Getting Back to Normal After Christmas: Coping with Post Christmas Loss After the Kids Go Back to College
November 12, 2010
Getting Back to Normal After Christmas: Coping with Post Christmas Loss After the Kids Go Back to College
Christmas is the favorite time of year for so many of us and it’s no wonder! Whether we live in a hot or cold climate during the festive season, there is something about the traditions of Christmas that brings out emotions in all of us and sends us running to the shops for tinsel early December, no matter how hard we try to be cynical!
Christmas festivities are usually left to the lady of the house, although there are a few gentlemen baby boomers who undertake plenty of Christmas preparations such as hauling home the Christmas tree and buying the biggest turkey in the free world. However, psychological articles tell us that the more we do to make our family Christmas the best ever, the harder we come down to earth when the festivities are all over and it is time for visiting family to return from whence they came…
It is the eternal ‘Cinderella’s pumpkin’ effect – sooner or later, the pretty baubles and the nodding Santa on the porch and the evergreen with twinkling lights that make the hearth look so beautiful must come down and be replaced with the trappings of normality. The silk Christmas roses are carefully re-folded and returned to their tissue-lined boxes; the chandelier is carefully stripped of mistletoe; Christmas ribbons and crystals are rolled up and packed away till next year; the delicious left over festive foods in the refrigerator are hastily eaten before they spoil.
Psychological articles claim that the very worst aspect of post Christmas blues is the disappearance of loved ones back to work, or to college, or elderly baby boomer grandparents travel back to care homes, or their comfortable ‘apartment for one’ in the city. We wave them off, knowing we will probably not see them again until the next special occasion. Baby boomers are great at entertaining family and talented at making other people feel comfortable and in the holiday spirit – it’s not easy to come to terms with the anti climax of early January!
How do we cope with it? Perhaps we should stop them from leaving! Well – perhaps not… Lives have to be lived, after all! The best way to cope with the post Christmas blues is to stay focused and busy and turn to the tasks put off before Christmas to occupy our time and take our minds off missing absent family. The sharpest sense of loss is certainly felt by Mom baby boomers saying goodbye to kids leaving for college after the winter break. Mothers conquer their ‘empty nest’ emotions with some difficulty when their children leave home to be educated elsewhere. Those feelings of loss return after a long holiday period; especially Christmas when so many happy celebrations take place to enhance the holiday mood.
Cheer up, Mom – they’ll be home again soon, dragging three months laundry behind them and begging for a bigger allowance!
Dr Karen Turner, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with an interest in the baby boomer generation as the most successful and resourceful of all generations. Boomeryearbook.com focuses on connecting the baby boomer generation and providing interaction for boomers everywhere. If you are a baby boomer with an interest in the mysteries of the human brain, Boomeryearbook.com is the social network for you.
Article from articlesbase.com
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