How to take care of your mental health at Christmas

Christmas is one of the most beautiful times of the year, but it can also be the most stressful one.

This is why taking care of your mental health over Christmas is so important!

Here are my favourite tips to truly enjoy Christmas in good mental health.

What you can find in this post about mental health:

1. Set boundaries with loved ones

Spending Christmas with loved ones is something many of us look forward to as the holidays approach.

However, while we love connecting with those closest to us, it can also become overwhelming and stressful. Having a different part of the family visit every single day or driving somewhere to meet them.

It is totally understandable and human to get overhelmed with this amount of socialising, cooking, cleaning up and/or driving and packing presents.

Still somehow society tells us we don’t have any right to be overwhelmed or stressed or exhausted in those few holy days of the year, that we would be ungratefull for everything we have if we dared to experience all these feelings.

So let me tell you now: It has nothing to do with being ungrateful and everything to do with being a human being!

Meaning it is also completely reasonable to set boundaries for how many people you see, or the time frames you see them in.

It will make you more present and help you enjoy those Christmas visits way more than pushing yourself over the limit, only thinking about how (socially) exhausted you are.

You might even find that your family and friends are relieved because they are feeling the same way, but didn’t dare to set the boundaries themselves.

2. Go easy on expectations and perfectionism

Christmas is the one time in the year we want to focus on what is good, only on what is good, and forget all the dark spots and worries of the world.

But focusing on what is good doesn’t mean everything has to be perfect and nothing should go wrong. It means we take things lightly and enjoy the time we have with the people we love.

Perfectionism is never achievable! Especially not with the craziness of Christmas holidays and all that comes with it.

Instead of focusing on the right plates or the perfectly wrapped gift or the best Christmas dinner ever, focusing on the people around you and the love you share is way more important and is what you will remember most, looking back.

And I do know this is easier said than done (believe me!), and something most people struggle with at Christmas!

What helped me is recognizing when I was getting caught up in the perfect table setting or rewrapping a gift and then taking a mental step back to calm myself and refocus on what is truly important.

3. Make a Christmas gift pact

Buying gifts for Christmas can sometimes be a really beautiful thing, finding something you’re loved ones will love and then getting to see the joy on their faces when unpacking them.

But if we’re honest, most gift giving is stressful and overwhelming (especially as adults).

Getting gifts for close friends is one thing, but buying presents for your (adult) family and old friends can be soo annoying and insufficient because we don’t know what they need or want, and then get something “safe” just to give them something.

In the end, we kind of just push money back and forth, contained in things no one wants or has a use for.

This is why “Secret Santa” is something I have an ambivalent relationship with.

On one hand, you only have to buy one present, but on the other hand it could be for someone you don’t really know that well (especially at work or in a bigger friend group), and you end up buying something “safe” again.

I stopped giving gifts to most of my friends a couple of years ago due to the reasons above, and honestly, we are all young adults and just couldn’t afford to spend our money on meaningless gifts.

What I have started with friends and on another level with my siblings is a “gift pact”.

With friends, we go out to eat somewhere nice and spend quality time together as a gift to each other, and with my siblings, we find an event every year where we can spend quality time together.

The money we spend on the event counts for the birthday and Christmas gifts to each other and means way, way more to us!

Having the gift pact has truly made my Christmas time so much more enjoyable and “merry” because the only people I still have to buy presents for are my parents.

 4. Get some “Me-Time”

No matter how much we love our family, biological or chosen, seeing them all at once for days on end can still be stressful.

So, in addition to setting boundaries (as I have talked about above) for those of us who spend Christmas at their parents’ house or in their own family home, it is also completely fine to tap out of “family time” now and then.

And there is no need to feel “bad” or guilty for wanting to have some time alone! Many people recharge their batteries when they’re alone for some time.

Also, soaking up the Christmas feel all by yourself can be amazing too!

To truly go through with it and use the (little) time you get alone over the Christmas holidays, I would recommend making a “Me-Time Checklist” before Christmas.

It will help to remember what really calms you and makes you feel recharged when you can’t remember where your head is in the middle of Christmas chaos. It doesn’t have to be big things; going for a walk, taking a bath, or maybe a cup of tea and a book can work wonders!

5. Christmas is just another (holi)day

As beautiful as it can be, struggling with Christmas and all that comes with it is completely normal, too!

We fall into FOMO and perfectionism, putting ourselves down or burning out over making this time of year as “perfect” as it can be.

So, this is your reminder that even Christmas is just a day, and the relevance we put upon it is completely human made.

There is no right or wrong way to celebrate, and most people make it look better in pictures than it actually was.

Your life can be beautiful without great Christmases, and your worth is never defined by it!

This post has been all about how to take care of your mental health at Christmas.

I hope this has been helpful and please remember: You deserve all the good things this world has to offer!

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