Christmas is a traditional celebration anticipated by many people around the world. Let’s analyze together some symbols and factors of this festive season that form the Psychology of Christmas.
Santa Claus and why he is so important?
Santa, a magical gift bringer, is a symbol that connects generations. He contributes to the forming of a tradition for each separate family and for an entire community. As a psychological phenomenon, he may be seen as our materialized conscience and self-assessment. Each year he makes you wonder if you’ve been a good girl or a good boy, and you analyze your behavior and your achievements. Moreover, Santa helps us reveal and name our deep desires, he makes us dream and visualize our goals. And certainly, Santa embodies our virtues – hope, love, kindness, justice, wisdom, gratitude and many more.
Why we search for love on Christmas?
A human being wants to feel love and this need gets stronger during Christmas and winter holidays. This happens because Christmas is the season of joy. People feel a bit happier and relaxed, and have the perfect mood to be romantic and loving. Additionally, people want to satisfy the need for “belonging” which is achieved through love and intimacy. And as romance can be spotted almost everywhere during Christmas, – in movies, songs, happy couples around etc., more and more people want to experience it. And eventually, when people are happy, they naturally want to share this happiness with others.
The Magic of Christmas.
Christmas time embodies many aspects of positive psychology. Some people experience so much positivity, that they may consider this season truly magical. The explanation to this is very simple. During Christmas everyone focuses on the good. We experience all sorts of positive emotions like joy, love, gratitude, savoring, amusement, inspiration. The entire seasonal atmosphere, experienced for a long period by many people at once, acts as an external trigger for a person to start focusing on the good. And when we consciously focus on the good, we start noticing more good things around us.
Furthermore, the magical power of believing that makes our dreams come true is nothing else but our own shifted attention! We not only focus on the good, but we intentionally start looking for the things that we wished for. And overall, in that way we reinforce our positive state and build the so-called psychological resilience to negativeness and to the difficult situations.
In general, Christmas time contains many symbols and components of positive psychology, and thus the Psychology of Christmas is a very interesting phenomenon for further studying and may become very inspiring for many people.
