Coping With Toxic Family During the Holidays
By Lori Kaniewski, LCPC (IL), LPC (MO)
The holiday season is often portrayed as a time of connection, joy, and togetherness. Yet for many people, it brings more stress than comfort—especially when family relationships are strained or emotionally unsafe. If your holidays tend to feel heavy, guilt-ridden, or full of tension, you’re not alone.
Navigating a toxic family system during the holidays requires a combination of self-awareness, healthy boundaries, and self-compassion. It’s possible to find moments of peace and meaning, even when your environment feels emotionally difficult.
1. Acknowledge That It’s Okay if the Holidays Feel Hard
Family relationships can stir up old emotional wounds, especially during the holidays. Emotional wounds can include rejection, invalidation, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal, and injustice, which may or may not stem from experiences of abuse, loss, or neglect. You may feel guilty for wanting space, grief over unmet expectations, pressure to maintain appearances, or fear of emotional explosion. These reactions are not signs of weakness; they’re signs of awareness.
Start by giving yourself permission to acknowledge your emotions without judgment. Self-validation (“It makes sense that I feel this way”) helps you regulate your nervous system and respond with intention, not just reaction. Be kind to yourself and treat yourself like you would treat someone you care about.
2. Set and Maintain Boundaries
Boundaries are a clinical and emotional tool for preserving mental health. They define where your responsibility ends and another’s begins. Boundaries can involve limiting how long you stay, which topics you engage in, or whether you attend gatherings at all.
You might say:
• “I’m not comfortable discussing that.”
• “Let’s change the subject.”
• “I’ll join for dinner but plan to head home afterward.”
• “I need a break.” Or “I need a few minutes.”
• “I’m not willing to argue with you.”
Expect that boundary-setting might bring discomfort, especially if your family isn’t used to it or you are new in setting boundaries for yourself. Others’ reaction doesn’t mean your boundary is wrong. It means you’re changing a pattern that once benefited them more than you.
Reminder: boundaries are all about what we are going to do about any given situation. Boundaries are not attempts to control or dictate other people’s behaviors (that we have no control over). So, if someone pushes on or violates a boundary you have communicated, what are you going to do about it for yourself?
3. Manage Expectations and Assumptions with Awareness
One of the most effective ways to lower stress is to accept that some people are not willing to change or have the capacity and tools to be able to. For example, someone who refuses to take accountability or accept feedback, has never been to therapy, and/or hold negative biases around receiving support and needing help. Going into family events with realistic expectations helps protect you from disappointment. Can you make a game out of it for yourself to relieve stress? For example: How many times will Grandma give a back-handed compliment this year? Over or under five times?
Another effective tool is practicing awareness of assumptions we are making. Assuming we know what another person’s intentions, motivations, thoughts, and feelings are often leads to conflict and contention. What would it be like to carry a generous assumption (assuming the best intentions) for the people we feel frustrated or hurt by? Would we be less “on edge,” stop looking for and waiting for the triggers, and less defensive before anything actually happens?
Before you arrive, identify potential triggers and create a plan: practice grounding techniques, have an exit strategy, and remind yourself that their behavior is about them, not you.
4. Create Emotional and Physical Space for Yourself
Your nervous system needs breaks from stress to regulate effectively. We may notice ourselves feeling defensive, angry, on edge, shut down, or overwhelmed. These are good signs that we need to take care of ourselves. Giving ourselves those breaks might look like:
• Driving separately so you can leave when needed
• Staying with a supportive friend instead of in the family home
• Scheduling quiet time before or after gatherings to decompress
• Taking breaks in the bathroom to do some deep breathing and feel the cold water from the faucet
• Go for a walk down the street
Even small moments of solitude (stepping outside for fresh air, taking deep breaths, focusing on a pet, listening to calming music) can help restore emotional balance.
5. Seek Support Outside the Family System
Human beings are wired for connection, but it doesn’t have to come from those who hurt us. Build support with people who validate and understand you: trusted friends, a partner, a therapist, or a chosen family. Is there someone who can be available for a quick text for support and encouragement during the holiday gathering? Be wary of “venting” sessions that masquerade as support conversations, as it can keep the hurt and frustration lingering (rumination). Be clear about what you need and what will actually be helpful for you in difficult times.
Many people find healing by creating new traditions that reflect their values and emotional needs, rather than repeating painful ones out of obligation. You deserve connection that feels safe.
6. Redefine What “Family” Means
Culturally, we often equate “family” with loyalty and unconditional love, but not all family systems operate that way. True family is built on mutual respect, trust, and care.
You’re allowed to redefine family to include people who bring safety and peace into your life. Sometimes, that redefinition is the first real step toward emotional freedom.
7. Prioritize Healing Over Pleasing
Many people raised in toxic or emotionally unpredictable families learned to please others to avoid conflict. This may look like minimizing ourselves, trying to be a mediator, swooping in to help, over apologizing, being overly agreeable, and/or avoiding conflict. But healing requires you to break that cycle. This might look like saying “no,” walking away from arguments, or declining invitations altogether.
It can feel uncomfortable, even guilt-inducing—but every time you choose peace over people-pleasing, you reinforce your worth, self-respect, and self-trust.
In Summary
Coping with a toxic family during the holidays isn’t about pretending things are fine—it’s about protecting your energy, setting limits, and caring for yourself with compassion and integrity.
You can’t control how others behave, but you can decide what kind of energy you bring into the room and what you no longer allow to stay. Whether you spend the holidays with family, chosen family, in solitude, or simply taking a break from old patterns, your wellbeing matters.
You are allowed to choose healing over obligation.
You are allowed to protect your peace.
And you are allowed to make the holidays your own.
If you’re struggling with family stress or emotional burnout this season, you don’t have to face it alone. All our therapists at Owens Counseling can help you find calm, clarity, and confidence, even in difficult relationships.
If you would like a fully, confidential space to prepare for a family party or seeing certain family members, process a difficult time during a family gathering, or just vent and let out your frustrations, PLEASE REACH OUT!
We can have you meet with one of our clinicians as soon as possible!