Now that Christmas and the spending that comes with it is a couple of months behind us, I wonder how it really felt for you this year.<\/p>\n
When the decorations came down and the January bank statements arrived, did you feel peaceful\u2026 or slightly uncomfortable? Relieved\u2026 or a bit raw?<\/p>\n
A client shared a Christmas memory with me recently that she still feels in her stomach when she talks about it. She and her husband had recently separated, and she suddenly found herself a single parent with three young children and very little income. That year was never going to look the same financially. Presents weren\u2019t going to be quite as \u201cgenerous,\u201d and like so many parents in that situation, she carried a quiet weight of guilt before the season had even begun.<\/p>\n
She kept the traditions going. Letters to Father Christmas. Baking mince pies. The rituals that make a house feel steady. But when she read her daughter\u2019s list, her heart sank. Top of the page was Blu Blu the Dolphin – the must-have toy of the year. It was everywhere. And it came with a price tag that felt enormous.<\/p>\n
Over the following weeks, every time someone asked her daughter what she wanted for Christmas, the answer came back confidently: \u201cBlu Blu the Dolphin!\u201d<\/p>\n
She spoke to her ex. Communication wasn\u2019t easy, but she told him she would save and buy it. He agreed. She stretched every penny she had, pushing herself further than felt comfortable, determined to make Christmas \u201cright.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Christmas week arrived. The children went to their dad\u2019s for a couple of days before the big day. She arrived to collect them, tired but proud of the effort she\u2019d made.<\/p>\n
The door opened and her daughter ran into her arms, beaming:
\u201cDaddy got me Blu Blu the Dolphin!\u201d<\/p>\n
She describes that moment as something that dropped through her. It wasn\u2019t just frustration or anger. It was something deeper. A sense of failure. Comparison. A quiet hit to her self-worth.<\/p>\n
When we unpacked it together, it became clear that this wasn\u2019t really about a toy. It had quietly become a competition. An unspoken power struggle at a time when everything already felt fragile. After separation, guilt can run deep. There can be an urge to make up for what\u2019s changed, to compensate for loss, to prove something – sometimes to the other parent, sometimes to ourselves.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the part she always comes back to now.<\/p>\n
Her children are 17, 18 and 21. They don\u2019t remember the dolphin. Not once have they mentioned it.<\/p>\n
What they remember are the letters to Santa. The mince pies. Climbing into her bed to open stockings together.<\/p>\n
The things that cost very little in money, but everything in love and time.<\/p>\n
And this is often what we see when we look back in February. The spending we worried about, the pressure we put on ourselves and the meaning we attached to proving something through money.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rarely about the numbers.<\/p>\n
If this year stirred up guilt, comparison, grief or competition for you, you\u2019re not alone. And it doesn\u2019t mean you got it wrong. It simply means there were emotions sitting underneath the spending.<\/p>\n
If any of this feels familiar, and you\u2019d like to understand your own patterns a little more clearly, I\u2019m here. We can explore it gently, without judgement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that Christmas and the spending that comes with it is a couple of months behind us, I wonder how it really felt for you this year. When the decorations came down and the January bank statements arrived, did you feel peaceful\u2026 or slightly uncomfortable? Relieved\u2026 or a bit raw? A client shared a Christmas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14],"tags":[31,33,30,34,11,12,38,25,29,28,36,32,37,6,35,39],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-emotion-feeling","tag-budget","tag-budgeting","tag-christmas-budget","tag-divorce","tag-financial-adviser","tag-financial-planner","tag-help","tag-money","tag-money-advice","tag-money-coach","tag-money-help","tag-money-planning","tag-money-trauma","tag-relationship","tag-seperation","tag-trauma"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n