Calm Christmas by Beth Kempton - My Ten Takeaways
Do you have a vision of yourself cosying up with a festive book this time of year? If so, I would highly recommend Calm Christmas by Beth Kempton. I feel like Beth is a kindred spirit of mine because she is also fascinated with studying the Japanese way of life, to enhance our wellbeing. Calm Christmas is a call to slow down, prioritise what’s important to YOU at this time of year and to use this season as an opportunity to be fully present to the joy it brings. This is easier said than done though, with many admitting that the season can bring on stress, copious amounts of debt and increasing cases of burnout. It seems we need a manual to get us through; Calm Christmas is indeed a beautiful manual to serve us, which offers sound guidance on how to reclaim your joy this Christmas.
At 224 pages, it’s a short read. I read it throughout November whilst drinking winter tea and listening to The John Rutter Christmas Album (highly recommended to enhance the festive reading bliss!). This book isn’t just about preparing for Christmas, it also has brilliant advice on how to start the new year with a different pace - a pace that strips away the frenzy of over-committing to numerous resolutions. Instead, Beth encourages us to appreciate that we are enough, and advises we need to continue to build on this; rather than create an unachievable version of ourselves.
Here are my top 10 takeaways from the book:
1. We need to look back to our childhood Christmases to discover what brings us the most joy. ‘It is by reconnecting with what we loved, or for as children that we can find true draw in the midst of the darkest season as adults.’ There is a lovely activity in the book called ‘The Five Stories of Christmas’ to help you understand what values are most important to you at Christmas. For me, I realised that going to Mass on Christmas Eve was really important to me as a child, and it’s something that I haven’t done in years. This year, I’m going to attend a Christmas Eve Mass, and invite my family along too. Unless we share with our families what is important to us, how will they ever know? For a client of mine, she learnt from the book that baking mince pies from scratch was a festive tradition that she looked forward to every year, so she made sure to include this in her festive schedule. ‘What we need is a way to marry what matters to us with what matters to those we love, and then let go of the rest.’
2. I think we are all aware of this but… Gift giving has gone too far, particularly when it comes to children. Beth shares some fascinating (albeit frightening) statistics. The average number of presents children receive is 20 to 30 presents per child, with some children expecting in excess of 50 presents each. A 2017 survey by gumtree found that 61% of people no longer enjoy gifting because of the constant pressure to buy the perfect present. Over the course of our lives we will each spend an average of £54,000 at Christmas time – almost a quarter of the price of the average family home in the UK!
According to financial expert Martin Lewis: sometimes the best gift is releasing others from the obligation of having to give to you, resulting in less pressure, less cost, less debt, and more joy. In almost every tidying session I have, my clients and I come across gifts that they find challenging to pass on. Even if they dislike the item itself, they find it difficult to let it go because they feel guilty. My advice is to stop that guilt from growing in the first place. Unless it is a gift you are 100% sure your friend/family member would love, don’t buy it. Release them of the sense of obligation - what better gift is there than that?
3. It’s all in the planning: Given the kind of year you’ve had, what kind of Christmas would be most nourishing and appropriate for you? If you’ve had a big year with some key transitions (a big move? The loss of a loved one? A new baby?), you may want to slow down as much as possible, plan little and look after yourself. Give yourself pockets of time to indulge in the festive treats and events that truly bring you joy.
Since Romeo and Hermione were born (and that’s nearly 8 years ago now!) my husband and I have agreed to stay at home and share our Christmas as a family of 4, which means no travelling. We see family in the first few weeks of December and in the new year, and FaceTime them on Christmas Day. That way, we can follow our own routine, let go of the pressure of being ‘on form’ for others and suit ourselves. Is this selfish? No, it’s what works for us at this stage of our lives. Does this work for everyone? No, and that’s ok. What’s important is that we respect that everyone’s Christmas is different. Use this point as a reminder to check in to see if you’re happy with how you spend Christmas and particularly who you spend it with. Does this bring you joy? If not, you have the power to change the script.
If you are not yet ready to challenge the family politics, any time you start to feel stressed, follow Beth’s strategy: ‘make yourself a hot drink, close your eyes, and feel the shape of the mug as the warmth seep through your skin, and into your bones, up, pure arms and around your heart. Then take a deep breath and open your eyes.’
4. Mindful shopping: 60 million unwanted gifts were given in 2018 in the U.K. alone. When you attempt to buy something, pause for a moment and ask yourself if it supports your intention for Christmas this year. When shopping online, leave the items in your cart for awhile before checking out. Keep a budget and record the amounts you spend as you shop. Celebrate when you stay within your budget. Mindful gifting comes down to these 3 questions: whether to give, what to give and how to give. Before you choose a gift, ask yourself:
Is it mindful?
Is it meaningful?
Is it memorable?
For more guidance on mindful shopping, please visit my blog post ‘9 Helpful Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Buy Something New’.
5. An emotional reminder: This part of the book was very poignant for me. Beth shares that ‘we will all experience an empty chair at the table someday. Eventually that empty chair will be ours. Christmas can be an opportunity to pause and acknowledge that fact, to give thanks and to remember.’
6. Loneliness at Christmastime - 2 billion people celebrate Christmas each year, but not everyone has someone to celebrate with. In 2018 in the UK, the role of Minister for Loneliness was established, meaning that loneliness is now a serious concern. Over Christmas there is much more of a focus on socialising and connecting with family or friends. This emphasis on socialisation can make people become more aware that they are feeling lonely because the disparity between the relationships individuals want, and the ones they actually have can become more apparent. Imagine if each of us were to reach out, to just one other person – be it a friend, a relative or a stranger – over the holidays. The effect on our collective emotional health would be profound.
What can you do in your local community to help just one person this Christmas? I recently watched the movie ‘A Man Called Otto’ with Tom Hanks - it was real eye opener for me and has prompted me to strike up more conversations with people in my local community here in Surbiton. A man in my building lives alone, and although he appeared moody at first, after striking up a few conversations with him, we’ve surpassed the awkward stranger phase that can linger if gone unchallenged. A great resource for loneliness at Christmas from the team at King’s College London can be found here.
7. 26th to 31st December are ‘the days in between’ (otherwise known as ‘The Hush’) – Beth writes that for her, these days consist of ‘long walks, hot coffees, with lounging, with leftover chocolates, adding birthday dates to the new diary, telephone catch-ups, revisiting old memories, new plans, making time, telling stories, when everything on pause. Eat leftover stilton and Christmas pudding for breakfast. You can leave emails and answered in your inbox and spend hours playing ball games.’ Aren’t Beth’s descriptions simply food for the soul?!
Her amazing advice: ‘If we keep the activity and volume levels high all the way to the New Year, hosting a house, full of guests without a break, hunting out bargains in pack, shopping, malls, or rushing back to work too soon, we miss a vital but rare opportunity to reflect and learn, honour, and grieve, for rest and recuperate.’
What do you do during The Hush?
8. Reflecting on the year you’ve had: Beth advocates embarking upon gentle reflection and imagine helping a cherished friend with this exercise – you would be kind, thoughtful, and gentle. Show yourself the same consideration. ‘View your answers as valuable information to help you move forward, not opportunities for judgement or evidence of failure.’
9. New year, new you? ‘While I love a fresh page in a new diary, as much as the next person, I can’t help, wondering if we have made the turn of the year into something more imposing than it needs to be. Our natural inclination is to hunker down and hibernate, rather than embark upon a bold, new adventure. Nature is not bursting into life in our gardens, yet we have made a customer of aggressively, shaking ourselves awake, and issuing public proclamations of what we will quit or achieve.’ My thoughts on resolutions have changed over the years, and although I still look forward to writing out new objectives and goals for the year, the number of resolutions I now commit to has changed, resting at 6. I favour a two-monthly focus on each goal, and look forward to trying out new things and embracing a growth mindset. Did you know that 80% of new year’s resolutions fail by February? I think this is due to the fact that we set too many goals at one time, and send ourselves into overwhelm. For my blog post about setting new year goals, please visit ‘9 Tips On How To Make Resolutions That Stick’.
10. Circannual Rhythms: I love it when a book teaches me something completely new! Beth has lead me to the work of Vinod Kumar (The University of Delhi) who has completed extensive research on circannual rhythms. We all know that as humans we follow a circadian rhythm, which is the 24-hour internal clock in our brain that regulates cycles of alertness and sleepiness by responding to light changes in our environment. Our physiology and behaviour are shaped by the Earth's rotation around its axis. If you didn’t already know this, you certainly do now! Humans also behave differently as the seasons change. Sleep demands are greatest in the middle of winter, when we’re all trying to start creating a new version of ourselves through countless resolutions. ‘Shouldn’t we keep track of how we feel in the four seasons of the year – when we have the most energy, when we feel like resting, when we feel creative and so on – and tailor our activities accordingly?’
Beth says: ‘Instead, perhaps we will be better off committing to language, dreaming, to ongoing, nurture and care, to acceptance of the fact that it’s okay to wait awhile before launching into something new. Moving gently into January with grace and hope. A New Year’s resolution is a recipe for either success or failure, and that’s a lot of pressure when you’re just emerging from the sugar and alcohol and use coma of Christmas.’
Take the pressure off yourself in January. You can start a new project or goal at any time, and restart any time too. What a beautiful approach!
So those are my ten takeaways from the book. I didn’t mean for this blog post to be so long - there’s simply a lot to unpack with each of these points! If this season of the year is one you treasure, I highly recommend you invest in Beth’s book, as it offers so much food for thought. I’m going to pack my Calm Christmas away with the decorations when Christmas is over, and look forward to reading it again next year.
I wish you a very merry (and calm!) Christmas and a smooth (gentle) start to 2024.
Katrina x