Popular culture represents Christmas as a ‘feel good’ time, with heartfelt exchanges between family and friends. Peace and goodwill to all mankind. Yet in reality it can sometimes feel like something we have to ready ourselves for. Stress, anxiety, arguments; all the while trying to live up to and maintain the vision of what Christmas time is supposed to look like.

Something that can be in the mix of it all, in our interactions with our family and friends, is unforgiveness. Sometimes unforgiveness that has lingered for years. A running joke in my family is the grudge I’ve held over my brother since we were children. It was my sixth birthday and I’d received a gift of two ladybird chocolates. There is a picture of me holding them, pleased as punch with the delicately wrapped gold and red ladybird chocolates. Later that day my brother was found stuffing his face with them and as you can imagine I was devastated and extremely annoyed. I should probably have let it go by now, after all he was only a baby at the time. Years later the photo resurfaced and my cheeky, unrepentant brother placed the photo on the ceiling in my room above my bed. I can’t reach it and it has remained there to this day.

Now I do believe I have forgiven my brother for the ladybird incident, but so often, particularly with our family, there are unresolved issues of forgiveness that can go back years. As Christmas is a time we tend to have compulsory family time, these issues can come to the surface and mar our interactions. That uncle who made those comments years ago about how you’re never going to make anything of yourself. That sister who always made you feel left out. That parent who never made it to any of your football games or ballet shows.

Whenever we choose to hold onto that hurt we can become full of bitterness and continually partner with offence. I’ve heard it said that unforgiveness is like drinking poison, and expecting the other person to die. Whether you forgive the person or not, doesn’t tend to have much bearing on them, but it does have a lot of influence on you and your quality of life.

Recently someone hurt me and I felt I’d forgiven them but I didn’t seem to be able to move on from it. I still felt anger and a huge amount of hurt when I saw them. I tried to ignore it or else would get in snide comments of my own- I was feeling hurt and wanted to hurt back in retaliation. 

Reflecting on it I realised I was partnering with offence. Although I had chosen to forgive them, I was still holding onto the fact they had offended me. How dare they have treated me in this way! I was holding onto offence and I was finding that I was beginning to be easily offended in general. When I realised what was causing my bad attitude, I chose to let go off offence against my friend and in doing so truly did forgive them.

This didn’t have any impact on them but it did impact me. I immediately felt more at peace and had kinder thoughts towards the world in general. If I had continued to hold onto offence, little by little it would have led to the breakdown of our friendship as underlying every interaction could have been my sense of injustice. I could have taken on the role of victim, or a martyr, ‘look how great a person I am because I’m still nice to you even though you hurt me that one time….’

I’ve mentioned some minor things people do that hurt us but I know there are much bigger issues out there that are much harder to forgive and I don’t want to make light of that. But I do believe forgiveness isn’t letting the other person off the hook, it’s not saying how they treated you is ok or in any way acceptable. Forgiveness is about you choosing to let it go, about you not carrying it around like a burden anymore.

The first step to forgiveness? Acknowledging you’ve been hurt and so need to forgive. We can see the other person’s point of view but if they’ve hurt us then we need to forgive them. Have a think now. Is there anyone that has been coming to mind as you’ve been reading this? This Christmas period choose to forgive and let go off all bitterness and offence. You’ll feel so much lighter and be able to experience joy in greater measure. Relationships might just be rebuilt. I can promise you this, you’ll definitely have a much more enjoyable festive season.