Christmas Chore? : Experts Tell How to Battle Stress at Holiday Homecomings

As Jonelle nervously boarded the 747 that would take her home to Southern California for the Christmas holidays, she glanced around at her fellow passengers. How many of them, she wondered, were bringing home memories of loving families, and were anticipating a reenactment of the good times they had shared at past holidays?

And how many of them, she also wondered, were bound to be disappointed--again--as she was certain she would be?

Jonelle, now in her early 30s, moved from Orange County to New York eight years ago to try to carve a place for herself in the competitive arena of fashion design. She had done pretty well, becoming a valued assistant for a well-known designer, but somehow not as well as anyone in her family expected. And so coming home every year for a week at Christmas had become a trial. She wasn’t prepared to graciously field what she was sure would be a constant stream of questions about her career and love life, or to handle what she saw as the petty quarrels so out of keeping with the holiday spirit.

This fictional scenario, based on the real-life cases of several Orange County psychologists, is familiar to family counselors. Going home for the holidays has become more of a chore than a celebration for many people, and the fault, psychologists generally agree, seems to lie largely in our high expectations of what the holidays and our families should do for us--including making us feel happy, loved and important.

“During the holidays,” said Marsha Goodley, a Laguna Niguel clinical psychologist and stress management specialist, “our society tells us that we are supposed to feel happy, especially within the family context. Whenever we don’t feel so marvelous, we come under a great deal of stress. When we--and other family members--bring that stress home, the potential for blow-ups is very great.”

Ray Olson, a clinical psychologist with the South Coast Medical Center in South Laguna, said people see negative emotions as inappropriate at this time of year, so they cover them up rather than discuss them with someone who might be able to help. “That can be dangerous,” he warned.

Seal Beach therapist Fern Rubin said people get into trouble when they try to turn the holidays into something they are not. “Many of us go home at this time of year with the idea--conscious or unconscious--of promoting ourselves,” she said. “We want to ‘be somebody.’ The single biggest stress we face is the thought that we will have no impact on those we will meet.

“When you stop to think of it, isn’t it ridiculous to take the sum of a whole life--all of our qualities, our talents, our accomplishments--and try to make an evening’s statement about it?”

‘I Am Very Successful’

Don (not his real name) agrees that that ambition is pretty silly. But somehow, that hasn’t stopped the 34-year-old Anaheim dentist from trying to prove more than a thing or two about himself each year when he returns to his parents’ home in an affluent Chicago suburb.

“When I see myself apart from my family, I have to admit that I am very successful,” he said with a smile and a shrug. “I’m doing well professionally. I’m married to a beautiful woman who loves me and is a great mother to our two healthy boys. We live in a lovely home.

“But when I go home I’m still treated like the kid brother who can never quite catch up. (His brother is a cardiac surgeon, and his sister is a network television reporter.) “I find myself bragging and even embellishing on my actual accomplishments, trying to sound like a big shot. I know it sounds like a cliche, but all I want is a little respect. Is that asking too much?”

Unfortunately, it may well be, said therapist Ann Linthorst, who has a private counseling practice with the Institute of Metapsychiatry in Orange. “So often the things we want from our families are precisely what they are most unable to give us. Adult children want their parents to affirm them as separate, successful individuals in their own right. Parents want to be affirmed for a lifetime of giving and nurturing.

“It’s like standing in front of a blind man and demanding that he see us and when he can’t, taking it personally,” she said, laughing. “That’s wanting a lot, and we only suffer from what we want and don’t want. But contrary to popular belief, the purpose of the holidays is not to get what we want, but to gather together to celebrate something about the larger good of life.”

While Ray Olson suggested that sometimes it might be helpful for people to sit down with their families and, without leveling the finger of blame, point out what they see as problem areas, all of the therapists agreed that the holidays are hardly the time for familial confrontations. “Our feelings are running too high at this time of year,” Olson said, “and that means we tend to see things more in blacks and whites. We may say things we will always regret, and we might not be forgiven for ‘ruining’ the holidays of others.”

Goodley suggested that it may be more beneficial for a person to change his or her attitude than for the parents to change theirs. If it eats away at people too much because their family treats them like 9-year-olds, or chides them because they don’t eat enough, or wonders why they haven’t married yet when a sister has three children, Goodley said the problem lies in their self-esteem--or lack of it.

“That’s what you need to work on, if necessary, with a therapist,” she said. “Eventually you will need to come to peace with the idea that you may never be seen by your family as you would like to be seen but that, ultimately, that doesn’t matter.”

In the short run, Goodley advises prodigal sons and daughters to practice simple relaxation techniques before going into potentially stressful family situations. These include playing soft music (“not Christmas music if that gets you uptight”); practicing slow, deep breathing all the way from the stomach, and visualizing themselves calmly walking into the home and spending a pleasant evening there, becoming aware of what parts of their body are tense and then consciously letting them go limp and relaxed.

But while stress management techniques may help some cope with the immediate situation, Fern Rubin said people ultimately must come to “realize something more.” And part of that, she said, is understanding that “most tension comes from wanting things to be different than they are. Who goes to the supermarket and wants--needs--to rearrange the counters or to change the attitudes of the people they meet there? If we are to be at peace when we go home for the holidays, we have to show the same courtesy to our families and how they live their lives.”

But are there some situations in which it’s better not to go home at all? “This is a very difficult issue,” Linthorst said. “If your family situation is so disruptive or unhealthy that you know you won’t be able to participate in any kind of constructive way, then there probably isn’t much point in going.”

However, Linthorst thinks that only a small minority of people would fit into that category. “Most of us, if we try, can let go of many of our ideas about the way things should be . We also can attempt to cultivate an appreciation of gratitude for the good things in our lives, including the fact that we have a family to go home to at all.”

Linthorst suggests that people make several lists before going home. The first would be their “secret (or sometimes not-so-secret) agenda” for what they want out of the holidays and from their families. “While we may not be able to let go of some of the more realistic ideas immediately,” she said, “at least getting them out in the open will prevent them from sneaking up on and ambushing us when we are in the family situation.”

The other lists would contain all of the good things about their own lives and all of the positive aspects of the gathering to which they are going. “Then,” advised Linthorst, “if you are going to go, go for the good, not the garbage.”

That “good,” Rubin added, includes “the simple purpose of participating in the celebration in a quiet way.