How to survive Christmas after separation

LET’S face it, some holidays are going to be bloody awful. But there are a few tricks that will make Christmas bearable, no matter your situation.

Surviving Christmas with a broken family

I’M NOT going to mince words here. If celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus is your thing, then the first Christmas after your family separates is likely to be bloody awful.

Whether you’re a gentle lover of tinsel or a full-blown Christmas tragic, the first Yuletide in Splitsville is about as much fun as a tequila hangover. If you’re lucky, you’ll get through it without actually dropping your head in the toilet.

And like a hangover, there really is no escaping the pain. Over the years I’ve watched many people try and fail to dodge the hurt of a newly broken Christmas, and when my turn finally came along, I made my own foolish attempts to escape the ghosts of Christmases past.

I tried the runaway Christmas, flying off to my family overseas and the snowy weather and twinkly lights, only to find that of course someone was still missing, and so we were still sad. I tried the pretend-it’s-not-happening Christmas, and spent a miserable day working tragically hard to imagine that Christmas wasn’t all around, and ended up in tears in a park scaring a small child who was wearing reindeer antlers.

It took me a while to get with the new holiday program.

So in the hope of saving you years of festive misery, I’ve compiled a small list of ideas to help navigate the silly season without unnecessary suffering. Because if you can face the holidays head on, you’ve got a chance of making something lovely out of the wreckage of your former Christmas life.

1. LET GOT OF WHAT’S GONE

This is the hardest part. If you can take care of this tricky bit of business, you’ll hold the key to making your peace with the silly season. Try to face up to the stuff that will never happen again.

Some people can all sit down and celebrate after the bank accounts have been split, but maybe that’s not your ex, and maybe it never will be. So do yourself a favour and try not to argue with the breakup gods and accept that your family as you once knew it and many of the holiday things you shared, are never to be again.

Trying to play the hand you think you should have been dealt rather than the cards you’re actually holding will only guarantee years of miserable Christmas times. This is life. Bad things happen, things break and feel ruined and then you pick up the tiny unbroken things and let the rest go. Then you rebuild. If you can’t accept what’s gone, you can’t build a new life. It’s that simple.

2. SIFT THROUGH THE WRECKAGE AND SALVAGE THE THINGS YOU LOVE MOST

In every ritual there are the things that really ring your chimes and the things you can live without. There’s lots of holiday nonsense I don’t miss for a second, like my ex father-in-law’s trifle, but some of the trimmings are totally essential. The hazelnut crescent cookies my grandmother used to make, a Christmas story about an owl and some moles who want a telescope from Santa to see the stars, and present-stuffed stockings are absolutely inseparable from Christmas for me.

Whatever form the day is taking for you this year, make sure to hang on to the crucial parts of the ritual that make you feel like the celebration is actually yours. Don’t worry about the rest of the festive crap, it’s not worth it. Some of it you might even be glad to leave behind.

3. DON’T BE AFRAID TO BUILD SOMETHING NEW

Christmas may currently be lying in pieces on the floor, but try to see it like a real estate agent sees a broken down house — as a renovation opportunity. Whether you’re spending the day with the cat, with your kids and no money, in a refuge, or on your aunty’s couch, don’t miss whatever tiny opportunity still exists to build something new that’s meaningful for you.

I wish I hadn’t spent a miserable Christmas Day in a park scaring a small child. I wish I’d been courageous enough to go on a road trip with a box of cookies and a mixed CD, Skype in to my sister’s do or babysit some dogs for the season. When you’re too afraid to build a new thing, then all you’re left with is the mess the old thing left behind.

4. MAKE ROOM FOR THE GRAIN OF SADNESS THAT WILL ALWAYS BE THERE

When I finally stopped running from the pain of my separated Christmas, things began to look up. My new partner, my daughter and I sat around and read the owl and mole Christmas story, opened our stockings and miraculously liked our gifts. We ate too many cookies and went for a walk. At some point in the day, we each had a small cry about what and who we missed, and we comforted each other. And in the evening some of the people we loved came over, and we played music, ate Pavlova and pudding and sat in the garden. There were twinkly lights and some singing, and no one pretended our family was perfect. All in all it was a good day.

Spending your newly fractured Christmas trying not to be sad, wishing it would all just go away or struggling to make things feel normal is like holding your breath and hoping to stay alive. It just won’t work. You can’t escape the pain of breaking up or the work of rebuilding your life, you just have to endure it. That’s the truth about loss.

You don’t get over it; you just have to set a place for it at the table. And even when you’ve got enough courage to build something new, you don’t ever get back what you lost. But what you do get is another opportunity to make your own life. Don’t let it pass you by.

Merry Christmas.

Zoe Krupka is a psychotherapist with experience in relationship counselling.