A Psychologist's Guide to Surviving Christmas

Christmas is magical.It is also an annual psychological experiment in which fully functioning adults return home and become twelve years old because their relative raised an eyebrow.Suddenly you're defending your relationship, explaining your plate, buying presents you can't afford and wondering why saying "we're leaving at six" apparently constitutes an attack on the family.Welcome to Christmas.A Psychologist's Guide to Surviving Christmas (and Other Family Events) is for anyone who loves their family, struggles with their family, avoids their family - or can experience all three before the potatoes arrive.Here's the first thing to know: Christmas is not jury duty. Neither are family events. You don't have to go.But if you decide to go, this book will help you understand what happens when you walk through that door - the double binds, guilt, old family roles, boundaries, passive aggression, grief, expectations and emotional buttons that somehow still work even though you are a fully grown adult with your own cutlery.With psychology, practical scripts and a healthy amount of festive nonsense, this isn't a guide to fixing your family by Christmas Day.It's about going in as yourself - and coming home as yourself too.And if necessary?You can leave early.You came. There are witnesses.