#18 | Mindbites - Christmas Time! 🎅 The Best Parts, The Challenges & Traditions We Treasure

Our topic of discussion today is Christmas. Christmas time is a time of giving and spending quality days with those closest to you. That could be an amazing experience for many, but for a lot of people, however, Christmas can hold immense challenges that aren't often talked about. Joe, Christmas is a few weeks away now. What have you got lined up for Christmas this year?

So we're quite standard actually. We don't really go away for christmas. We, um, and the family's got bigger over the last couple of years, with my sister having three kids, so it sort of slowed down slightly. We don't really go away or anything. So we'll be going to the sister's house middle sister, um because the older sister's got the house being renovated, so it'll be me, mum, uh, and sort of the immediate side of the family, me and the sisters and then see the dad in the morning, get that out of the way and then spend the rest of the afternoon with the grandparents. That kind of stuff, mate. So seeing a lot of people over the Christmas day, christmassy boxing day period, but it's all very sort of standard stuff. But we don't go anywhere, I don't really celebrate too much. It's all very sort of just family orientated which celebrate too much.

It's all very sort of just family orientated, which you're very lucky to have. That's nice. Having everyone around as well, I think that's the best part of christmas, right. So seeing your family, who you might not see that often at the moment because well, in my case all my family have moved out so sort of reconnecting with loved ones and it's kind of that time for just rest and recharging the batteries and I think that's kind of the biggest pro with christmas is.

For me, this is quite a dark period of time, you know, gets cold, it's dark early, it's dark in the mornings when you wake up for work or ready to go to the gym. Like I struggle with this time of year and I think having not something to aim towards, that's the wrong thing, but sort of like a reward kind of halfway through that season is just like it's a nice thing, especially when you're with family and you get them good gifts and you know just everything's just nice at that time of year that I never really have a problem. But I think having something to aim towards is kind of the main thing.

But well, I was gonna say it's a bit of a lightning in the tunnel, isn't it? Because, yeah, it's darker and darker and darker and obviously post Christmas it starts to lighter again. But it's a bit of a lightening of the tunnel. I'm trying to look forward to it.

What are the kind of pros that you find with Christmas coming up soon?

I mean, you touched on it there For me it's family. So for me it's not really about the gift-giving, it's not about the sort of receiving of gifts. I don't really care too much for that and I'm very lucky that my family are very close. They're geographically close and we are very close together, which I know for a lot of people that we'll touch on later on aren't, and actually dread Christmas for that reason.

But for me, seeing my three sisters, my mum, my grandparents all in one room, which when we're this age and obviously I'm slightly older than you, but at my age that's becoming rarer and rarer being the whole family together, and again, rarer and rarer being the whole family together. And again, like I said in the beginning, I'm very fortunate that I can see my family fairly regularly, but having everyone together is just such a rare thing. So I absolutely love it. I do find it really overwhelming, so I do take myself away on regular, regular intervals, but I think for me it's just sitting down, just being completely stupid and and having a laugh with your, my, my niece and nephews, and I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. All the films are on music and obviously food, which again we'll go on to, I'm sure.

For me family's the biggest thing. The films are good as well. Yeah, We'll do a little ranking tier system of our favourite films coming up and I'm sure at a later date we'll rank them and get into some sort of plate as to which one's best. What would?

be your number one christmas film. Sidetrack from the conversation. I need to know. I need to know I'm a home alone guy.

I actually I know like home alone is so good. More recently, elf is is a classic elf on repeat in my house absolutely elf.

Elf for me, that's my favorite one. Also our family ones love actually you know all all sitting down on a on the 24th of december. We all watch love actually actually think that's a class film as well. I think I think the reason those films are good and this might be a controversial take is, like it seems like christmas films were great but there's no real good christmas films that come out in the last five, ten years that I can really name. Could be wrong, could be controversial there, but I think watching something like love actually we've done that every single year since I was a kid, so it's just like it's quite nice, like oh, you almost reminisce on bits as well we sit in the same room, we all watch as a family, uh, and it's a really nice time to to kind of do things and I think that would be my number one and number number one a one b, elf and love actually for me, nice.

Another thing I absolutely love, um, another pro to add to my sort of family, one is is you mentioned at the top is is the sense of rest I don't. Being self-employed you can probably relate to this is. Being self-employed is great for so many reasons, where you can take time off whenever you want to, but you almost don't want to because you don't earn anything. So for me it's that forced rest, which I'm not very good at doing, which is a double-edged sword, because I don't like having too much time off, because I then get anxious about not being able to be physically active or, when I was playing rugby, missing all that kind of stuff. So for me it forces me to sort of like just chill a little bit and actually just relax, which I'm not very good at doing.

Absolutely. I'm the same. I find it hard to switch off. But I think you know, I agree, I think Christmas is good for that, but I think that's also hard from a self-employed standpoint. It's just like when you're self-employed or say you have your own business or whatever it is. It's kind of like, like you said, you don't work, you don't get paid and if you haven't done the right stuff leading up to that, I think it can be a very daunting experience. I think it can be a very daunting experience, but I think if you put everything in place and you've done all you need to, I mean that's a much needed rest. I think Christmas is.

I get the best rest of Christmas and I come back feeling super refreshed and it feels good and then almost things go a bit sort of not tits up, like going into the new year, but that kind of gap where it's just a nothing gap for me. I always find that hard. When you do, you don't really do much business. In that gap people aren't really. You know they are working but they're not really working, uh, and then from the new year it seems to fly after that. So that's what I'm looking for. This is, is that kind of gap between the christmas and the new year. You know, what could I do in there? What could I focus on a bit more? Because normally I'm just, I'm not lazy, but I'm I'm not proactive like I normally am in that gap.

I want to go on to a few of the cons of Christmas. And although Christmas is amazing, it's one of the best times of year we get to be with our families again. You know everyone's back home. A lot of people listening to this won't be able to be with their families or they would have lost a loved one around the Christmas time, or Christmas time would remind people that they have lost a loved one or a close friend and they won't be able to reconnect with them. I think that's one of the the hardest cons with Christmas is it's where everyone comes together. But then if you've lost someone which I'm grateful I haven't lost someone in my close family, so my mum, my dad, brother and sister I feel like that could be incredibly tough and it could actually be.

Yes, christmas can be great, but then you've got to think on the other side as well, and I think that's one of the the hardest things of Christmas, and we spoke about this with Dr Mark Rackley, didn't we, where he he said the exact same thing. He was like, yes, it can be amazing for, but for the majority of people it can be an incredibly, incredibly tough time of year if you have lost a loved one. And then sort of dealing with that grief of that, when everyone's with their families and you might not be, you know, can lead to you know, over indulging on booze and food and silly hangovers and and other conflicts with people and that sort of loneliness can sort of heighten as well. And I think there's so much that can stem from that and those alone loneliness is a massive one at Christmas. Overindulging on booze and food and those sort of silly season hangovers is a massive one too. Right, regardless if you've lost someone. So I think that's a very, very hard side of Christmas.

And if there's one piece of advice that I'd give people out, there is sometimes when you have it really good, you don't realize you have it really good and you can forget that other people might not, and I think that would just be my biggest thing for this year's. I'm kind of at that age now where I can see that, whereas before I'd be like it's amazing, it's the best and I'm doing this and I'm doing that, but a lot of people won't be able to do that. So I think, just having that in the back of your mind when you do talk to people, wherever you are listening to this, just remember people might not have it as good as you do and the fact that you do have it good, stay humble about that. You know, enjoy it. It's a great time of year if you do have the right things in place, but do remember that a lot of people out there find this an incredibly tough time of year, and I think Joe can agree.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's my touch on that. That's a really good point. I think also, one thing I would say is in linked we said earlier, and the financial stress of it, I think it can be a really, really unbelievable anxiety inducing time for a lot of people, and people often, you know, stress about spending or not spending enough money and having to spread that across five, six, ten, fifteen family members and loved ones. It's just, it's not conducive for a lot of people, particularly in modern times where money is just in such short supply. So I feel like communicating that as best you can in a way that suits you is really important as well. And tell your loved ones that listen, financially I'm not in a great place. Can we do something that suits me right? Can I spend within my means? And that's a communication thing. I think that's really, really important. And secondly, potentially setting up something like a secret santa where one person buys for one person and you share that amongst 10, 15 of you. That's a good, a really good way of getting around that and it creates fun as well. I think that's a really, really good idea.

And um, one other thing as well that I'd say to to mind, be mindful of is is concentrating on self-care and having a balance. So, like you mentioned earlier about the overindulgence, I think it's about having by all means have fun, but creating that level of self-care we really are looking after yourself and taking time to yourself as well. And a point that mark mentioned when we had him on the podcast last week. It was amazing. He mentioned creating an ally in the family. If you do have family conflict and you have someone that you really don't get on with, is create an ally, like with a cousin or an auntie or an uncle, and and take time away from that. Remove yourself from those stressful situations. Go for those walks, take some time in your bedroom, um, take the toys you've been given and walk with them. Go play with them for a little bit, take the dog out for a walk all these little micro things that can really really help manage those really stressful situations better I completely agree.

I was just gonna say we've done that this year uh, we did last year's are the secret santa thing. So it's me, my brother, my sister, you've got my girlfriend, my brother's girlfriend, my sister's boyfriend. It got to a point where we were like too much, I'm not buying for another five people, and it's just, although I love all of them they're all great, they've all been in the family for a long time it's just that we came to the idea of just doing a secret santa thing 15 pound budget, I've got what. I've got one of them I won't say who, I'll just spoil it if those things is them as me. And then it's just buying, you know, some funny gifts with 15 pounds or whatever. It is like I had my brother last year and we bought him like a plunger and random things that I just wanted like just funny, random things and yeah, and that that like made it so much more fun for some reason.

So doing that, you know, and, just like you said, managing expectations, you know there's no shame in going to people. Listen, I don't have a massive budget this year. We've already talked about this. You know ourselves being like this. I'm not ready to spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds or thousands of pounds on loads of people, on Christmas gifts or whatever it is, especially when you know you've got things like Christmas dinner and you know well there's so much like that goes on.

I think if you just manage your expectations uh, look out for people who might not be having a nice time at Christmas, who could have lost loved ones and family members, who actually find it a very lonely time just have that in the back of your mind and then just enjoy it. Enjoy it for the christmas. You know it's great to be if you are lucky enough to be back with family and just enjoy the build-up to it. Enjoy the christmas films, enjoy the christmas music, get out to the christmas markets. I make the most of it because it's such a beautiful time of year and I think that's all, joe.