Holiday Magic or Holiday Stress? Why More Isn’t Always More Fun

The holiday season is full of opportunities for parents to create magical lifelong memories for children. Sometimes it feels like there’s pressure to make more and bigger memories. But the best memories often come from those moments of less that get squeezed in between the to-and-fro of the season.
One useful way to think about it, offers Dr. Kimberly Bell, Chief of Clinical Practice, Training, and Innovation at Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development, is by considering the difference between excitement and fun.
Fun is enjoyable, and a children’s behavior tends to remain that way for as long as they’re having fun. Excitement is stimulation. When fun rises to excitement, it shows in a child’s behavior: Wide eyes become wild eyes, grins become grimaces, good moods turn, tears may follow.
For Bell, the secret to magical memories of the holidays is about managing the many excitements of the season like a volume knob – turning it down before it becomes too much.
Here are some of the seasonal hazards – the stuff that’s part of the fun right up until it isn’t.
Holiday advertising
Advertising is designed to make us want things, and children have few defenses against it. So any shiny thing that crosses the TV or handheld screen can become another must-have on the wish list. The wanting is unnecessarily stimulating.
Turning the volume down here begins by setting expectations early – both in terms of age and the season. For example, if your family celebrates gift-giving holidays with one bigger gift and a few small ones, a child who knows that plan doesn’t have to manage as much open-ended wanting. Revisiting that plan as often as necessary keeps the focus on other aspects of the season, and helps to develop tolerance and resilience.
Visitors and physical greetings
When out-of-town relatives or family friends begin filing through the front door, all the hugs and kisses may be uncomfortable for some children. Dr. Bell notes that it’s helpful to anticipate those feelings and important to respect them as part of learning bodily autonomy. Instead of shaming a child into accepting a hug or kiss, you can say, “You may not remember Aunt Sally, but she remembers you. Can she give you a hug?”
If the child declines, will Aunt Sally be offended? Perhaps, but Bell emphasizes, “Aunt Sally is a grownup. Be on the side of your child.”
Changes to living arrangements
Another aspect of a crowded house at the holidays is finding a place for everyone to sleep. When a grandparent or aunt needs a bed, moving a child out of their room can feel disruptive at any age. If it can’t be avoided, Bell reminds parents that children can get through anything that can be talked about. Prepare the child in advance for the disruption by discussing it and validate the difficult feelings it may bring up. Then, do what you can to minimize the length of the disruption, and make sure the child and visitors alike know that the room is still the child’s private space when it’s not being used for sleeping.
Holiday movies
Holiday movies often show grownups at their worst behavior, and deal in situations that can be hard for young children to understand. “We’re not saying those movies are inappropriate. We’re saying that they’re not for 5-year-olds,” Bell says. “They’re made for older children who have a solid grasp of reality. I’ve even seen some very little kids be really scared by the live-action Grinch.”
Turning down the volume on this excitement can be as simple as choosing holiday-themed cartoons for little ones and saving the classics for later.
Santa Claus
Speaking of a grasp on reality, for many families, nothing exemplifies a child’s confusion between real and make-believe better than the tradition of Santa Claus. At ages 3 or 4, children typically can’t separate the two, and the idea of jolly Santa can be fun. But over the next three years, they’ll begin to make sense of the physical world and the Santa story eventually stops adding up.
That shift is developmentally necessary. “It’s a sign that children are learning the world has rules, and all year long we push for that,” Bell says.
The magic can still be enjoyable when it comes with a wink and a nod. To help older children not spoil the magic for younger siblings, Bell offers this approach:
“It’s not that there is no Santa Claus,” she says. “It’s that everybody is Santa Claus. So there is a joy in giving anonymously. And once you understand that there’s no magical coming-down-the-chimney Santa Claus, it’s like being invited to a secret club. Like it’s a special thing to grow up and figure this out, and to be able to become Santa Claus.”
Anticipation and surprises
Waiting to open presents is part of the fun – to a point. But over the days and weeks of the season, it can also become unbearable for some children. Children searching closets for wrapped packages aren’t being naughty. “Those are kids that are having a hard time with the anticipation and the not knowing, and they’re trying to alleviate that in the only way they know how,” Bell says. “I’m not saying to not have surprise presents. Maybe just decrease the amount you talk about them. They don’t have to become the focus of the entire season.”
Bell also has thoughts on using the anticipation of gifts as a way to control behavior. “When you say Santa won’t come if you don’t calm down, or the Elf-on-the-Shelf is watching, that’s not emotional modulation. That’s control. That’s getting things stirred up,” she offers. “If you want your children to enjoy the holiday, help them manage it.”
What children really remember
So what’s the key to a holiday season that seems filled with magic and lifetime memories?
“Anything in relationship,” Bell says. “They remember the look on mom’s face when she opened their gift. They remember making cookies together. They remember laughing around a table. They remember things that are in association with relationship.”
This topic is explored further in Episode 27 of The Hidden Language of Children, a parenting podcast from Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The episode, “Holiday Magic or Holiday Stress,” is available here or wherever you stream podcasts.
Do you have questions about child development and behavior? Send them to [email protected].