Philippa Perry: My 10 rules for a happier Christmas

First, I want you to do Aunty Phil’s Christmas Quiz.

Answer, don’t think, just answer:

Hold on to those answers. They’ll keep returning as we go forth.

How do you actually feel about Christmas? Excited? Overwhelmed? Cautiously optimistic but with a rising sense of dread? Most of us feel a complicated cocktail of obligation, memory, expectation and half-formed longing.

What fascinates me is that people often feel pulled in several directions at once: partner, children, parents, in-laws, ghosts. And with all that effort to please others, we quietly forget to include ourselves. Which leads me to Rule one, which is probably just for women and perfectionist gay men: Don’t be a martyr.

Let’s look at your unique relationship to Christmas. Are you one of those who say, proudly, that they “don’t really do Christmas?” Like one of my acquaintances who assured me: “Oh, we skip the whole thing. We stay in pyjamas, watch black-and-white films, and rotate between pastries and whisky.” I asked how long they’d done this. “Twelve years,” he said. This is not skipping Christmas. This is a ritual, just not the kind with crackers and choreographed cheer.

Every repeated act counts: the same Christmas Eve takeaway, the annual collapse into Scrabble, the exact brand of mince pie someone insists “tastes properly Christmassy”. They culminate in a moment some people see as the peak (the meal), others the bottom (the meal), and others the blissful aftermath when it’s over. Rituals matter because they give us the illusion of continuity, tiny pockets of suspended time in which the world feels briefly reliable. When those rituals change or disappear, something inside us mourns (or cheers). 

Rule two: Be aware of your rituals and honour or scrap them as you see fit

When Christmas Past and Christmas Present collide

Many of us feel haunted, not by Dickensian spirits, but by our own archives.

Take my own childhood: it was riotously choreographed. Handmade Advent calendars, solemn tree-choosing expeditions, the annual purchase of one fragile glass decoration each child was trusted to place just so. The climax involved an overflowing table of relatives, followed by my father rolling back the carpet, then we all danced a Sir Roger de Coverley to a 78rpm record played on a wind-up gramophone (anyone under 60 will probably have to google that). Now, however, the extended family has scattered and the master organisers have gone. I can’t recreate that past, nor do I want to, yet some inner part of me still thinks I’m letting someone down by not trying.

There’s a particular pressure in wanting to experience joy in the same shape as the joy we once knew.

For one of my agony aunt correspondents, Christmas is a referendum on her life:
“If I’m not careful, I let the day stand in for my entire year. If things feel messy, I assume the day will be messy. So, I overcompensate. I try to control everything. By 3pm I’m exhausted from performing serenity.” It’s surprisingly common to use Christmas as a mirror, and to dislike the reflection.

Rule three: Try not to see Christmas as a reflection of who you were and who you are. It’s just a day 

The tyranny of ‘should’

So many Christmas tensions come from invisible rules we never agreed to.

A friend of mine who moved from Nigeria in his 20s told me: “I love being included, but I’m staggered by the non-negotiables. Everyone thinks their way is the way. People argue about turkey as if it’s theology.” He’s not wrong. Families can fracture not over ideology, but over stuffing flavours.

Rule four: Let go of your non-negotiables – they are not who you are!

I know young families who spend every year driving the length of Britain to satisfy both sets of parents, family friends and scattered relations. “We’re thinking of spreading visits across the year instead,” one mum told me. “But honestly? The guilt might destroy us.” Guilt is one of Christmas’s strongest flavours, rarely listed on the list of ingredients but unmistakably there. 

Rule five: If you have to choose between guilt and resentment, choose guilt. You’ll still feel bad, just not as bad

Are you sure your way is the right way?

When people describe their Christmas rituals, they’re often fiercely protective of them. One magazine editor I know insists: “You have to go all-in. Handmade decorations, real tree, roast potatoes the way my grandmother taught me. And the day itself should be a joyous avalanche, gifts, feasting, games. It’s essential for the children.” I asked: “What if there aren’t any children?” “Oh,” she said, without missing a beat, “then someone has to be the child.” “Even if that someone is 43?” I asked. “Yes!” she replied emphatically.

Rule six: Chill the fuck out

The ritual of opting out

Some people try to opt out entirely. Rafi, for instance, insists he ignores Christmas.
“All that happened when I was young was that I was always given the same £10 note every year,” he says. “When I was little, it was fine. By the time I was 21 it was falling a bit flat, and I realised everyone else in the whole world was having and had always had a better time than me. I find it a depressing and painful time of the year. My mum started taking down the Xmas decorations after the turkey and before the pudding, and she’d only put them up on Christmas Eve: she hated it too.” 

The way he tells me this isn’t neutral. There’s longing threaded with his irritation. Pretending not to notice Christmas can be its own ritual, one shaped by disappointment. And, like all rituals, it can become outdated and too small for the person we’ve become. 

Rule seven: Don’t let the ghosts of your past spoil your present, for you and those around you

Maybe it’s time for new things

A tradition I’m particularly fond of is including someone who might otherwise spend the day alone. Not out of altruism, necessarily. My friend Rachel, who is Jewish, says: “I get invited to so many Christmas lunches. I’m convinced people use me to make their families behave better. I’m the diplomatic presence.” Sometimes, rituals work because the new variable jolts the old pattern into life.

Rule eight: Find out who is going to be alone and make sure they are not

If Christmas feels fraught, overburdened or strangely hollow, perhaps your ritual needs evolving. Now that our daughter is married, every other year she goes to her in-laws. But, luckily, we have friends whose children do the exact same thing, so we have coordinated our childless Christmases to spend together, pleasing nobody but ourselves. My favourite part of the ritual? They’ve got a sauna. A hot steaming in winter – you can’t beat it. 

Rule nine: Invent new rituals or let them evolve

There are the people to whom Christmas just happens: “I spend all of November saying I hate Christmas. Then on the 20th something shifts. I get swept up in it, panic-buy presents, and suddenly realise I’m having a brilliant time.” And there are those of us who bake the cake in November, book supermarket delivery spots in September and have an Excel sheet to-do list, to make Christmas “just happen” for everyone else. 

Rule 10: Have a think about swapping roles maybe??

And now – return to the questionnaire

Rituals are human technology: designed, not destined. If we understand ours, we might just find a way to have a gentler, or more riotous, more honest and more enjoyable Christmas.

Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist, writer and broadcaster. Her Ask Philippa advice column is on Substack