Why Christmas Triggers So Many Emotions, and How to Navigate the Season with More Ease
- Brainz Magazine
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
Written by Paula Miles, BACP-Registered Psychotherapist
Paula Miles is a psychotherapist, BACP-registered, who helps people navigating anxiety, stress, and burnout. Drawing from her own experience in high-pressure corporate roles, and childhood trauma she offers a grounded, compassionate space for root-cause emotional change.
Christmas is supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year,” yet many people feel overwhelmed inside, anxious, or alone as the holidays approach. If you find yourself dreading family gatherings, feeling the ache of grief, or panicking about the New Year, there is nothing wrong with you, and there are kinder ways to move through this season.
Why this time of year can feel heavy
On the surface, Christmas and New Year are about joy, connection, and celebration. Underneath, they often bring memory, comparison, pressure, and expectation.
You’re invited, sometimes pushed, to evaluate your life through a harsh emotional lens:
“Have I done enough this year?”
“Why does everyone else seem happy?”
“Why am I still struggling with the same things?”
Research shows that while many people enjoy the festive period, a significant number experience a drop in their mental health, with increases in anxiety, tension, and low mood. In other words, if you feel unsettled in December, you are far from alone.
For high-achieving and emotionally overloaded women, the ones who are “strong” for everyone else all year, the pressure intensifies. Christmas becomes another performance, the perfect plans, the perfect family interaction, the perfect emotional state. Inside, however, you may feel anything but festive.
The myth of “only happy”
A major contributor to Christmas anxiety is the cultural myth that this season should be exclusively joyful.
Real life does not pause in December. Loss, illness, financial pressure, relationship stress, and family conflict all follow us into the holidays. When your inner world does not match the external message, smiling adverts, cosy films, curated social feeds, it can create a painful emotional split:
“Everyone else is grateful. Why am I not?”
“I should be happy. What’s wrong with me?”
“If I say how I really feel, I’ll ruin the day for everyone.”
Instead of recognising that your emotions make sense in context, the mind turns against itself. Why can’t I just cope? What does this say about me?
From a psychoanalytic perspective, this mismatch often reactivates old stories, being valued for being “good,” quiet, helpful, or easy. The implicit rule becomes that there is no room for my real feelings, especially at Christmas.
Family dynamics and old roles return
Even in loving families, Christmas can carry emotional complexity. You may notice yourself slipping into roles you thought you had outgrown, the responsible one, the fixer, the quiet one, the peacekeeper. Interactions that feel small on the surface can activate deep, long-standing patterns.
Common experiences include:
Feeling like a teenager again, despite the adult life you’ve built
Walking on eggshells around a parent or sibling
Saying “yes” to avoid conflict or judgement
Psychologically, returning “home” often reactivates unresolved dynamics, sibling comparison, criticism, invisible roles, unspoken tensions. These dynamics may never have been addressed openly, but your nervous system remembers them.
If the holiday season triggers these reactions, it is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that early relational patterns are resurfacing in the environments where they originally formed.
When Christmas intensifies grief
For many, Christmas represents absence as much as presence. The empty chair at the table. The traditions that no longer happen. The person you hoped would be there this year but isn’t.
Grief becomes sharper in December. You might function well for months, only to be undone by a memory, a decoration, a smell in the kitchen.
Grief does not follow a linear timeline. Christmas acts like an emotional amplifier, bringing unresolved feelings closer to the surface. Allowing grief to exist, instead of hiding it, is not a failure. It is an honest response to a meaningful loss.
When you’re spending it alone
Not everyone has a full house or a close family network. Some individuals are geographically distant, estranged from family, or rebuilding life after difficult relationships. Others live alone or simply feel alone, even when surrounded by others.
Loneliness at Christmas is common and deeply misunderstood. It isn’t simply about being without company, it’s about being without emotional connection.
If this is your experience, it does not mean you have failed or that something is wrong with you. It means your life story doesn’t fit the idealised cultural script, and that’s okay. You are allowed to shape the holiday in a way that works for you, not in a way that performs Christmas for others.
8 evidence-informed ways to reduce holiday anxiety
Because my clinical work is grounded in psychoanalytic and relational therapy, I don’t offer quick fixes in place of deeper exploration. But practical steps can create meaningful stability during an emotionally intense time.
These approaches are effective, realistic, and compassionate:
Acknowledge your emotional landscape honestly. Let your experience be mixed. You can feel joy and sadness, relief and exhaustion, hope and frustration. Emotional truth reduces pressure.
Set expectations to “good enough,” not perfect. Ask, what is a manageable version of Christmas for me this year? This prevents overload and reduces shame.
Create small pockets of privacy or rest. A brief walk, a quiet moment in the morning, or a 10-minute reset in the afternoon can regulate your nervous system more than you imagine.
Hold one boundary you can realistically maintain. It can be simple, not engaging in certain conversations, limiting the length of a visit, or taking breaks without explanation.
Give grief permission to exist. You don’t have to hide your sadness. Acknowledging it often brings relief instead of intensifying it.
Limit comparisons, especially online. Social media shows performance, not reality. Reducing exposure protects your mood and nervous system.
Prepare for emotional triggers instead of fearing them. If you already know what tends to unsettle you, you can plan supportive strategies in advance.
Reach out for connection that feels genuine. This may be a friend, a sibling, a partner, or a therapist. You don’t need many people, you need one safe person.
Looking towards the New Year
New Year’s Eve often becomes another moment of self-evaluation. Instead of asking only what you achieved, you might reflect on:
Where you honoured yourself more
Where you listened to your limits
Where you were more truthful, even quietly
Many individuals discover that the year held more emotional progress than they realised. The anxiety often comes not from who they are, but from the standards they feel they must meet.
When to seek support
If the holiday season intensifies anxiety, low mood, loneliness, or emotional exhaustion, it may be helpful to talk with someone who can offer a grounded, non-judgemental space.
As an online and in-person psychotherapist, I support individuals who struggle with anxiety, emotional overload, and repeating relational patterns. Therapy offers a confidential place to explore the roots of these experiences and begin to shift them, slowly and safely.
If this resonates, you’re welcome to reach out
I offer a free 30-minute discovery call, where you can talk openly about what you’re navigating, ask any questions about therapy, and get a sense of whether working together feels like a supportive next step.
Read more from Paula Miles
Paula Miles, BACP-Registered Psychotherapist
Paula Miles is a BACP-registered psychotherapist working with anxiety, burnout, and high-functioning stress. With a background in demanding corporate environments, and having grown up in a critical, emotionally unavailable, and neglectful family, she learned early to carry the pressure of being the “good,” capable, strong, and always-okay one in every relationship. She deeply understands the experience of performing while feeling depleted inside, broken, or like a failure. Paula transformed her own pain into a vocation, she supports clients in over eight countries offering a deeply human space where people can understand their emotions, reconnect with themselves, and find a root-cause relief from the patterns that keep them overwelmed.
