Holiday Meltdown Avoided

HOLIDAY Meltdown Avoided

 (from Chapter 20 – It’s All in the Details)

                One of my advanced students recently asked the question, “How can I keep the Thanksgiving/Christmas Day holiday from becoming another major meltdown?”

                In her home it seems that the combination of adult children plus grandparents often makes for a soup bowl of prickly emotions for the entire family. The teens and college age adults pick on each other and everyone else gets in the way of the battle lines. No one ends up happy, and the turkey’s not well digested.

                In her words, “It’s too much work to have it turn out so wrong.” I agree.

                I assured her she was not alone in her dilemma. The holidays are hard for many families. But there is something you can do to make it better. Here is a summary of her story, blow by blow from two days before Thanksgiving to the Saturday after!

                In that initial call, Janie said, “Well, it’s already started. They aren’t even here yet and they’re fighting. I told you Annie, for the last few years Thanksgiving is always a melt down!”

                After consoling her, I asked Janie if she could smooth over the immediate crisis of getting everyone home for the holiday by doing something different herself. I suggested that she drive 1½ hours on the day before Thanksgiving to get her stranded son rather than use guilt to persuade her daughter to wait for him to finish work and pick him up. She agreed to that, and one problem was solved.

                Next I asked, “Did you remove all those childhood pictures of the kids from the main foyer wall?” She actually called it the “Wall of Children.” It documented each one from the age of infant through high school, but displaying no current age pictures.

                “No,” she replied, “I told you in class I love that wall. It’s been my life. I love my babies. I don’t really want to take it down.”

                I explained again to Janie, that those pictures could represent something very different to each of the kids. And certainly they were not demonstrating very mature attitudes and behavior when they came home for the holidays for the last few years.

                “They see those pictures and immediately revert back to the emotional state of 10 or 13 or 16 or whatever the ages were!” I reminded her.

                I again suggested she remove the pictures, even if they were only put in a box until after the holiday and then re-hung after everyone went home. She agreed to do what I asked.

                The following week I received this message on my voice mail from an ecstatically happy Janie.

                “I’m officially declaring a Thanksgiving Day Miracle! It was great Annie. There was no fussing or bickering. There were a couple of close moments; however, it seemed as if they miraculously blew over.”

                She continued, “The kids came in like little puppies, sniffing around each room to see what was different. It was amazing. They even sat in the living room and civilly discussed the difficulties of modern day dating!”

                This was music to my ears.

                She had listened to me and was able to change an established destructive pattern in her home by a little manipulation of the environment.