“Love the giver more than the gift.” – Brigham Young
There’s nothing more likely to take the sparkle out of Christmas than family tensions. In many households, arguing on Christmas Day is as traditional as stuffing the turkey and entered into with equal gusto. According to research last year, the average British family will have at least five arguments on Christmas Day, with the first row at 10.13am.
When you consider our sky-high expectations and the fevered build-up of excitement during the weeks leading up to Christmas, it’s not surprising we find it so difficult to keep the calm when the day finally arrives. When things really matter to us, it is typical to want to control them. When a bunch of people gets together, each with their own picture of how they want things to pan out, there’s bound to be friction and disappointment.
Lovely though it is to spend time with our loved ones, those guys really know how to push our buttons (hell, they’ve installed them!) and we can have a tendency to fall back into mindless negative patterns in behaviour and communication that we’ve had since childhood. (Bedroom door slamming, bickering, fighting over the remote control or the last chocolate in the box – you name it!)
So, how to have a more mindful Christmas with the family this year? Well, here are seven things to consider:
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