Mindful Self-Compassion for the holidays
Our first Christmas in Beijing happened because we couldn’t imagine dragging three little kids back overseas after arriving just months earlier. It was surprisingly nice to have a simpler Christmas. The tree, the children and presents from Bairong market made for a happy morning.
Back in Germany, Christmas was an elaborate ritual which began with the first Sunday of Advent. Christmas cookies were an integral part the month-long Advent season. Households seemed to bake hundreds of them, certainly more than enough to share with friends, colleagues and their children’s teachers. I couldn’t believe the quantities. And baking was just the tip of the iceberg. On December 6th, St. Nicholas would come in the wee hours to fill the children’s shoes with chocolate, oranges and a present.
Never mind that each child had already received a handmade Advent calendar with one present for each day of the season. Being blessed with three children meant I should prepare 72 tiny presents, before or after baking all those cookies. For Christmas Eve itself, the Christkind would magically decorate and light a giant Tannenbaum in under an hour, unless I could find an extra long church service for everyone to attend.
The family would then sit down to enjoy a festive meal which appeared on the table soon thereafter. Then the big presents under the tree would be opened. After the children fell asleep around midnight, American Santa Claus would come with another round of big presents for Christmas morning. Does this seem like a lot to you?
We had recklessly melded the traditions of German and American Christmas into a monster before we knew what we were getting into. I confess, the year the children really got 72 different presents on handmade advent calendars was actually the year I got pneumonia and my husband stepped in to do things properly.
Another Christmas Eve, my eldest son was so naughty that I introduced the Bavarian story of the Krampus, a child-eating demon, in an ill- thought out and cruel attempt to scare him into obedience. Then, when I disappeared to decorate the tree, he grew distraught, convinced that I had been taken by a Krampus. I guess he had a sense of who had really been naughty that night.
There are lots of variations on year-end rituals, some more, some less elaborate than ours. Most setups cry out for a supportive family with multiple generations to supply the props, distractions and income to enable it all. Too often, mothers struggle to fill all of these roles at once. In the best of circumstances it’s a little more than I can handle, and I dare to think I’m not alone. I’m certainly not sure I’m ready for that this year, and it’s not just because of the workload. It’s the emotional load.
If cookies and the mother-snatching Krampus define my children’s Christmas memories thus far, mine extend back to my childhood in the U.S. I remember beautiful music and the aching want the season fueled in me.
One year, I desperately wanted to get a Baby Alive doll. I did, and it may have ruined me, for I can’t remember ever having another of my increasingly grand wishes actually fulfilled by Santa; that Santa in whom I desperately wanted to believe, long after the writing was on the wall.
I also remember hot candle wax dripping on my hand while my mother sang “Silent Night” off-key in the dark and crowded church. I remember a nativity scene with real sheep and juvenile angels in ski jackets and tinsel halos. I remember my preadolescent rage at the seemingly meager Christmas my tired, shift-working mother provided following my parents’ divorce. I never remember, until it’s too late, that every damned time I hear Silent Night sung in a church, I will cry because she is not there.
This year, she’ll be locked in her room in a middle-American retirement community, provided she’s well. My husband will be missing his large and noisy family in Germany and my children will probably be disappointed by their Christmas presents. Part of me doesn’t want to go there. Doesn’t want to head in to December and all the school and community events, the inevitable revival of feelings around this time of year. Even if I start preparing now, I won’t manage to get it all in place at the right moment.
More than ever, though, I want my children to feel some wonder and hope after the fearful lockdowns, evacuations and quarantines of this year. Would someone else like to step in to make it happen though? The pressure on women to produce this all is enormous and the consequences of disappointment feel heavy. The higher our standards of holiday perfection, the greater the stress.
This year will be an augmented one. Unlike the first Beijing Christmas where we didn’t visit family, I’m not just worried that my parents are alone, I’m actively fearing for their lives. Meanwhile, I want some respite from worrying and feeling powerless to do anything for them.
The leap to self-compassion might seem enormous in a celebratory season, but it makes a certain kind of sense. To take a moment to allow myself to feel safe from the pressure to make everything wonderful, to feel at ease despite the real worries and to know that I’m not alone in feeling this right now. This personal ritual of self-compassion could allow me a millisecond more breath before I respond to the news that we “hate” our advent calendars.
It might help me to choose sleep over baking yet another dozen Christmas cookies. Perhaps It will allow me to calmly smile and nod in silence when I realize I have nothing more to say to anyone at the party. Or I will stay home and let myself rest instead. I know that the self-compassionate act of holding my own arms will be as close as I will get to embracing my mother this Christmas. I will try to remember that I am not the only one feeling this way.
The Beijing Mindfulness Center is offering a free introduction to the concept of Mindful Self-Compassion during the Mindful Mothers meeting time at 10-12:30 on December 2, 2020. All are welcome.
INTRO TO MSC
Mindful Self-Compassion
For more information and registration, please scan the QR code in the poster below:
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