Using Lightheartedness & Humor to Navigate Holiday Stress (Downloadable exercise)
The holidays can bring out the best in people, but let’s be honest, they can also bring out the weirdest, most confusing, and most predictable patterns in our families. You can love your people deeply and know exactly which topics will get someone riled up, which relative will comment on your life choices, and which dynamics will make you want to crawl behind the Christmas tree and stay there until January.
This is where one of my favorite coping strategies comes in: humor as a grounding tool.
Not to minimize your experience, not at all. Humor is not bypassing, it’s a form of psychological spaciousness. When done intentionally, it nudges the nervous system out of hypervigilance and into a little more flexibility. It helps the brain reframe stressors, lower reactivity, and stay connected to your values.
Enter: Holiday Dysfunction Bingo.
What Is Holiday Dysfunction Bingo?
Holiday Dysfunction Bingo is a lighthearted exercise where you create a bingo card filled with the predictable, eye roll but still painful patterns you anticipate at family gatherings. Think of it as radical acceptance meets creative coping.
On your bingo card, you might include squares like:
“Someone asks when you’re having kids.”
“Passive-aggressive comment about your career.”
“Someone retells the same story from 1998.”
“Unsolicited advice about your mental health.”
“A relative storms off.”
“Politics. Just… politics.”
The idea isn’t to be mean, but rather to acknowledge reality with a sense of playfulness so you feel less ambushed and more resourced.
And here’s the best part:
Every time you get a bingo, you give yourself a self-care treat.
This could be a five minute breath break, a walk outside, a piece of chocolate, scrolling TikTok in the bathroom, or texting a friend who gets it.
The reward keeps the focus on you, your boundaries, and your emotional regulation.
Why Humor Helps So Much During Holiday Stress
Humor shifts us out of a reactive stance and into an observing one. It creates just enough space between “this is happening to me” and “okay, I see the pattern and I have choices in how I respond.”
From a therapeutic lens, humor can:
1. Support Radical Acceptance
Radical acceptance means acknowledging, “This is what my family is like and fighting the reality only increases my suffering.” This is different from being passive.
Humor softens that acknowledgment.
It lets us say: “Yep, Aunt Linda will comment on my hair. That’s basically a cosmic law.”
By naming the predictable, we reduce the shock and reduce the emotional charge.
2. Reduce Hypervigilance
If you already know what’s coming, you don’t have to spend the entire event scanning for emotional landmines. The bingo card lays the landmines out like a map.
3. Reclaim Agency
Instead of feeling braced for impact, you’re participating in a game that centers your wellbeing. Your attention stays on your body and your choices instead of the chaos around you.
4. Build Internal Cueing for Breaks
Once you hit a bingo, you’re prompted to take a break. This helps stop emotional buildup and gives your nervous system a reset.
How to Create Your Holiday Dysfunction Bingo Card
Step 1: Reflect on Previous Years
What always comes up? What feels predictable? What patterns are basically traditions at this point? Write down as many as you want.
Step 2: Choose 12–24 of Your Favorites
Keep it light, honest, and focused on your experience, not attacking others. You may even include some pleasant predictable patterns as well.
Step 3: Add a Self-Care Reward for Every Bingo
Choose rewards that actually help your nervous system, little moments of grounding, soothing, or joy.
Some options:
Step outside and regulate your breath
Eat a dessert you actually love
Text a friend for solidarity
Put in your earbuds for a music break
Spend a few minutes in intentional solitude
Drink water (nervous systems are thirsty!)
Use a mindfulness micro-skill
Step 4: Bring the Card With You
Use it as a quiet inner guide during gatherings. Your family never has to know.
Download Holiday Dysfunctional Bingo Here
How This Exercise Helps Shift Perspective
Humor doesn’t erase the hard parts.
But it does loosen the grip of dread and emotional intensity.
It helps you step into the role of a compassionate observer of your family’s patterns, rather than feeling like you’re drowning in them. It also helps clarify boundaries: “This is what I can control. This is what I can’t. And this is what I can do to care for myself in the middle of it.”
Humor plus radical acceptance is about finding a gentler way through experiences you can’t entirely change.
At Mind+Full Therapy, we support clients through the emotional weight that holidays, family dynamics, and long-standing patterns can bring up. If you’re noticing old roles, boundary pressure, guilt, or exhaustion resurfacing this season, you don’t have to navigate it alone.
Our trauma-informed, experiential approach helps you:
• understand your triggers and patterns
• build boundaries with confidence
• work through family-of-origin stress
• stay connected to yourself in chaotic environments
• create coping strategies that actually feel supportive
Whether you need short-term seasonal support or deeper long-term work, we’re here.