In full confinement, the French are preparing to spend special end-of-year celebrations. How are families organizing to rethink Christmas this year? While some are planning a New Year's Eve in a select committee, others seem to have given up on the festivities. Testimonials.
Jean Castex, who wishes "Be able to allow further relief" confinement so that the French "Can spend the end of year celebrations with the family", concedes however that they cannot “Behave in the same way as usual”. So how do the French see Christmas this year?
"We will send parcels"
“Usually I don't ask myself the question, we celebrate Christmas with my parents. This year, it's very different, because my brothers and I are the adults representing our side for the first time ”, says Clara, 23, confined to Grenoble, and whose parents live in China. "My father's and mother's families are asking us to come and for the moment, we don't really know what to say to them", she admits. “My parents will both celebrate it together, we will surely make a Skype with them in the evening. Regarding gifts, the postal service is zero to China so we are thinking about online gift ideas, such as subscriptions. It is with a small twinge in the heart that the young woman prepares to spend Christmas away from her loved ones: "It has never given us any problems being an expat family scattered around France, but here I envy people who live close to their family".
"With this crisis, it is the link between people that is threatened", worries Ondine Khayat, psychopractor and author of Experience yourself (First). “We have to find new ways to maintain it. There are the video moments, for aperitifs… And I find that there is something that works well and that I advise my patients now, but for Christmas it can be great too, it's to to write letters ", she advises. Laure, 30, intends to redouble small attentions towards her grandmother, whom she will not be able to see this year, and to whom she is very close. “We are planning to send each other packages. I have already sent her one during confinement, a sort of "kit", filled with comforting things and accompanied by a little note, to show her that I am thinking of her ", she tells us. "Rather than emailing yourself, preparing something yourself lets people feel that you are thinking of them and that you have done something for them", says the psychopractor.
More attention and authenticity
For Ondine Khayat, it is also an opportunity toapproach Christmas in a different way and refocus on the values that this festival is supposed to convey. “As there won't be this commercial frenzy, it's time to come back to what we love about the people who are close to us and pay more attention to what they bring to us, to what we brings them ", she explains. "But also to be in greater authenticity with them and put aside quarrels."
It's important to ban the Covid topic from the evening
"This year, we have decided to keep it simple", says Isabelle, mother of three children. The whole family will not be able to be reunited, but the 65-year-old Marseillaise plans "Several New Years". “Our family is large, we are used to organizing several Christmas meals in order to visit everyone, she explains. We will celebrate this over several days, in small groups, but it is an important moment for us. It won't be perfect, we're improvising in terms of gifts this year, but we hope to be able to have a good time, far from the anxiety-provoking situation ”. To avoid further damaging thechristmas spirit, we must ban the subject of Covid at Christmas, according to Ondine Khayat. "It's important to avoid spending the evening talking about the situation, because it is what it is, we don't know what it will be, we will probably be marked by what we've been through , she asserts. I think it's good to put yourself in a different atmosphere, through sets, games, to find a little escape ".
"I miss my daily life more and worry me more than Christmas"
"Right now there is a real feeling of fatigue, weariness and overwhelming feeling among many people who no longer even want to celebrate Christmas", notes the psychopractor. This is the case of Coline, 34, who will not be spending Christmas with her family, " it's the first time ", she tells us. Above all to protect her family, but also to think about her and protect herself. "I have the feeling that I have given a lot: support for my family, my friends, trying to support the more fragile relatives … I also respected the health and legal rules to the letter., says the young woman. Well there I have had enough. I only want to think about myself, to take myself to an island in the sun, to forget for a while this hyper scary and violent world ”. It must be said that the mental health of the French, plunged for almost a year in the heart of this epidemic, has been severely tested. “This second confinement is much more violent for people. They have already done a marathon in March, April, May and we ask them to resort when they have not had time to recover ”, notes Ondine Khayat. For Coline, "You can only help others if you stand up". "To stay upright, I need a Christmas where I give myself the gift of time, solitude and serenity", she admits.
I need a Christmas where I give myself the gift of time, loneliness and serenity
Laura, 29, has also decided not to visit her family for Christmas. This Parisian, who usually goes to her parents' house in Maine-et-Loire every year "Does not want to take the risk of contaminating them". " I think I miss my daily life more and worry more than Christmas … », She confides. “My parents and my sister seem more disappointed than I do. I hope to be able to at least see one or two friends that evening, like for the New Year … but hey, day by day, we are also waiting for information on what will happen next ", declared the young woman, who, like many French people, remains in the dark.