This Year, Be the Christmas Morning Scrooge.

Dear Philip,

It’s not even Christmas, yet, and I am exhausted.  Between the shopping and the cards and the making plans for our family members to get together and drive each other crazy, I face the holiday season with what feels like more dread every year.  How do I slow it down and stop resenting all the commercialism and false cheer?  What do I do about being so stressed out?

Scrooge-in-Training

Dear Ebenezer, Jr.:

Move to a state where pot is legal.

That was an official PVM Christmas joke.  I tell a lot of ‘em, because a lot of folks I know can use a joke or two, long about mid-December.  For so many of us, Christmas is the Super Bowl of stress.

So let’s take a time out, Scrooge, and let’s talk for a minute about the great divide between what we celebrate and how we celebrate.  Maybe by breaking the former down to something simple, we can do the same with the latter.

Though I’m not much of a biblical scholar, I follow football just enough to know that there are people who are content to stand in the freezing cold, holding signs up in the air for the better part of a three-hour telecast in the hopes that the TV cameras will catch the message that they’ve boiled down to seven characters and a colon: John 3:16.

The writer in me has always been a little in awe of the simplicity of that particular verse, which explains the basic tenets of Christianity in one sentence.  The first part of that sentence also explains Christmas: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son…”  In other words, Christmas marks a gift given out of love.  Christmas is about giving.

I’ve been through a few translations of the bible – a religion minor in college will do that for you – and nowhere have I found any version of the word “obligation” in that verse.  The gift that gave name to both the religion and the holiday was given freely, and happily.  Likewise, the original Christmas may have involved family and visitors and presents, but it wasn’t celebrated by people concerned over keeping up with (or putting up with) others.

So maybe don’t be concerned with those things, either.  Rather, try to figure out what giving out of love means to you, and concern yourself with that.  Focus your Christmas efforts on the people that you love.

Sounds pretty Hallmark, I know, but it’s actually a great rule of thumb for approaching the holiday.  Start with the idea that you can’t do your best for those you love if you’re exhausted, and start whittling away at the things that wear you out.  For instance, don’t wander the mall on a mid-December afternoon, desperately looking for inspiration because you just have to put several things under the tree; spend some time earlier on sitting quietly, thinking of a few gifts that have some meaning.  (Then practice laser-targeted shopping.  It’s easier on the wallet and the nerves.) Those thoughts, and the eventual bestowing of those thoughtful gifts, will give you joy.

Believe it or not, the time you spend with extended family at Christmas can also be joyful, if you retrain your brain.  Rather than worrying about what your relatives are taking from you in terms of energy and patience, think about what you can give to them in terms of attention and compassion.  Showing your uncle some interest in what he’s doing; really listening to your sister: these are gifts given out of love, every bit as much as – and I’d argue more than – anything you’ll find on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Yikes, It’s the Day Before Christmas Tuesday.

False cheer, as you put it, is the stuff that comes from that nagging sense of obligation that’s been drummed into us by marketers and TV networks.  If you want the real thing, seek inspiration at the source, and become the post- ghostly visit, Christmas morning Scrooge who realizes that love is the gift, and that presence is the present.

Failing that, I hear the brownies in Colorado are especially good, this year.

A merry, loving Christmas to you,

Philip

Help! There's a Whiner in My Cubicle.

Dear Philip:

I work in the same office as a constant, chronic complainer.  When I say “same office,” I mean we literally share a small office in a large workspace, so I have to hear his grievances all day long, even when he’s on the phone complaining to others.  We both work for the same person, which puts me in the position of having to listen to endless complaints about my boss.  While most of the whining my co-worker does is just annoying, the things he says about our company and the boss make me uncomfortable.

I have a cousin who is the same way, but I only have to put up with his complaining a few times a year.  I can’t get away from my coworker, so how do I gently make him see that he’s driving me crazy?  Why are some people just never satisfied with anything?

Tired of the Griping

Dear Tired,

The cousin’s a pain-in-the-butt.  The co-worker?  He’s something a little more tricky…and he’s also potentially dangerous, which we’ll get to in a minute.

First, though, understand that your constant whiner doesn’t want satisfaction.  That is, he isn’t looking for the things he’s complaining about to actually get solved: he needs to continually reassert his victimhood.  It’s his identity.  He’s the guy who’s wronged at every turn, against whom every deck is stacked, and upon whose shoulders lay the weight of every injustice.  It’s a wonder he gets down off his metaphoric cross long enough to actually do any work in your shared office.

I tell you all that so you don’t fall into the trap of trying to talk some sense into him.  I’ve known people (cough – me – cough) who’ve foolishly spent years giving what they figured was sound advice on how the world is really not so bad to people who…really need the world to be so bad.  The trouble for all of us who’ve tried to talk complainers down from the ledge is that, for short periods of time, we get a false sense that we’re getting through…once in a while our whiny friends will concede that something or other might be okay.  They do that so we’ll keep listening; it’s the bone they throw us so that they can keep using us as their audience.

What they really want from us, of course, is a mirror: constant complainers want corroboration of their victim status.  They want validation.  Which is why when you tell complainers – like the guy in your office – that things aren’t so bad, they get angry.  You’re messing with their idea of who they are.

There are a few schools of thought on how to deal with a chronic complainer.  The first is to shine him on: that is, nod, grunt your agreement, and maybe throw out short phrases like, “I’d be upset, too,” without letting yourself get drawn into a larger discussion of whatever’s upsetting him at that particular moment.  Another is to shut him down quickly: “I don’t agree.”  A third method I’ve tried – with mixed success – is a sort of clinical validation without agreement; that is, “I can see how that would upset you.”  The problem with that one is that it often just prolongs the conversation, and you might end up feeling like a bad TV shrink…or a former president: “I feel your pain.”

None of these ways make much sense for you, though, Tired, because you’re in a pickle: you’re trapped with a coworker who’s complaining about your boss.  This is why I wrote up front that he’s potentially dangerous: if you so much as mumble agreement to shut him up, there’s every chance that he’ll use you as a backstop when he voices complaints to others, as in, “The boss is an idiot on this, and my office mate agrees with me!”

You wondered in your letter why some people, like the guy across the desk from you, are never satisfied.  It’s because they don’t want to be.  And I think that’s the key to your answer, Tired: respect his wishes.  That is, don’t give him any satisfaction when he complains.  Don’t agree, don’t disagree, don’t respond directly to his complaints.  Eventually, he’ll look for a sympathetic ear somewhere down the hallway.

Appreciatively yours,

Philip