Christmas shopping is good for your health!!
 

You may not believe it. Christmas preparations may seem wasteful and exhausting – and the day itself can seem a minefield. But banish the Scrooge in you and get stuck in. A happy Christmas is good for the whole family, says Jane Feinmann

Christmas is coming: and more than likely, along with the carol singers, it’s bringing out the Scrooge in all of us. At some point in December, most of us wonder if its worth it: why do we bother with the endless shopping, the drinks do’s, the cardboard-tasting turkey, the unwanted presents and the tensions of getting together with the extended family?

Believe it or not: the evidence suggests that throwing ourselves wholeheartedly into the festivities is actually good for our health. Getting together with children and grandchildren, the siblings and the spouses may seem exhausting, irritating and an unnecessary expense and intrusion into our normal lives.

But it’s all worth it. The family’s identity and even their sense of security is dependent on how far we are able and accustomed to committing ourselves to the ritual of the annual blow-out.

Far from toning down the celebrations or booking a solo holiday in the Bahamas, researchers suggest that messy and wasteful as it is, Christmas is a date with tradition that we should embrace wholeheartedly.

Even very low income families want to be able to splash out at Christmas, points out Professor Kathryn Milburn, co -director of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, based at Edinburgh University. ‘For goodness sake, lots of families started saving in January so that they could afford Christmas this year. That shows just what a priority Christmas is, how meaningful it is for these families.‘

Of course it’s children that get most out of Christmas Day – and not just because of the presents. Scientists at Syracuse University found that whether or not children with asthma ate dinner together as a family was one of the key factors in whether they had high risk of being hospitalized or missing school. Another study has found that teenagers who were accustomed to big family meals were more grounded: less likely to engage risky behaviour, such as taking drugs, drinking, smoking and less likely to suffer depression.

‘However infrequently the extended family gets together, we instinctively know that when we do meet together, it’s important,’ says grandmother of ten, Dr Miriam Stoppard in The Grandparents Book. ‘We have genes of social animals and instincts for living in groups and cooperating with each other for survival and satisfaction. Our genes have propelled us towards living in family-based social groups of which the nuclear family is only a part.’

Remaining in small nuclear family groups may seem infinitely preferable – not least to teenagers in receipt of new computer games. But prising them out of their bedrooms to spend time with the extended family is a contribution to a healthy society, says sociologist, Miriam Weinstein, author of The Surprising Importance of Family Meals (Random House, September 06.

‘We live in an age of intense individualisation, in a culture defined by competition and consumption,’ says Mrs Weinstein. ‘We tend to see ritual and tradition as stultifying, or else we relegate it to the realm of "cute." We forget that people of all ages and from different nuclear families, have the same basic needs -- to connect with each other on a regular, dependable basis; to place themselves in the continuum of family, ethnicity, religion and culture, over space and time,’ she says.

Christmas, she say, is important exactly because people meet together who are different ages and have different perspectives. ‘It’s the stretching to meet each other's interests and needs that is dynamic and rewarding about these events. Kids learn what their parents were like at their age. Old people see themselves reflected and refracted in their offspring and their offspring’s offspring.’

Beyond that, she says, is the history behind Christmas – which stretches back through the centuries. ‘Ritual, is habit that is infused with meaning, and meaning can be in awfully short supply these days,’ she says.

Researchers have even tried to tease out what is so healthy and secure-making about the gossip that goes on at large family gatherings. Research at the Myth and Ritual Centre at Emory University, based on recordings of dinner time conversations in 32 families, suggests that the more uncensored the conversations, the safer children feel.

Recorded conversations included ‘horrible stories about bankruptcies, losing jobs, having to move, accidents, even a murder.’ Yet, researcher, anthropologist, Professor Marshall Duke says context is all-important. ‘You have to look at where these stories are being told - in the safety of their own home. The message is: terrible things have happened, but we’re okay, the family survives.’

All of which, experts say, should help us to relax about Christmas rather than make us more stressed about the event. ‘The more we are conscious of ritual, the more it can help us,’ says Professor Duke. ‘We can tweak our rituals, scrap those that don’t work or begin new, more satisfying ones. We can decide if our family is too bounded by rituals in general – like children squeezing into clothing that they have outgrown. Or we may not have ritual enough, and we are left shivering.’

The good news is that a healthy Christmas does not necessarily involve huge expenditure, overly complicated preparations – or even the need to try to avoid family arguments or sentimental memories from slightly inebriated elders. That might indeed be the point of it all.

Dr Weinstein’s recipe for a happy Christmas? ‘Don't be afraid to tweak rituals and traditions if they have become suffocating. On the other hand, if your family is short on them, feel free to incorporate or invent some new ones. When you are imagining your holiday, pull back from the scene and think, what will we remember about this encounter a generation from now? Then see how you can make it better; playing up the warm, rewarding parts and minimizing or avoiding the difficult areas.’

Above all, she says: ‘lower your aspirations. Forget perfection. Go for cheerful, good-enough semi-order, so that you come away with one or two memorable moments , which will not be the ones that you hoped for or expected. Try to think it through beforehand, and then let go. Don't forget to laugh.’

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