When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.

Ursula K Le Guin

It’s Christmas time! Hey, hey! Season of happiness and light and all things jolly and joyful! Nobody can be unhappy when the Christmas bells are ringing!!

Except, you can be. It’s perfectly acceptable to feel low or blue, sad or depressed, black, dark or gloomy when the rest of the world is celebrating the midwinter festival of their choice. Perhaps the humour is year-long, and you won’t be able tolift it no matter how many egg nogs you nick. Perhaps it’s a seasonal thing, brought on by weather and light. Perhaps it’s your body’s response to eating too much for too long, drinking too heartily or avoiding your pillars of health. Whatever. We don’t have to be happy at Christmas.

If yours is a more permanent style depression, please seek help and practice what you need to to keep the dog at bay. If your lowness is light-induced, see my own advice on handling SAD or get advice from your GP or local support group.

If your issue is just that Christmas and Winter brings out a side in you that you wish wasn’t there… the wanties, the grabbies, the eaties or another response that we know is irrational but can’t seem to help, then perhaps that’s your dark side on show.

We all have a bright side and a dark side. The modern world places unreasonable expectations on us for happiness. We’re surrounded by adverts pushing ideal families (two parents, two kids, dog or cat) or promoting golden and glorious party situations. Nobody can live up to perfection. We shouldn’t even try. Christmas exposes the mean, the vulgar, the cheap, the nasty, the bitter, the rifts, the anger, the envy, the greed, the jealousy, the inadequacy, the failing to meet expectations, failing to achieve standards, failing to feel part of the family. Divorce lawyers report a 150% increase over average for divorces sought in January. Domestic abuse rates rise, too, over the Christmas break. Whether we set off for a perfect season or not, we take our inner dark side with us and it does, sometimes, take us over.

Christmas is a strange, imperfect season when the demands of the world can be so far off realistic as to leave us gasping how on Earth is anyone supposed to achieve that? Answer: we’re not. Christmas, good and bad, will happen and the best planning in the world cannot prevent anger, jealousy or darker emotions rising especially in other people.

But we can accept and work to integrate our own shadowy dark side. We can’t prevent a relative kicking off in pain of anger, but we can control ourselves enough to walk away. We can’t stop the stab of jealousy as a beloved sister shows us her new, expensive presents, but we can channel that emotion into a better cause, perhaps saving for a handbag or gadget ourselves, or by knowing that the gifts on display are not the gifts taht will last and that patience, hard work and perseverance are better than a Radley any day.

I’ve collected a few webpages that had advice on shadow work, on exploring what our shadow side is and how we are impacted by it. If you really have a problem with the dark side of your personality, please do seek professional advice and a trained therapist.

• How to Do Shadow Work, Psychology Today
• Reflection, Shadow Work and Pleasure During Winter by Natalia Kensington. A very practical guide to self-care in the winter season.
• The Beauty and Brilliance of Shadow Work, Psychology Today. I really appreciated the poem at the start of this article. Self-acceptance, admitting and embracing your shadow self is a necessity if you are to move on as a human.
• A Guide to Shadow Work on Healthline. Contains advice on getting started, when to seek professional health and a list of resources, including books to help you dive deeper.

How to Hygge the British Way is my gift to the world. I don’t get paid for writing it, I’m not in it for the kudos, financial rewards, to become an influencer, work with brands or otherwise make any money from the blog. That’s why there are no ads, and any products I mention and recommend have either been gifted to me or bought by me with my everyday wages or donations from supporters. Every book I review has been bought and read by me, unless stated otherwise.

I do get a couple of pennies each time someone buys from the Amazon links on my page, as an Amazon Affiliate, but otherwise if you’d like to support me, I like to give something back in return. That’s why I write books. It always feels good if you get a book back in return for some money. You can find a full list of my books at my Author’s Page on Amazon, but especially recommended for this time of year are:

Cosy Happy Hygge: Setting up a rhythm to life and rituals to enjoy it to make for a more balanced life that handles waves and storms better. Lent is a season of rituals and resets. The book has small and easy ways to make your life flow with grace and happiness, which lead to more hygge.

Happier: Probably my most personal book, it’s the story of how I used hygge and the little things in life to help boost my happiness. I still go back and reread to remind myself what I need to do to be a happy human. And it’s always the little things.

My Christmas books are always available: Have Yourself a Happy Hygge Christmas is a good place to start, on how to make the season cosier, happier. Celebrating a Contagious Christmas was written during covid year, but has useful advice on celebrating when times are hard anyway and Enjoying a Self-Care Christmas is a short e-book on keeping Christmas simpler, easier and better for you, your waistline and your budget. It even includes 25+ suggestions for self-care activities over Christmas, as simple as sipping tea, keeping a list journal or lighting a candle. Bigger is not always better for Christmas.

I’m currently working on two book projects: I have a hankering to rewrite 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way, so it’s not available at the moment, but even dearer to my heart and my next stated aim is to finish and publish my next book, Simple Plus Cosy = Hygge. It will be about homemaking and how the home we create shapes the hygge we have. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of spring/summer.

If you’d like to support me, but don’t want to buy a book, I have a Paypal.Me account as Hygge Jem. Every little helps, so even a few pence goes towards the books, goods and courses I use and recommend on the site. I’m grateful for every little bit that brings me closer to my dream of full-time writing, and I know I couldn’t still be writing if it weren’t for the support of many readers and friends out there. Thank you all for every little bit of support, emotional, physical and financial, you give me.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it or save it so others can enjoy reading, thinking about and living hygge as well.

The photo between post and promotions is by Laura Nyhuis on Unsplash. I’m using it from now until January as a real reminder of the power of light. I loved the simplicity of the shot, the focus on the one candle, the reminder that there are many lights out there if we open our hearts to them and the combination of candle and nature in creating a cosy Christmas.