of the year for thousands of years and giving has been a part of that all this time. This kind of gathering together was even the case when people did not know if they would have enough food to get them through to the next spring. Maybe as human beings dealing with uncertainty, giving something away helps soften the fear of what could be taken in that uncertainty.
Taking Care of Yourself is Part of the Celebration
The holidays are meant to be joyful, but they don’t have to be perfect. By using these simple strategies, you can navigate family events with more ease and confidence, staying present while still honoring your own needs.
If you’d like more personalized support for navigating family dynamics or managing holiday stress, feel free to reach out—I’d be happy to help.
Here’s to a season that feels as good as it looks!
- Scott
