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 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.

Explainer

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Monastic life

13 November 2023

8 min read

There’s much more to ‘monk mode’ than productivity hacks

In the heart of London Lianne Howard-Dace spent a year trying to live a simpler, slower life with others.

Lianne Howard-Dace

Lianne Howard-Dace is a writer and trainer, with a background in church and community fundraising.

A group of young people wearing white habits stand and laugh with each other.

Community of St Anselm members and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

CoSA.

Six years ago, I stood in white, full of nervous excitement, in front of a priest to make a vow. But it was a prayer robe, not a dress, and the priest happened to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. I was not getting married but joining a religious community.

The Community of St Anselm (CoSA) was founded by Archbishop Justin Welby in 2015, and I was amongst the third cohort of young Christians, aged 20-35, committing to spending a year together. Some of my fellow community members came from across the globe, entirely stepping away from their everyday lives. They spent the year living in Lambeth Palace, devoting their time to prayer, study and service. Others, like me, remained in our homes and jobs, whilst also trying to reorientate our lives around those three worthy pastimes.

By committing to a pattern of living, giving up on the idea that I was in control and limiting my choices I found much liberation.

In my experience, much of life - and the Christian faith in particular - is counter-intuitive. It would be a logical hypothesis to suppose that restricting your life in this way – agreeing to reorientate towards living by a set of rules and to fall into a structured way of being – would be stifling. And yet, like thousands before me, I found the complete opposite to be true.

Our culture upholds choice; we are told that the ability to choose is the ultimate expression of freedom. And whilst this may be true with big choices – where to live, who to live with, what work to do - our brains don’t cope as well with a lot of day-to-day options as we might be led to believe. In a 2000 experiment, psychologists observed that a supermarket display with 24 different types of jam generated a lot of interest but not many sales. In contrast, a display with just six different types of jam meant people were nearly ten times more likely to go on to make a purchase. If, like me, you’re prone to spending inordinate amounts of time deciding what to have for dinner, I’m sure you can relate.

Monks and nuns have understood this human tendency to get overwhelmed and expend energy on small decisions - suffering from what we now call decision fatigue - for many centuries. Whilst we may find the idea of a rigid schedule and a limited menu and wardrobe austere, not having to make those decisions every day can free up mental energy for other things. It’s the same reason why some tech entrepreneurs espouse the idea of wearing the same black turtleneck or grey t-shirt every day.

Whilst my own experience of religious life was not as extreme as those who make a life-long vow, I did find that in committing to a pattern of living, giving up on the idea that I was in control and limiting my choices I found much liberation. The chatter in my mind quietened a little. I became more comfortable in my own skin. I felt more and more like my truest self.

Attempting Cal Newport’s monk mode productivity hack by turning off our digital devices for the morning - or listening to a podcast from former Hindu monk, Jay Shetty - is as close to encountering monasticism as many of us get. CoSA draws on wisdom from several saints who themselves founded religious communities: St Benedict, St Francis and St Ignatius of Loyola. Whilst trying to emulate their way of life wasn’t always easy, I seized the opportunity to go deeper and threw myself into the intensity of the year.

As a teenager I was always late to morning tutorial, despite being able to see my secondary school from my house. During my time in the community, I struggled to shake this habit and would usually be rushing to Lambeth Palace each Monday evening, arriving after those who had travelled from as far as Oxford, Poole and Canterbury, despite only working 10 minutes down the road.

Those evenings were spent eating, talking and praying together and quickly became the highlight of each week for me. A time to put aside the day-to-day stresses and just try to be present with the other members of the community. We finished each gathering by praying compline, or night prayer, in the crypt at Lambeth Palace. In Celtic Christianity there is a concept of ‘thin spaces’, places where the boundary between heaven and earth seems a little more permeable. The cool, silver-lit crypt at Lambeth is one of those places for me; it seems to crackle with sacred potential.

We also took three retreats in an Abbey during the year, near a stretch of wild Cornish coastline. Precious time away from the bustle of the city. Away from the demands of life admin and meetings and untameable inboxes. The strapline - for want of a better word – of the Community of St Anselm is “A year in God’s time”, and I think that actually sums it up pretty well. We spent a year trying to live a simpler, slower life. A life marked by prayerfulness and the sufficiency of God, rather than the bigger, better, hustle culture pressures of modern living.

We went into these new relationships acknowledging that we wouldn’t agree on everything, but actively deciding to love each other anyway.

Only the most disciplined of us can maintain healthy habits, like daily prayer and reflection, on our own. It’s easier to go to the gym with a buddy. The upcoming book club meeting nudges us to keep reading. I think that’s what drew me to join CoSA; I knew I needed mutual accountability and support to sustain the spiritual disciplines I craved in my life.

In the community’s Rule of Life – the guidelines we each agreed to follow during the year – there is a line “We choose on another” and this has had a profound effect on me. The idea that we chose to put our shared life in the community ahead of everything else for that year has shaped me deeply. I have forged some amazing friendships through the community, but before we had even met each other, or learned to like each other, we chose to love each other in all our diversity and difference.

I do find that church is one of the places I am most likely to encounter people who are different to me – particularly intergenerationally – but even in finding a place of worship, there can be a tendency to seek out one that ticks as many of one’s personal preferences as possible. In the weeks leading up to joining the community I had been unsure what to expect. Having not grown up in a Christian family, would I feel left behind? Coming from a less-wordy type of church, would I get lost in the orders of service? Would everyone think I was too socially liberal? Would I find them too conversative?

The act of choosing one another put all of that aside. In stepping out of our everyday lives, we also stepped out of our respective echo chambers. We went into these new relationships acknowledging that we wouldn’t agree on everything, but actively deciding to love each other anyway. It was hard at times, but I came to see that whilst people had come to different conclusions on issues to me, they had done so no less thoughtfully. I came to see that we had much more in common than the things which society would say should separate us.

In smaller ways too, I believe it is possible to choose to love others around us. We can choose to recognise the humanity of the person who is rude to us on the bus.

I usually hate household chores, but some of my fondest memories from the year are chatting in the Lambeth Palace kitchen whilst putting away cutlery or singing together whilst washing up on retreat. By sharing the load, we learned ways to find joy in the smallest of things. And, by getting stuck into the mundane tasks of living and being together, we learned to see the humanity in each other.

It’s no coincidence that those in long-term religious life call each other sister and brother; it’s certainly the best analogy for community life I can think of. As a child I was excited for the arrival of my siblings before I had even met them; I knew that it was my role as big sister to love them unconditionally. I’m not sure, if we weren’t related, whether my path would have crossed with my sister and brother as adults. Yet, they are some of the most important people in my life.

In smaller ways too, I believe it is possible to choose to love others around us. We can choose to recognise the humanity of the person who is rude to us on the bus. We can choose not to assume the worst about someone’s post on social media. We can choose to share a kind word with a colleague, even if we don’t think they’ll ever return the favour. I’m not saying that it’s easy, or that I always manage it myself, but it can be done.

In community, on the days you have doubts about the things you are saying in morning or evening prayer, you know that your fellow members are lifting you up with their words, they are lending you a little of their belief. Learning to be held by others in that way is just one of the many gifts I took from my year in God’s time. I also learned that I do not need to be or do anything in particular to be loved by God or by others. That working out faith and belief with other people can reveal things you never would’ve found alone.

In September, the Archbishop of Canterbury welcomed the ninth cohort of CoSA in a commitment service at Lambeth Palace. Young people from as far away as Sri Lanka, Australia and Zimbabwe made the decision to spend the next year living differently, making time for God and each other in new ways. And I, along with 23 others from around the world, Zoomed into the service and made a new commitment too.

This year, for the first time, there is an opportunity for alumni of CoSA to become members of a dispersed community, the Chapter. Like third order Franciscans or Benedictine oblates, we will attempt to stay linked to the life of our community, alongside our everyday routines. I’m looking forward to being more intentional about re-engaging with the daily rhythms and lessons I learned in my year in community. We will have a less intensive programme of events to help us feel connected and will follow a simplified Rule of Life that focuses on learning from Jesus, seeking reconciliation and unity in the Church, serving with compassion and, of course, choosing one another. I’m excited to see what the year holds.