Unspiking the Holiday Punch: An Illustrated eBook

Yay, vacation-time with family!…(gulp)

Most of us have a clear picture in our minds of what holidays “should” be: joyous celebrations where happy families gather, connect lovingly, and part ways with glad, contented sighs. Any hint of weariness can be chalked up to all the laughter, fun, and heart-to-hearts we all had with the people we love.

Ring true for you?

This book is for you if…

• The anticipation of holidays fills you with dread about the interactions you’ll be having.
• You feel worse about yourself and/or your family members after gatherings than you did beforehand.
• You love your family, but feel like they don’t “get” you. You leave gatherings feeling misunderstood and vaguely unsupported.
• You feel overtly judged or criticized at holiday gatherings. You might experience anger about this, but are also secretly afraid that these criticisms hold weight.
• The dynamics at holiday gatherings trigger unwanted feelings (anger, depression, the drive to make everyone happy) that make it hard to accept yourself and/or hard to freely show how much you love your family members. You’ve tried to rise above your feelings and the urges that accompany them but find yourself right back in them, again and again.
• You daydream about feeling safe, loved, and supported through and through, and about helping others feel that way too. You want to try to move in that direction.

What it’s about

Unspiking the Holiday Punch is a set of seven self-kindness practices to help you navigate family interactions and dynamics with more strength, more courage, and more peace than you’re used to. It’s a guide to help you thrive during what can be very difficult (as well as meaningful) times.

Each of the practices is accompanied by one of my signature sketches to illuminate the idea and aid in remembering the tool once you find yourself in the midst of holiday stress. These, along with the rest of the book’s illustrations, are intended to highlight the sometimes humorous (from a distance!) experiences we all have as we spend time with family, and to induce a sense of trust and “okay-ness” in you as you enter each holiday season.

These are tools I collected and refined over a decade of identity changes that made many of my holiday gatherings awkward, uncomfortable, and full of self-doubt (to say nothing of how these changes impacted the rest of my family; it was no cakewalk for anyone involved!). I offer you these tools with the hope that they’ll bring comfort to the parts of you that experience fear or dread around (and even just in anticipation of time spent with) family, and shift your experience in the direction of TRUST.

Cost

Alone, the cost is $10.

When you purchase a subscription to Santa Pause, you receive a copy of Unspiking the Holiday Punch FREE.

Buying with the button below is the $10 purchase.

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