Merry (Peri) Christmas Everyone!

I am not a grinch I promise, and at the same time, this year - in the midst of perimenopause - Christmas will absolutely look & feel different, and what a gift that is ...

Throughout my life I have typically loved Christmas.

Most Christmases have been merry …

I have really fond family memories of Christmases as child - I grew up in Australia, so admittedly it was more barbecues and pool parties, compared with my adult (UK-based) life of Christmases filled with roast dinners, mulled wine and watching Christmas films, but I have tended to LOVE the festivities of Christmas throughout my life, whatever they have looked like.

As an adult, I’ve had MANY a joyful, boozy, Christmas, filled with time off work, dancing, Christmas jumpers & sparkly outfits, late nights & fuzzy headed mornings, excessive gift giving & receiving, family & friends, travel (German Christmas markets, trips across the length of the UK to see family, or even several flights to see family in Australia), Christmas films - one year I even did a Boxing Day dip in the ice cold North sea! And of course LOTS of delicious and excessive food & festive drinking - several four-course meals in a week (for weeks on end), pigs in blankets, cheese boards, puddings, hot chocolates, mulled wine, and oh so many mince pies.

I particularly loved that chapter of my life where I could enjoy Christmases in London - I loved walking over, to see all the Christmas lights, and I always LOVED our annual pilgrimage to The Hyde Park Winter Wonderland - where myself and a big group of friends would drink tankards of beer, eat a bratwurst sausage hot dog, and then wander amazed through the Ice Kingdom exhibit (which one of our good friends worked incredibly hard on each year, from about June to November, to build!).

Yes, as a general rule in my life, I have always loved Christmas - all the lights, the boozy fun, gorgeously decorated trees, the songs, the shopping, the travel, and the partying.

And some Christmases have not been so merry …

But … there have also, of course, been some Christmases on my life’s journey that have been less festive, and more fraught with stress or sadness or overwhelm.

The first Christmas after my parents separated, when I was 17, was a tough one that springs to mind. Another is the first Christmas I experienced after the most painful break-up of my life, at age 31.

In both cases, and in all the years which have been similarly hard for different reasons, I have always given myself permission to feel what I was feeling at Christmas - I have never forced myself to pretend to be ‘jolly’ or ‘merry’ when I simply wasn’t feeling it. For these Christmases, I hibernated more, I offered to work more over the Christmas break, and I declined many an invitation for frivolity. I don’t believe I wallowed - I believe I honoured my very real and valid feelings, and I’m glad I did.

There is far too much pressure on us all to have a “merry” Christmas each year, when that is simply not the reality for many of us. For most of us probably, if we’re all honest with ourselves - Life is often hard, and life absolutely does not care a jot for the societal expectations for joy and carefree indulgence at this time of year.

Life carries on, with its rollercoaster of experiences, and spectrums of human emotion, regardless of whether it is Christmas or not. I for one think we need to honour that, and remember that we are never alone when we have a hard time, at this time of year, despite how hard the media might try to convince us otherwise.

And now, these days, Christmases are, well … Peri!

It was around this time last year that I realised I was in perimenopause - when I realised that the kaleidoscope of symptoms I had been experiencing for a few years (anxiety, rage, brain fog, aches, pains, weight gain, repeated chest infections, heart palpitations, exhaustion, poor sleep, feeling wired & tired all the time, burnout, etc.) were all connected to this roller-coaster that my hormones were now on, bang on schedule it turns out too, for my journey towards my menopause.

It would be January before I embarked upon my official ‘perimenopause project’ - Diving into several books, podcasts, and instagram accounts, to learn about my hormones, my cyclical nature, and my need for adapted self-care and greater nervous system regulation to better navigate this time of my life.

But even before I did all this research, my body was screaming at me - “Please don’t do this Christmas like you have done it in the past!”

I remember the year before last, in 2022, having family on both sides join us all day on Christmas Day, for present opening and food, as well as having some family stay for a few days, because they were not local - I had agreed to it in July, assuming it would be great, but when it actually transpired - I found it incredibly stressful, rather than joyful and fun ...

So when it came to last year, 2023, I heeded the call of my body, and I knew it had to be different - It had to just be us, the three of us - me, my partner and our then three year old son. I knew in my bones I needed a different type of Christmas, and I honoured that desire.

Feeling good about my low-key plans for a chilled Christmas, I then recall settling in one early December evening to enjoy a Christmas film, and a Baileys on ice - one of my favourite Christmas tipples. I remember enjoying the Baileys while I was drinking it… and then I remember just feeling a bit sick after, and then not sleeping well at all, that whole night.

After just one Baileys! Oh how times had changed. For this reason, this was my first and last alcoholic drink last Christmas.

So, no booze and a nearly empty house last Christmas … Was it still a merry one?

Damn straight it was! It was absolutely the best Christmas I can remember having for years - I was exactly where I needed to be, doing what I needed to be doing, with the people I love most in the world. I was comfy & cosy, I was relaxed & rested, and I was in my Christmas pjs, with no makeup, all bloody day. It was wonderful.

I’d also made the run up to the big day easier on myself too, with fewer cards sent, fewer presents bought and wrapped, and far fewer social engagements agreed to … and for my money - it was still a very jolly Christmas indeed!

Once my ‘perimenopause project’ took off in January, I did indeed adapt my self-care - I changed my diet somewhat, consciously reduced the toxins that my body was exposed to daily, committed to staying off both alcohol and caffeine, honoured my natural monthly cycling of energies, prioritised sleep more than ever, and have rested in the day too, more than ever before in my life.

And I have not looked back since.

I feel literally about 100 times better this year, than I did this time last year. Many of the perimenopause symptoms I had been crippled by are not troubling me at all, and this is even in the context of added life-stresses, outside of my control, and with the added workload of growing my business this year too.

So here I am at Christmas 2024 - And I’m not about to jeopardise how well I feel now, in order to try to do Christmas how I used to, or to try and shoehorn in various ways in which the media and advertising portray a ‘merry’ Christmas.

No - in my experience, perimenopause has necessarily transformed how I approach Christmas. And that is not a bad thing at all. And, in my opinion, it absolutely doesn't make it any less merry.

Christmases in perimenopause, for me, are now: As restful as possible, with as little stress as possible, with as much sleep as possible, and with no alcohol, no caffeine, and very little sugar. This means no more mulled wine, no more Baileys, no more beer, wine or bubbly or bucks fizz. This means no mince pies, no Christmas cake or pudding, and no bread sauce either (since perimenopause, for me, has brought with it a rather new, and insistent, gluten intolerance).

None of this feels like self-denial. It feels instead like self-love, and it feels like true joy - the kind of tiny bubbles of joy that float up from within, in ordinary moments of ‘enoughness’ (not the ‘forced fun’, outwardly sparkly sort of ‘joy’ we get sold & told we ‘should be having’ at this time of year). There will be plenty of food and drink that I do genuinely enjoy, AND that makes me feel good in my body - Perimenopause it teaching me that it doesn’t have to be either/or.

This also means not adding to my own stress by skipping sleep for late-night socialising, or putting additional financial stress on our family by breaking our agreed Christmas budget - just because of all the sensationalist advertising that makes our efforts feel ‘never enough’, like we’re always needing ‘more, bigger, better!’

This new form of self-love Christmas also means no travelling (waaayyyy too stressful & overwhelming for my perimenopausal self these days), and no more than a couple of extra mouths to feed, on the day - This year we only have my partner’s parents coming over for Christmas lunch, and that feels just right.

Yes, Christmases for me look different now, in my 40s, AND they are just as merry as before - ‘different’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘bah humbug’. A pared-back, nourishing, sober Christmas doesn’t equal a grinchey one. Honouring our needs at Christmas does not make us all miserable Scrooges.

In fact, it honestly makes me feel very merry indeed to know that this Christmas I’m truly taking care of my needs at this time in my life - that I’m honouring and nourishing myself, as I am, instead of poisoning myself, exhausting myself or ‘shoulding’ myself into overwhelm & debt. It makes me feel ‘merry’ indeed to know that I’ll be starting 2025 feeling as well and rested as possible, and not needing to detox either my body, or my bank account.

What a gift that perimenopause has brought to my Christmases - A true sense of ‘enoughness’, in a Christmas of my own, self-compassionate, design.

As I sign off here, I am also wishing all of YOU a Christmas in which you get to validate all of your own feelings and needs this year. A Christmas in which you can cultivate rest if you need it, and a Christmas in which you have a deep sense of your own enoughness, and worthiness of moments of connection, compassion and joy, whatever your Christmas looks like.

Jenny x

---

Thanks so much for reading!

I am Dr. Jenny Turner, Clinical Psychologist and founder of Mind Body Soul Psychology - a private psychology practice in which I offer face-to-face psychology assessment and intervention to individuals and couples in Ripon, Yorkshire (UK), as well as UK-wide online psychology services, via Zoom.

I am passionate about assisting women to alleviate their suffering, by helping them to better understand, embrace and honour their human needs & their humanity. And I wholeheartedly practice what I preach.

You can find out more about the psychology services I offer via my website.

Ps. All images are my own.