Managing Expectations at Christmas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

For some people it is.

For some people it has been in the past, but might not feel that way this year, for whatever reason. For almost all of us, the pressure of expectations can affect how we end up feeling as Christmas arrives and departs in a flurry of wrapping paper.

We build a story in our heads of how certain things will happen and how we will feel, binding ourselves to a vision of what Christmas ought to be.

Our beliefs, hopes and assumptions are vulnerable to being ruined in any number of ways. When our imagination exceeds reality, when what we expected to happen didn’t happen, we feel disappointed, frustrated, sad or angry.

The role of other people in our expectations is important. People don’t always behave the way we want them to. They’re also harbouring expectations of their own, and we have to deal with those being projected onto us as well.

Not least, we are often managing expectations which are actually someone else’s vision that we’re trying to live up to. It’s hard to win when you’re playing by someone else’s rules.

We don’t always fully realise how much our version of a perfect Christmas is influenced by what we perceive that other people are experiencing.

Whether that’s a supermarket advert showing a happy family enjoying a relaxed and loving Christmas dinner, or an Instagram picture of 100 presents under an expensively decorated tree.

Most of us are aware that ubiquitous Father Christmas wears red in our culture because we’ve internalised Coca-Cola’s version of him. That’s how powerful marketing can be. Powerful, and deceptive. The footage of festive food on the M&S adverts? It’s a plastic Christmas pudding. The icing is PVA glue. Your (actually edible) Christmas Pudding can not look like that Christmas pudding, and that’s OK. What’s really important about Christmas Pudding?

Comparison is the thief of joy, but it permeates modern life. Comparison sells. We KNOW we’re being influenced by marketing techniques. We know social media is filtered, edited and curated. We know it’s not real, but we are a uniquely daydreaming species and we romanticise our futures in a way that reality can’t live up to. Let me show you.

Activity

What weather do you associate with Christmas?

It’s snow right? If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere your first mental image will likely have been of snow. Children pulling a sledge through snowy fields, towards a candlelit cottage. A happy snowman in a red scarf. Father Christmas smiling out as us through a snow globe. How many years can you remember a snowy Christmas Day?

This is the perfect example of how our collective imaginations differ from reality.

The Expectation Gap

“We’ve been seduced into way of life stops us being content.” Says Nat Ware in his Ted Talk ‘Why We’re Unhappy – The Expectation Gap.”

He outlines three ways in which our expectations make us unhappy.

The Imagination Gap – in which our brilliantly creative human imaginations can’t be satisfied by reality.
The Interpersonal Gap – when we compare our reality to that of others – no matter how much we have, if someone else has more we feel disappointed
The Intertemporal Gap – when our past reality seems better than present reality and we anchor ourselves in our rose tinted memories.

Contentment Vs Consumption

One of the practical exercises in Beth Kempton’s book “Calm Christmas and Happy New Year” is to map out what are essentially our Christmas ‘core values’. She encourages us to rank Faith, Magic, Connection, Abundance and Heritage with a score out of ten to allow us to focus our energies in the right place at this expectation-filled time of year. The end goal is contentment over onsumption, so if – for example – you realise that exchanging expensive gifts is not one of the most important parts of the season for you, perhaps it’s time for a discussion around that with your loved ones.

15 Questions for Self Reflection

Finally, here are some prompts to help you evaluate what might be affecting your happiness levels this Christmas. You can spend an hour with a pen and paper going through each one, pick a couple that feel most relevant to you or just even just skim read it and move on. Whatever time you’ve got, you’re almost certain to uncover awareness something that might be tripping you up.

What parts of the season do you connect with most?
What aspects do you find stressful or challenging?
What specific memories from your past are influencing you now?
What marketing do you fall for? Social media influencers? TV adverts?
Is there a particular advert that has affected your expectations for Christmas?
What behind the scenes narrative can you imagine for these adverts? (They’re actors… it’s glue!)
Is there anyone you’re consciously or unconsciously competing against?
What are your expectations around Christmas?
Where did these come from?
In your experience, does this seem realistic?
What is your current reality?
What problems and challenges can you anticipate?
What achievements can you celebrate?
What SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound) goals can you set for this season?
How can you bring kindness into this, and nourish yourself this year?

Managing Expectations at Christmas