Merry Christmas!! Or, at least, that’s the way it is supposed to be. But does it always work out that way? Read on and we’ll tell you why it might — or it might not!

Christmas is a time for coming together as a family and celebrating. Right? While lots of people probably have very merry Christmases, many will also find the holiday season stressful and difficult. Having a merry Christmas as a couple doesn’t happen automatically— you have to be aware of a few things and work together at it.
Do Most People Have a Happy Christmas?
Turns out that 75% of people are generally satisfied with their Christmas experience[i]. I don’t know if it’s the skeptic in me but I wonder if that is overstated. Perhaps the data was collected by a guy in a green suit.

Less than 10% of people report significant levels of anger and sadness. That’s good to hear. And about half of people report some level of stress during Christmas.

Not too bad. But there’s some pretty interesting facts to learn as we go through this that are good to think about as we come up to this holiday.

A study in 2002[ii] interviewed 117 individuals to determine the specific factors that contributed to making Christmas holidays stressful or enjoyable. Here’s what they found:



Emphasizing family and spending time together was linked to greater happiness
Emphasizing religious beliefs was linked to greater happiness
Lower happiness and greater stress was reported when spending money and receiving gifts were the most important aspect of the holiday.
Giving gifts and consuming in a way that was environmentally friendly was linked to higher happiness
Men generally reported being happier and less stressed at Christmas than women- possibly because much of the responsibility for the shopping/cooking Christmas dinner etc falls to the woman.

This quote sums up their findings nicely: "In sum, the materialistic aspects of modern Christmas celebrations may undermine well-being, while family and spiritual activities may help people to feel more satisfied[iii]"
Christmas Gifts
Obviously this is starting to highlight what we already know: that gifts and materialistic expressions should not be the main focus of Christmas.

But what is really interesting is if you try to limit the amount of money you spend and you limit your gift giving, this is also linked to lower happiness over Christmas[iv]. In fact, another study in 2008[v] found that spending a higher proportion of your income on others than yourself predicted higher levels of happiness.

This, of course, gives evidence to the truth claim of Scripture that it is more blessed to give than receive (Acts 20:35).

So it shouldn’t be the main focus of the season, but gift giving can be a great way to show love and have fun together. Gift giving should be[vi]:



An expression of love
Valuable- not necessarily in terms of cost but in the thought and effort that went into the gift
Altruistic and not focussed on obligation or creating a feeling on indebtedness in the receiver
Ideally contain some symbolic meaning, such as giving someone a gift to indicate that they are part of the family or giving a gift that will have special meaning to the receiver
Tailored to who the receiver is, not based on your own preferences. So no giving your wife a gift that you secretly want for yourself!

How does the present buying process break down in a typical marriage? Women normally spend more time on gift shopping than men and often take overall responsibility for the first buying process, seeing it as "work". Men often take less of an active role in this and feel the need to buy presents for fewer people or see it as "woman's work"[vii].

So husbands, you could definitely make the holiday season less stressful for your wives by being more willing to be involved in the gift buying, by starting buying gifts earlier (rather than leaving it till Christmas eve!