As the holiday season once again approaches, you can already almost see the cheeriness in the air (and the Halloween decorations filling up your grocery store aisles). Soon there will be earworm holiday jingles all over the airwaves, holiday shopping lists and fresh stocks of whole turkeys, and charming holiday movies from Hallmark and Peanuts on every TV channel, all of which are blasting the same message: it’s time to be joyful. It’s a time for family.
But what if your family holidays are instead marked by much more negative emotions? Perhaps your family gatherings are a hotbed of tension, conflict—or grief. Perhaps the financial expectations of cooking lavish meals and buying everyone gifts are a bit too much for you this year. Perhaps you can’t visit your family and have to cope with loneliness—or your family won’t go away when you just want to be alone. In any case, what is one to do when the whole world is telling you to be cheerful?
What experiences make the holidays most difficult for you or your family?
What practices or traditions have you found to help ease those negative emotions?
What do you do if your holidays aren’t joyful? U.S. Catholic wants to know.
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