25 Dec Missing Christmas
Christmas, we are told, is a time we should look forward to; “Joy to the world,” sings one of the most chanted Christmas carols of all time. During this period, we feel obliged to be joyous, positive, happy and glee. “Yet what is supposed to be one of the most cheerful times of the year, often ends up having the opposite effect on many people; a sort of Paradoxical effect takes place,” says clinical psychologist Dr. Claudette Portelli. “In other words,” explains Dr. Portelli, “the more we think that we should feel happy, the more we end up feeling sad and the higher our expectations, the more we feel low.”
In 1988 Fleur Marie Cilia Buckett (43) lost her mother to cancer, and since then Christmas stopped being the happy time that it used to be.
“Mum used to make it very special, explains Fleur. “She used to go all the way with decorations and Christmas goodies and, when she was still around, the house used to look like a big winter wonderland, with gifts under the tree and all the works. I associate Christmas with time for families to be together and, a time to be thankful for all that the year brought with it, but this year it’s going to be tough. Although I know that I have a lot to be thankful for, earlier this year I also lost my 39-year-old sister to cancer. Add this to the loss of my dear mother, and I can’t help finding it very hard not to be sad around the holidays.
As I wake up on Christmas morning I can’t help but to cry, and this year I know it will be even tougher, as it will be the first one without my sister. I also know that I will be recuperating from a hysterectomy – an elective operation that I’m doing next month in order to prevent ovarian cancer.
It’s gong to be hard, I know that, but I am still looking forward to the Skype calls from my family in the UK and Australia during which we’ll cry and have a laugh to sooth the pains away.
My dad who is now 86 years old also has a hard time during the holidays. Understandably ever since we lost mum, Christmas has never been the same for him, but as always, I will do my best to get him a nice present and to cook a good Christmas dinner.”
According to Dr. Portelli, for many, the Christmas period is a far cry from the joyous picture perfect images portrayed by the media. “From weeks before Christmas, we are bombarded with ads of happy people,” explains Dr. Portelli. “We see Christmas trees packed with gifts, glamorous get-togethers, cosy living rooms bursting with cheerful relatives and friends and with these images in mind, it is no surprise that reality results to be such a let-down.
Mauss, Tamir, Anderson, & Savino, (2011) had found that over-valuing happiness and success, with its often unrealistic goals, can set people up for disappointment, especially if they compare themselves to an ideal. Thus to foster happiness is to construct realistic appraisals of what you need, avoid idealizing what could be, and come to terms with what we have or can have.
Various people claim that the excitement of the holidays makes them rebuke the routine of their own lives and that the contrast between what they feel and what they think they should feel, leads to disappointments. “
‘Tis the season to be jolly again, but jolly she’s not… “Bah! Humbug!” says Nannette Brimmer (62), who confesses to not always have ‘hated’ Christmas.
“As a child, I loved it,” she explains. “Christmas was a time to look forward to, but the anticipation was for a family routine, which warmed my heart. The ‘real magic’ began on Christmas Eve when an afternoon nap was ‘de rigueur’, as we had to attend midnight Mass – which at the time, actually started at midnight!
I confess to dozing off during Mass, but as it drew to its end, the anticipation of what was to come would have me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed once more. We’d walk briskly home and straight to the sitting room to light the fireplace. My mother would head to the kitchen to slice cake and pudding, fill a plate with mince pies and heat up the chestnuts boiled in hot chocolate. As soon as she was done, we’d start opening our presents, which we would have placed under the tree days before. Then it was off to bed at around 3.00am and as children, having stayed up that late was excitement in itself.
This was our family Christmas – exactly the same, year in year out, until that year that my eldest sister moved to London, until that one December when my Dad had a stroke, until that year when cancer got the better of my sister, and she passed away, aged 38, followed by my Dad just under a year later.
For me, the magic of Christmas died along with them, and then it all became too commercial with too much traffic, too many people in the streets, too many spoilt children demanding expensive gifts, too many frustrated parents giving in to their demands, too many people intent only on buying presents which very often are purchased in haste and are impractical. Nobody remembers what it is we are really celebrating. Shop window decorations get bigger and brighter and the cash tills ring louder than Santa’s sleigh bells.
Naturally, I made sure my children grew up with some of the magic of my childhood days, but now that they’ve left home, I don’t even have a Christmas tree. I buy all my presents during trips abroad throughout the year, so you won’t catch me out in the shops at Christmas time. Christmas Eve is spent at home with a good DVD and a glass of wine, or two. The madness of the modern day Christmas is locked outdoors with the cold weather; it’s a ‘Silent Night’ for me.
“Disappointment is a profound way in which sadness is experienced,” says Dr. Portelli. “A heavy sense of emptiness or longing is felt because the brain’s appraisal system has determined that we have experienced a lasting loss, which means that, we may want to have someone or something that is unattainable or to bring back what was lost.
During Christmas time, adults often feel a sense of lost childhood that cannot be recovered. A sort of paradise lost. If Christmas in childhood was a happy-go-lucky time, the absence of a carefree attitude in adulthood brings a lot of stress, anxiety and fatigue, whilst memories of a sad childhood bring the pain of having missed something, which we cannot get back.
Many people are sad during the Christmas season because they are lonely, often separated from family and loved ones. In families where there has been estrangement or divorce, there are feelings of loneliness because of the season’s stress on family gatherings.
Some are facing their first Christmas after a loved one has died and there is a lonesome place in the family circle. Losses during the year, be it death of a loved one or economic setbacks, are experienced more acutely during this time. The disappointments endured throughout the year, weigh even more in this supposedly joyous period.”
“I don’t know how others feel during the Christmas holidays,” admits Alina Maria Mizzi (33) “but for me, this is the time year when I miss my family the most. This year will be my ninth Christmas away from home, which is Romania, and away from my family and the lovely festive celebrations back home.
Every Christmas is difficult to get through, and to somewhat numb the nostalgia, I listen to Romanian Christmas carols all day. I try to lose myself in the memories of the times when as a child I looked forward for Santa Claus’ surprises.
Back home, Christmas celebrations begin on Christmas Eve, when we decorate the tree. Oh, how I miss the smell of real Christmas trees and our Romanian traditional food baking in the oven. I miss seeing kids going from house to house singing their beautiful Christmas carols, and I still remember when I used to do that myself, returning home after visiting every house in the village with my hands frozen and a bag full of knot-shaped bread and cakes, apples, and nuts. What joy!
Now, for so long, I feel that I’m far away from the magic of Christmas back home, but there are usually no tears coming from me because I know that I was the one to choose this life. When I met my husband I chose to follow my heart, and Malta became my new home. I knew from the start that it wouldn’t be easy, but who can fight love?
Still, even though it was my decision, during this time of year, whenever I see a grandma with a child my eyes well up because I wish that my mum could be here with my daughter. I also wish that my father could be here to play football with my son or, to take the children out for an ice-cream. It’s these simple things that so many people take so for granted, that I miss so terribly.
I try to keep the Romanian traditions alive through my children, as well as through the meals I cook, so even though I might be a little bit sad during this time of the year, I appreciate my lovely family and I’ll still be looking forward to some pine-scented candles, our fireplace, Romanian carols, my beautiful kids and husband, and getting together with some Romanian friends who live here in Malta – my very loved second home.
Dr. Portelli advises that disappointments can be related to self, others, and the world. “Life itself can be disappointing,” she says. “Losing a loved one ahead of time is disappointing. An unfulfilling job is disappointing. Not reaching the set goals is disappointing. In any case, disappointment is the experience of sadness involving unfulfilled hopes or expectations. When we consider what might have been, in contrast to what exists in the present, we may experience disappointment.
Profound enduring sadness is often maintained and worsened by our failure to recognise the disappointment and the inflicted pain. People seem to do whatever they can to avoid recognizing that they are disappointed and will twist their thinking every which way not to recognize it.
In my psychotherapy practice I have found that people elude disappointment far more than many other emotional experiences because it is too painful. Disappointment is highly resisted, because this means having to recognise that we don’t have, didn’t get, or will never achieve whatever it is that we wanted.
Disappointment forces people to admit that they did not get what they wished to have and it is actually easier for us to protest with anger while continuing to idealize what could have been and consciously denigrating it. Yet this prolongs the pain.
Disappointment accepts reality and recognising it, is an opportunity to bring us to work ‘realistically’ in rendering our reality better. Disappointments are part of our life; they are not seasonal, yet even though troubles and heartaches accompany us all year long, it is understandable that the joyful season of Christmas has the paradoxical potential for sorrow and sadness. In the presence of the joy of others, our own grief is accentuated, but whilst Christmas is not the real problem, avoiding to recognise and to deal with what is causing and persevering the pain, is!
“There are no short cuts,” explains Dr. Portelli, but as the great author Robert Frost says “The only way out is through.”
