Holidays and Humor

Very few people make it through the holidays without stress and at least a little bit of chaos. Maintaining your sense of humor, laughing, and having fun can go a long way in minimizing the impact of that. Given lawyers tend to be strategic thinkers, Andrew Tarvin’s approach to using humor to manage stress can be an effective tool during the holidays. His model is the four R’s; Reject, Reframe, Relieve, and Refresh.

1. Reject

Rejecting stressors isn’t necessarily humorous, but it lays the foundation for the fun to come. Make a list of the top ten things that are most stressful for you during the holidays. Objectively look over your list to see how many stressors you can eliminate. Keep in mind it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing or extreme. For example, your job may be incredibly stressful during the holidays, but you don’t necessarily have to up and quit. Focus instead on what elements of your job are stressful and go from there. Tarvin suggests creating a “To Don’t” list for the things you will stop doing as part of your rejections.

2. Reframe

If you can’t reject it, reframe it. Put a positive spin on a negative situation that causes you stress, or at the very least gain some perspective on it. The turkey may not have been the best, but the dog sure loved it…and he has been a very good boy this year! The only parking place you could find at the store was further away than your house, but you finally made those 10,000 steps in one day! “Humor binds together feelings of despair and joy and contributes to a faithful reframing of faith and life in general.”

3. Relieve

After giving your best efforts in rejecting and reframing, the next step is to relieve
stress. Some things just suck, and we just have to suck it up and deal with it. But we also need to be very intentional about relieving the stress that it causes. One suggestion is to make a list (and check it twice) of things or people that add humor/fun to your life. If you find this list is more difficult than the list of stressors, it is definitely time to be intentional about cultivating some humor. Luckily there is never a shortage of funny things on Instagram, YouTube, or the multitudes of other media sites. And remember, this year’s festive calamity is good fodder for holiday stress relief next year.

4. Refresh

Humor is an excellent way to charge your batteries, decompress, and get grounded. It can be accomplished daily and doesn’t even have to take a lot of time. You can watch a quick video, look at memes, or even pause to remember a funny story or event. Have your thought for the day be a funny one—a joke for the day, perhaps. How does Santa know whether we’ve been bad or good? It’s called Facebook. Why do reindeer stop for coffee on their Christmas run? Because they’re Santa’s star bucks.

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