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Christmas survival

1 December 2023

7 min read

Team Christmas and the three gifts of Christmas

How can we push past the stresses of the festive season to rediscover the magic? Roger Bretherton tells us how he learned to find joy in being on Team Christmas. Part 2 of Unwrapping God this Christmas.

Roger Bretherton

Roger Bretherton is Associate Professor of Psychology, at the University of Lincoln. He is a UK accredited Clinical Psychologist.

An animated scene shows a man in a Christmas jumper and a child look around a corner into something and be delighted

Arthur Christmas, Roger Bretherton's doppelgänger.

Aardman Animations.

There is one job at Christmas I always forget I have to do. It’s the one where you get the Christmas tree home only to realise that, if it isn’t going to be dead of dehydration by Christmas Eve, some chump has to saw one inch off the bottom of it. In my mind there is another version of myself who is admirably skilled and handy at things like this. That Roger- let’s call him manly-Roger- has a neatly ordered garage full of power tools ready for any task, and a set of multi-sized saws hanging outlined by a perfect silhouette on the wall. Unfortunately, this Roger- let’s call him real-Roger- does not own that garage. To give you an idea of just how chaotic our garage is, the police once woke us up at 3am to tell us it had been broken into and trashed by burglars. When I joined them in my dressing gown to inspect the ‘crime scene’, it turned out the kids had left it open, and I was forced to confess that our garage always looks like that.

So as the rest of the family disappear into the house, pinning up lights in a joyous cacophony of festive music, I’m swearing in the garage trying to find a saw. It’s usually completely inaccessible; wedged under a leaf blower, a bottle of windscreen fluid, and some discarded dumbbells which manly-Roger, were he to exist, might have actually used. Eventually I’ll emerge brandishing something completely ill-fitting for the task- some garden secateurs, a metal file, or a rusty axe, and I’ll then spend the next twenty minutes sweating over the base of the Christmas tree, thinking it all would have been much easier if real-Roger had bothered to pick up those dumbbells more than once this year. If a bad workman blames his tools, a truly abysmal workman has no clue what his tools even do. By the time I’ve finished clipping, hacking, and filing, the base of the tree looks not so much neatly sawn as gnawed-by-a-passing-beaver. I enter the house like a war hero flushed and dirtied from battle, defeatedly clutching the mangled tree. It requires every spare inch of inner resolve not to declare Christmas cancelled.

When I was a kid Christmas seemed so much easier. It was something that just happened. The festive magic occurred as if by magic. It took me longer than it should have to realise that Christmas only happens because someone makes it happen- and when you have kids and family that someone, is you. Given my incompetence with Christmas trees then, it may come as a surprise to know that I’ve learned to love being part of Team Christmas, being part of the gang who are in on the act and can make the magic happen. (And not just because our teenage sons reckons I look like Arthur Christmas in our wedding photos.) I have learned that there is, just beneath the surface, a bone-deep satisfaction in the hard work of hosting Christmas at home. It has become a spiritual discipline for me, and I should probably explain why.

We go into Christmas knowing that this year there is joy and beauty to be found in responding to other people’s demands.

Ronald Rollheiser, in his book Domestic Monastery, tells the story of a monk who followed the call to prayer deep into the solitude of the Sahara Desert. His name was Carlo Caretto, and after all his spiritual exertions and mystical extremes, he reflected that he was still no holier, no more godly, no less selfish than the mother he had left at home. His view was that the very act of raising children and constantly responding to the needs of the household had shaped her, even more effectively than the desert winds, into the attentive caring presence he had come to know. Rollheiser extends this story to us all. In the monastery, life is ordered by the monastery bell. When it rings the monks turn to prayer. Whatever they are doing – eating, speaking, half-way through a sentence – they stop and turn their attention immediately to God. Rollheiser suggests that we view the demands and interruptions of home and work just like this, as the monastery bell inviting us to turn to whatever is demanded of us in that moment. In doing so, we find ourselves shaped, like Caretto’s mother, into a more gracious and attentive form.

Christmas, more than any other time of year, has started to have a similar effect on me. When people need food or drink, when the presents need to be wrapped, when board games are needed for entertainment, when fresh air is needed to break the monotony, when someone needs to talk… I hear the sound of the monastery bell. The demands can be relentless, and easy to resent, but I have come to find some delight in willingly responding to them without a second thought.

Psychologists have written something similar about the things that motivate us towards being at our best. Self Determination Theory for example, holds that there are three basic psychological needs to which we are all intrinsically drawn. They are the conditions for feeling that what we do was initiated by us and hasn’t been imposed by the tyranny of our circumstances.

The first is autonomy. We have to feel on some level that we chose to do what we are currently doing. This is where the monastery bell can be so helpful at Christmas. We may not have chosen our families or the place of our birth, but we can choose how we respond to the obligations these things place upon us. As the guru of meaning, Viktor Frankl once said, we should not ask what the meaning of our lives is, because in the duties and demands of each day, life itself is constantly questioning us. Meaning is to be found in how we respond. Whether we are willing to do the things we have to do, as if we chose to do them. This is an intention we can set for ourselves long before the family rock up for Christmas dinner. We go into Christmas knowing that this year there is joy and beauty to be found in responding to other people’s demands. We only make ourselves miserable by imagining a world where we only ever call the shots and never have to serve them. Like the proverbial puppy, autonomy is not just for Christmas… it’s for life.

Some of our best memories of Christmas can be the conversations we had while cooking, or washing up, or serving drinks, or setting the table. If we find it difficult to ask for help, we may need to set up the request in advance.

It’s all very well claiming our intention to serve the family at Christmas, but if we don’t brace ourselves for it, it’s liable to collapse with the first person to turn down our homemade cranberry sauce (it’s a long story- see Unwrapping God this Christmas Part 1). We can choose our duty, but we don’t have to choose it alone. This speaks to our second psychological need: relatedness. We want to connect with other people, to make contact and build relationships. Doing our duty at Christmas is great, but we need to watch out for that subtle moment when our delight at serving others morphs into stomping around wishing we didn’t have to. Often this is because we ignored the moment at which we probably should have asked for help. We start to feel alone in serving and, even worse, we start mentally rehearsing all the reasons why the rest of our family are useless wasters who never lift a finger.

We need to be attentive to the pivot point at which our desire to serve turns into martyrdom, and not be seduced by the moral superiority of going it alone. If we can learn to ask those around us to help when we need it, we can create unanticipated times of connection. Some of our best memories of Christmas can be the conversations we had while cooking, or washing up, or serving drinks, or setting the table. If we find it difficult to ask for help, we may need to set up the request in advance. We let the family know that at some point during Christmas it will all feel a bit too much and we need them to be ready to help. In our house, at such times my other half has ‘permission to boss’. Given that she is more likely than me to be aware and stressed out by what needs to be done, she is free to point it out. And if, at times, that comes across a bit bossy, it’s no big deal- just Team Christmas working together to get things done.

And, if the theory is right, getting things done is the third psychological need (alongside autonomy and relatedness) that motivates positive behaviour. We like to find outlets for our competence, our skills and abilities. To listen out for the monastery bell is to ask ourselves the question: what am I able to do in this moment that would contribute to hosting the family right now? And for me, ultimately, that’s what makes the practice of Christmas a spiritual discipline. A few hundred years ago the Jesuit spiritual director, Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751), grew tired of convoluted esoteric paths to spiritual enlightenment. He preferred a much more down to earth approach. He wrote: the duty of every moment is a shadow that conceals the action of God. Sometimes we miss God because we are put off by the shadow that conceals the divine presence in everyday life. But when we approach the demands of the festive season, willing to give what we have, to whomever we can, we celebrate once again this Christmas, in our own small way, the coming of heaven to earth.

Article

Change

Politics

Psychology

5 November 2024

5 min read

How to be a wise diplomat about the election result

It’s not just American citizens weighing-up and trading-off.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson writes on geopolitics. He is also a business executive and holds a doctorate in theology.

An ambassador presents credential to President Trump

President Trump accepts credentials from Indonesian ambassador M. Lutfi.

White House via Wikimedia Commons.

The American election result, whatever the case, is a landmark event in geopolitics. And here, it is unclear which result is better for the world in the long-term, given the ambiguous motives, interests and intentions of its main characters.

Whereas the Biden Administration led by the Democrats has been fraught with war, the Trump Administration was comparatively peaceful, with breakthroughs such as the historic Abraham Accords. Yet, the rhetoric of President Trump is aggressive and divisive.

Despite mainstream media assertions focused on the clear best choice in the election, a balanced perspective is necessary involving consideration of trade-offs between what the parties and their leaders each offer. This balance, however, is difficult to achieve as polarisation encourages retrenchment into simple views.

As the American election approaches, it is worth considering what a diplomatic approach to an election transition might entail. Here we can look to the example of Henry Kissinger, whose diplomatic mindset is illustrated in Barry Gewen’s The Inevitability of Tragedy. Gewen eloquently illustrates the Kissingerian – even if often cold-hearted – approach to the consideration of trade-offs in diplomacy.

Gewen traces the early-life experience of Kissinger, a German Jew forced to flee Nazi persecution, both serving in the US Army and attending Harvard. Unlike his American peers, Kissinger understood through personal experience that authoritarianism could rise through democratic means, Adolph Hitler the primary example.

It is partly for this reason that Kissinger was willing as US Secretary of State to intervene in the affairs of foreign states to halt dictators emerging through democratic processes. The trade-off was here between respect of democratic process and the possibility of dictatorship, a trade-off which Americans without German-Nazi experience would never understand and which they saw as deeply unsettling.

Kissinger is the archetypal diplomat. His example is worth reflecting on in the wake of the American elections. Kissinger approached geopolitics with little emotion, instead considering what course of action in a particular situation served as the least worst evil available.

He engaged across a wide variety of networks, talking with individuals who would not speak with each other. And he maintained a considerable sense of calm throughout his career as both an actor and commentator, responding to events as they developed.

An initial consideration in emerging from the American elections is that too much emotionality – amplified by political polarization – will expose politicians, diplomats and the public to risk. Emotion colours careful, strategic calculation of various scenarios and actions across potential scenarios.

‘People constantly show you who they are; we are just too busy to notice,’

An effective diplomatic (or strategist) will carefully consider what might happen and think through potential steps in case these realities actually transpire, while recognising that too much anticipation risks cascading into fantasy. Too much emotion impedes this careful process of reflection and deliberation as part of the development of strategy.

A second element of effective diplomacy and strategy is to consider people as they are, rather than rely on superficial descriptions in the media, biased second-hand accounts or who or what one hopes another person is. People’s motives, intentions and interests are not easily discernible at first glance, instead requiring careful probing and questioning.

At the same time, there are few more accurate sayings than ‘People constantly show you who they are; we are just too busy to notice,’ conveying that counterparts are always providing information as to who they are, few careful or disciplined enough to mask their real thinking.

An effective diplomat might consider the early upbringing – much like that of Kissinger – that shapes a person’s character and behaviour, if not their worldview informing action.

Consider Donald J. Trump, learning right from wrong on the streets of New York City via the mentorship of lawyer Roy Cohn, who served as Chief Counsel to Joseph McCarthy while McCarthy prosecuted potential American communist sympathisers.

Cohn’s rules of life, work and play were as follows (these summarized by a friend well-acquainted with Cohn and his colleagues): ‘One, attack, attack, attack! Two, deny everything! Three, always claim victory!’ The logic of these three rules of life are readily understandable when considering the harsh New York realities within which Cohn and later Trump operated.

These considerations are overlooked, however, amid the onslaught of media which fails to consider what really shapes the character of a man or woman.

Curiosity, a critical mindset and self-restraint in the face of the human temptation to reach rapid and satisfying answers are here necessary, as part of figuring out what exactly is driving action.

A wise diplomat would pay particular attention to these pivotal factors – such as the influence of a long-standing mentor or advisor – as they might manifest in the present. This requires an intellectually honest and serious consideration of the worldview that shapes a counterpart, rather than considering superficial media commentary.

Third, a wise diplomat will maintain relations across a wide variety of networks, understanding that it is fine to talk with two or multiple individuals whose own relations are fractured (in fact, these strains in relations can be beneficial within diplomacy, the diplomat in this case able to play broker as he or she needs or wishes).

The maintenance of broad networks is vital, because this enables action under a wide array of potential circumstances, understanding that anything can happen (we are here reminded of Harold MacMillan’s saying “Events, dear boy, events!”) And a key lesson in diplomacy and in the cultivation of strategy is that, once crises unfold, it is the preparatory work in developing networks and alliances that counts; little new network-formation is possible afterwards.

The previous two points suggest that a wise diplomat will not pay too much attention to what is in the media, but will instead consider their own learning gleaned through in-person interactions with others, as well as the perspective of their most trusted contacts. Curiosity, a critical mindset and self-restraint in the face of the human temptation to reach rapid and satisfying answers are here necessary, as part of figuring out what exactly is driving action, and what can in turn be done to shape action in accordance with interests.

Finally, an effective diplomat will not try to play God, serving as the arbiter of right or wrong, adopting instead a more considered approach anticipating and responding to circumstances as they gradually or quickly evolve. Effective strategy requires an aloof approach (caring – but not caring too much), removing the self from a given situation so as not to allow natural human vices such as presumptiveness, arrogance or short-term self-interest to affect judgment.

And the American election bring with them a number of trade-offs, these to be weighed carefully by American citizens, as well as by diplomats and strategists in other countries. These trade-offs will be considered most effectively if approached with calmness – the aloof, even if cold-hearted, approach personified by Henry Kissinger.

In an age of catastrophising, emphasing emotion, it is easy to descend rapidly into despair, rather than consider action from a long-term perspective. Diplomacy and strategy require the latter, which will be a key to success for those who emerge effective in advancing their interests in the wake of the American elections.