Learning great lessons...even when something has gone well!

Now, I know it feels a little out of kilter to be talking about Christmas in January – but bear with me. This blog is not just about Christmas – it’s really about learning lessons so that we can keep making progress towards what truly matters to us. This is such a vital step, but one that we often skip for various reasons.

So, Christmas…I’ve been on a mission these past few years – to reclaim Christmas after it had been really messed up by my ongoing difficult family circumstances.

I got to the point in 2021 where I cancelled Christmas. I just couldn’t stomach it. My father’s alcoholism was worsening and I had a nagging feeling that the situation wasn’t going to end well. And memories of so many horrible Christmas experiences piled up on me, making it impossible for me to celebrate.

So my husband, Simon, and I had no decorations. No presents. No fancy meal. No time with family. No singing. None of the usual jollity of the season. On Christmas Day, the weather wasn’t great but we felt compelled to get out of the house – so we went for a rather damp walk up a Scottish glen, and ate spiced soup from flasks next to a waterfall. Granted, there could be worse ways to spend Christmas, but it surely wasn’t the real deal.

It was important for me to take that time out. But something in me didn’t want to settle for this state of affairs forever. I wanted to relish Christmas again. I deserved to relish Christmas again. So roll forward to the following festive season, and I made a bold decision – to carry out an experiment to see if I could reclaim Christmas as my own!  I even wrote a book about it, which is all about how we can reclaim something that we love which has become tarnished by events.

The experiment was thankfully a success! But there was one aspect which I knew might take a bit longer – feeling able to spend Christmas with people other than my husband. I was loath to do this for a while, because being with others would add pressure to the situation so that I would be more likely to get upset or tied up in knots. So Simon and I spent a couple of Christmases alone, really enjoying ourselves but knowing that we were missing out on one of the special aspects of the holidays.

So, along came Christmas 2024. I realised with a jolt that Simon and I hadn’t spent Christmas with anyone else since 2019 – and that was the disastrous last Christmas with my father, hardly a happy memory. Oh, and 2018 had involved the infamous Christmas norovirus outbreak – no need to say anything more about that…!

We decided to take the plunge, and spend Christmas with Simon’s family this year – and it was really lovely! I am so grateful to family members who took time and care to make me feel comfortable and included. For example, my lovely sister-in-law who remembered that I’m no fan of Christmas pudding, and made an awesome alternative chocolate dessert for Christmas Day!

Now, we humans can feel a bit of resistance to learning lessons. Which is ironic, because learning what does and doesn’t work – and, crucially, why – is so invaluable to enable us to move forward with our hopes and dreams. But it can be confronting to figure out the reasons why something didn’t work – we may have to accept some responsibility for what happened, or admit a hard truth, or commit to taking action, for example.

Learning lessons can be an easier exercise when something has gone well – but again we often skip this step…In this case, we may think it’s not so necessary because everything went swimmingly. Or we may simply tick the event off and jump straight into the next thing – because life’s a hamster wheel… But if we don’t take the time to understand WHY that good thing happened, we may not be able to replicate it in future. We may not recognise what’s important and end up not doing those things so well in future – which is a real shame…

So here’s my attempt to extract some lessons from this positive Christmas experience. I hope that you may find some of these useful for navigating your circumstances, even if they’re a bit different to mine.

Lesson 1: Reclaiming something that we want to love again may take time. Of course, it’s great to be ambitious and make a stand for what we want, but equally we can’t run before we can walk. Sometimes when we’ve been through a life storm, we need to be patient and accept that the journey will happen in several stages or increments. This can be harder to swallow when the thing we’re reclaiming only comes around once a year, like Christmas. But if we push too hard, too fast, we don’t honour our inner needs and we run the risk that we’ll actually take a step or two backwards.

Lesson 2: Take the pressure off! I realised that Christmas can have such pressure associated with it, because we try to do everything on a few set days. Now, you may love or hate what I’m about to say…deep breaths…Simon and I have taken to putting up our decorations in mid-November. Of course, we don’t just have one big party from that point on – life still happens and stresses may come along. But, with the decorations up for longer, we have more opportunities for festive fun time when we can take some time for ourselves!

Lesson 3: It’s OK to do things differently! With Christmas, we can fall into the trap of thinking that things have to happen a particular way – because it’s tradition, because it’s the way it’s always been done, because it’s what people expect. This Christmas, I thought carefully about how to plan things to balance my needs and wants with other people’s needs and wants. For example, I realised that Christmas Eve at home with Simon is very special to me, and not something I wanted to lose. So, although it may be a bit unconventional, we spent Christmas Eve at home and then made the four-hour journey to Simon’s family on Christmas morning. Another example was the length of our visit. I used to feel compelled to maximise the amount of time I spent with family at Christmas. But I’ve learned that it’s the quality of the time that matters, not the amount. We spent three lovely days with family, and then came back home for a bit of quieter, relaxing time. And that’s OK!

Lesson 4: Take time to figure out what’s really special to you, and give space for that. Simon and I had established new traditions over the past few years when we’d spent Christmas by ourselves. And I realised that these had become precious to me. So we figured things out so that we did our special Christmas activities in the few days before Christmas itself. Then, when we spent Christmas Day itself with family, we were able to jump in and really enjoy that time together too. A win-win!

Lesson 5: If something goes wrong, don’t despair. I used to think that if something went wrong, the situation was irretrievable – probably because that’s what I learned growing up. When my father’s mood turned, it genuinely was a disaster… However, these days life can be different. As it turns out, our holiday period started badly. Simon had a stressful time trying to wrap things up at work and, as that situation unfolded, various of our buttons were pressed. Old wounds and patterns re-emerging. It wasn’t an easy evening…and the risk at that point was that we were both also upset that the start of Christmas was ruined, which could have made us both spiral further downwards. However, even when things feel a bit bleak, we’ve learned that we can rely on each other to find a way through. And we did. True, it took us a day or so to fully get into the swing of things, but we did it. Those difficult moments didn’t cast a long shadow. I have found it so helpful to learn techniques such as conscious breathing, journalling and tapping (Emotional Freedom Techniques) to help me calm down when things get tricky – as they invariably will at some point or another…

So, there you have it – the lessons I’m going to take into Christmas 2025!

What did you learn about how to make the festive season a success this year?

And, more broadly, which area of your life would most benefit from a gentle yet insightful prod to extract some valuable lessons?

Good luck!

And if you’ve been affected by a life storm and would love to come out thriving at the other side, click here to find out more about my Sing After The Storm methodology and 90-day 1:1 package. I’d love to have a chat to see if this is a great fit for you!

And here's a parting gift if you've made it all the way to the bottom of this blog - a pic of the baby snow elephant Simon and I built when the New Year snow fell. Cute, isn't it?!