Family on Christmas Eve
Dear dad, dear mom, please relax: Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect!
A little less perfectionism at Christmas could be good for some – it doesn’t have to be that way
© mediaphotos / Getty Images
On no other day of the year are there such high expectations as on Christmas Eve. What goes wrong in the family on Christmas Eve is immediately considered a mean disaster. A little less stress would be good for everyone involved.
If you wanted to explain to an alien what “family” means, you would have to invite him under the Christmas tree for Christmas Eve. At no other occasion is it so clear what this social construct consists of – love and mutual gifts, differences and yet so many shared experiences, tensions and conflicts. Christmas is the feast of the family, with everything that goes with it.
And that’s probably why this one evening in the year is so charged with all kinds of expectations that it could never actually live up to them. Often it is the parents who put a lot of energy and work into this Christmas Eve – and then are disappointed when everything does not work perfectly. This of course also applies to the fathers, but in most cases especially to the mothers: They want the perfect family idyll for Christmas. And they often have quite a clear idea of what it should look like.
Christmas Eve: So charged that it can only go wrong
That is actually a shame – because all of this creates unnecessary pressure that at some point becomes so great that the powder keg inevitably blows up sooner or later. Because something always goes wrong. Eating fails, someone is in a bad mood, an unpleasant topic is brought up, a gift does not arrive on time, or, or, or … The list of things that can go wrong is endless. And immediately there is thick air under the Christmas tree. Does it have to be that way?
It is not entirely absurd that parents – especially of adult children who only come home for a few days for the festivities – want a perfect Christmas. Ultimately, it shows especially clearly how important this time is to them, when the family completely gathers. Then everything should fit. That is actually something very beautiful. That is why the children should also make an effort to enable their parents to have a nice, harmonious Christmas, even if they do not feel like every tradition. After all, mum and dad did the same thing until a few years ago.
It is a shame, however, that any deviation from the idea then looks like a catastrophe. It was the same for us as children: If the gift didn’t exactly match the wish list, Christmas Eve was over. But today – among adults – everyone could approach the matter a little more relaxed: Christmas should above all be a relaxed time with loved ones, in which everyone feels comfortable. Perfection is not a prerequisite for this, and sometimes it is even more of a nuisance.
Small weaknesses are remembered
We all have to function often enough for the rest of the year. Family should be the place where that no longer applies. There doesn’t have to be a star-rated meal on the table at Christmas, the bathroom doesn’t have to look like a hotel and we don’t have to wear suits to prove to each other how special this moment is.
Let’s all remember the Oasis line from “Little By Little”: “True perfection has to be imperfect.” Because let’s be honest, dear dads, dear mums: The stories that are told over and over again at family reunions are not those of evenings when everything went smoothly. Evenings like this are nice, but you don’t remember them for long. The things that we remember and that you have always told us about – those are the ones that went wrong, in retrospect weren’t much of a drama and that’s precisely why they have such a charm: how we mispronounced words as children for years how you dumped us with the stroller and how dad spilled the pasta salad at the family celebration.
Therefore: Please relax a little – and maybe one day we will tell our children about this Christmas Eve.