Finding Joy During the Holidays in Healthcare: Bringing Light to the Season

Let’s face it – the holiday season can be especially challenging for healthcare professionals. Whether you’re working shifts on Christmas Day, struggling to unplug from patient care during your time off, or trying to create meaningful celebrations around unpredictable schedules, the season brings unique challenges. But here’s the good news: you can still find ways of bringing light to the season, even during the busiest times.

Creating Meaningful Moments While Working the Holidays

Working a holiday shift doesn’t mean missing out on the season’s magic. Our podcast panel of healthcare coaches shared their personal strategies for making the most of working during festive times:

“I found when I was working the holidays I really enjoyed when the busyness of all the people weren’t there… It adds kind of a magical element for me and I always really found myself making more effort to connect with the patients and the people,” shares Amy Bubser, finding unexpected beauty in holiday shifts.

Consider these practical approaches:

• Create workplace traditions like potlucks or quick gift exchanges
• Focus on bringing extra care to patients who don’t want to be there either
• Set the intention to be your best self for those needing care
• Remember that your colleagues can feel like family too

As Klaus points out, “A lot of patients don’t want to be there that day. And many of them are very glad you are there. How can you celebrate with them at that same time?”

Being Fully Present During Your Time Off

When you do get time away from work, how do you actually unplug and be present? Our coaches recommend:

Set clear intentions. Grizelda suggests, “It’s trying to set it up. So if I knew things were going to be happening around, trying to set intentions of if I was going to be responsible for a certain meal or having people over… not putting it all on me and also just getting things ahead of time.”

Be flexible with timing. “I also find it helpful to not be stuck to that things have to go a certain day or a certain time,” Amy adds. Many healthcare professionals successfully move their celebrations to different days that work with their schedule.

Create boundaries with work. “Setting boundaries with work and saying, okay, I’m not going to let work follow me home today. Today, it’s going to be at the moment, phone away, technology away,” Klaus recommends.

Focusing on What’s Truly Meaningful

Holiday pressure can feel overwhelming with expectations around gifts, events, and traditions. Our coaches suggest focusing on experiences rather than things:

“Having experiential gifts is a wonderful way to focus for the holidays. It does keep me focused on our family on what’s most important, which is being together,” Amy reflects. “Whether it’s going to a show together or on a hike together and then having a potluck or making a nice meal visiting neighbors.”

Grizelda adds her approach to meaningful gifts: “Let me do some simple hand sanitizers, but it’s actually something that’s the DIY project. So yes, it saves money. It definitely takes a lot more time, but the feedback I get from the people I give it’s like ‘wow, this is so awesome’.”

Bringing Light to the Season During Your Shifts

The holiday season can be especially difficult for patients. Our coaches emphasize the importance of mindfully bringing light to the season for both colleagues and those in your care:

“People do talk about how that holiday time of the year is also very difficult time for a lot of people. And there is more depression and accidents and things that can happen,” Amy notes. “Being very mindful and listening, whether it’s your coworkers or the patients coming through and just really notice.”

Simple acts of kindness – a smile, a “Merry Christmas,” or just taking an extra moment to connect – can make all the difference to both colleagues and patients during the holidays.

Setting Intentions for the New Year

As the year comes to a close, it’s the perfect time to reflect and set intentions for the coming year:

“At the end of the year, make a list of what happened during the past year… reflect on the year and then see, wow, look at all this stuff that went on in my life. And then while contemplating about it, think about how I want to move forward,” Amy suggests.

Remember that taking care of yourself is taking care of others – what do YOU want in the coming year?

The Bottom Line

The holiday season in healthcare comes with unique challenges, but also special opportunities to connect with patients and colleagues in meaningful ways. Whether you’re working or celebrating, the key is setting clear intentions and bringing light to the season through small acts of kindness and presence.

As Grizelda reminds us, “We can practice all year long… just celebrating, just kind of being there, being part of the teams that we are in.” It’s about how we want to choose to show up and “bringing that light – it has to start with me. And that’s the only one that I can control, so it’s making sure how bright is my light and how am I reaching out to those that I want to brighten up as well.”

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Listen to the full episode to discover more strategies for finding joy during the holidays as a healthcare professional.