Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Psychology of Christmas Magic

Transcript

The Psychology of Christmas Magic · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Just over two weeks to Christmas. Hello, welcome to the
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  Speaker 1: Happy Families Podcast. I'm really excited today's episode. It's a
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  Speaker 1: little bit different today. We're getting excited about psychology.
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  Speaker 2: Kylie.
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  Speaker 1: I can feel your thrill emanating around the podcast studio,
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  Speaker 1: just hearing the words. You know, it's almost Christmas, right, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: this is what I love to do across Christmas. I
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  Speaker 1: love to pick up psychology textbooks literally textbooks, and I
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  Speaker 1: can read so much of them across this nice quiet time.
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  Speaker 3: Can you keep it to yourself?
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  Speaker 1: I will after this very brief episode of The Happy
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  Speaker 1: Family's podcast where I share with you the psychology of
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  Speaker 1: Christmas magic. Why is it that we and our children
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  Speaker 1: get so excited about Christmas? What are the things psychologically
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  Speaker 1: speaking that are sources of Christmas joy?
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  Speaker 3: Why does everything have to be scientific?
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  Speaker 1: Because when you understand this stuff, you can actually literally
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  Speaker 1: engineer Christmas to be more joyful.
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  Speaker 2: That's the whole thing. Like if okay, right.
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  Speaker 3: All right, I have a question, very merry, let's do it.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, that's coming up next?
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  Speaker 1: Good I Welcome to The Happy Families Podcast. Real parenting solutions,
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  Speaker 1: every single day on Australia's most downloaded Parenting podcast. We
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: are Justin and Kylie cour and we parents have six kids.
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  Speaker 1: We're so glad you're joining us as we enter the
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  Speaker 1: Christmas season. How I'm feeling very jingly and jangly and
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  Speaker 1: slay and Christmas y.
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  Speaker 2: And I've been dipping into the research Kylie.
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  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about the seven psychological sources of Christmas Magic.
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  Speaker 1: That's what I have tentatively titled today's topic, which means
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  Speaker 1: that we're going to go through a list of seven
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  Speaker 1: things that make Christmas magical from a psychological standpoint.
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  Speaker 3: Seven things I.
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  Speaker 1: Could have kept on going, but I know that you're
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  Speaker 1: only able to tolerate so much. And my goal is
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  Speaker 1: to get through each of them in under a minute.
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  Speaker 1: Unless you decide that you want to tell stories about them.
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  Speaker 3: You're so funny, you're going to blame me when we
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  Speaker 3: go over time.
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  Speaker 1: Let's do the first one, because I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: get in trouble. It's Christmas. We want to get this
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  Speaker 1: done right. We want people to just know what to do.
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  Speaker 1: The central reason I think that Christmas is full of joy,
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  Speaker 1: full of happiness, full of Christmas magic is relationships. Relationships
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  Speaker 1: are number one. Christmas concentrates our most important relationships.
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  Speaker 2: Whether you're in a.
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  Speaker 1: Midnight gathering with friends, or whether you're reading books and
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  Speaker 1: playing games or swinging in the pool with the kids,
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  Speaker 1: or whether you're flying overseas to catch up with family,
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  Speaker 1: hosting big Christmas parties.
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  Speaker 3: The Magic Oh's writing Christmas cards to your friends.
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  Speaker 1: Intentional togetherness. Christmas is about intentional togetherness. One of the
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  Speaker 1: few times I think of the year that we genuinely
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  Speaker 1: prioritize connection over productivity, which helps us to feel like
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  Speaker 1: we belong. So that is the number one reason from
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  Speaker 1: my point of view around this, Agree, disagree.
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  Speaker 2: Agreed, Okay.
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  Speaker 3: Number two.
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  Speaker 1: The second one is I'm going to use some big words,
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  Speaker 1: but then I'll make sure it makes sense. Anticipated joy
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  Speaker 1: in temporal landmarks.
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  Speaker 3: See that's why I set Christmas up on the first
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  Speaker 3: of November. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Anticipated joy.
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  Speaker 3: It brings joy like it fills me with joy, and
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  Speaker 3: it fills our home with joy. We just had friends
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  Speaker 3: show up the other day and they literally walked in.
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  Speaker 3: The daughter walked in before the mom yep, and she said, oh, mom,
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  Speaker 3: you're going to want to see this, And they both
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  Speaker 3: walked in and just went whoa. It's just amazing.
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  Speaker 1: It feels so good, and you're talking about the fact
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  Speaker 1: that the tree was upright.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, that's all it was. It was just the tree.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so anticipated joy.
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  Speaker 1: It's more than that though, Like you've got this genuine
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  Speaker 1: temporal or timestamped marker. It's this clear boundary in time
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  Speaker 1: that says we can step out of ordinary life. Even
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  Speaker 1: if it's just stepping into the living room and staring
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  Speaker 1: at the tree. It changes your perception of priorities and
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  Speaker 1: time and focus. The anticipation creates dopamine, like, don't mean
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  Speaker 1: everyone's don't means the feel good chemical. No, don't mean
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  Speaker 1: is the anticipation of good times chemical. And so because
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  Speaker 1: we're wired to find pleasure and looking forward to experiences
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  Speaker 1: that are rewarding, sometimes even more rewarding than.
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  Speaker 2: The experience actually is.
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  Speaker 1: That's why advent calendars and one more sleep until conversations,
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  Speaker 1: that's all of.
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  Speaker 3: This Christmas eve boxes.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, seeing the presence under the tree, that's all psychological
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  Speaker 1: scaffolding for optimism and positive emotion. You've got this anticipation
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  Speaker 1: that joy is coming. So if you haven't put the
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  Speaker 1: tree up, it's time to do it.
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  Speaker 2: If you haven't.
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  Speaker 1: Started doing Christmasy things, start doing them because those traditions
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  Speaker 1: create the joy.
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  Speaker 3: What's number three?
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  Speaker 1: The third thing is again some big words, I'm so sorry,
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  Speaker 1: sensory anchoring and memory. That means is, you know, when
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  Speaker 1: you get a certain smell, that's a sensory anchor and
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  Speaker 1: it ties in with that memory of that thing. And
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  Speaker 1: so around Christmas time, I like, let's go Northern Hemisphere
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  Speaker 1: for a second. If you smell the pine needles, you're like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: that must be Christmas for us. It might be smelling cinnamon,
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  Speaker 1: ginger beer, or it might be smelling sunscreen.
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  Speaker 3: I don't even think it's about smelling. It might be tasting.
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  Speaker 3: You have that amazing chocolate moose trifle every year at
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  Speaker 3: Christmas time, and as soon as you take that first bite,
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  Speaker 3: you know it's Christmas.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Or.
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  Speaker 1: If you have it a couple of weeks before Christmas
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  Speaker 1: because you couldn't help yourself, and then you say, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I can't wait for Christmas Day when I get to
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  Speaker 1: do it again.
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  Speaker 2: And so there's this, there's this.
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  Speaker 1: Like you've got all of the different visual cues, like
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  Speaker 1: the Christmas tree and the presence and Christmas lights, like
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  Speaker 1: everyone goes out and looks at the Christmas lights. You've
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  Speaker 1: got all the tactile experiences, like the different things that
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  Speaker 1: you've like Christmas wrap being sorry, I just forgot things
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  Speaker 1: that you touched that a Christmasy or the Sanda hat.
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  Speaker 1: These are these powerful memory anchors and they get you
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  Speaker 1: to do this mental time travel we go. I remember
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  Speaker 1: when I was a kid, or I remember last year
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  Speaker 1: when the kids got excited about this.
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  Speaker 3: So we don't have it up here, but when we
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  Speaker 3: lived in New South Wales, we had a Christmas bush.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and I love the flowers of a Christmas
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  Speaker 3: bush and whenever they would start to flower, I would
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  Speaker 3: know Christmas as almost.
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  Speaker 2: It comes Christmas so excited.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, that's exactly what I mean by sense reanchoring.
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  Speaker 1: It was like when I see lavender and not lavender,
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  Speaker 1: what do you call it?
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  Speaker 2: Jack Aranda?
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  Speaker 1: See the jacaranda in November, I'm like, oh, it must
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  Speaker 1: be UNI exam time.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, I heard a really cool story about
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  Speaker 3: jack randas. Do you know why Sydney has so many
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  Speaker 3: jack Arrandas.
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  Speaker 2: Because somebody planted a whole lot of jacaranda.
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  Speaker 3: There was a midwife who gifted every new mum a
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  Speaker 3: Jackaranda sapling. Like and so they would go home and
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  Speaker 3: plant their saplings. That's pretty yeah, back in the eighteen hundreds.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sticking to time at all here, So I
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  Speaker 1: want to move this along. The third thing, I just
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  Speaker 1: love this term. There's a guy called a mil dirkhim
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  Speaker 1: sociologist from like one hundred hundred and fifty years ago.
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  Speaker 1: A mil Dirk iime coined this term collective effervescence. And
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  Speaker 1: what it really means is this sweps lemonade sweps.
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  Speaker 3: That is that not that word.
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  Speaker 1: It's the energy of the togetherness when everybody is in sync.
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  Speaker 1: And Christmas is one of the very few times, at
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  Speaker 1: least in our society where massive portions not everybody, of course,
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  Speaker 1: but where massive portions of society all synchronize similar music,
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  Speaker 1: similar decorations. Everyone's taking time off work. There's just this
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  Speaker 1: shared rhythm of life, even with strangers, and it creates
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  Speaker 1: belonging at a societ idle scale. Everybody's well, supposedly relaxed
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  Speaker 1: on the roads and in the shop, so what have you.
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  Speaker 1: Everybody's feeling good because it's some time out. So that's
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  Speaker 1: collective effervescence from Durkheim, and I think that's another part
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  Speaker 1: of the psychology of Christmas Magic. All right, we've got
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  Speaker 1: four to go. After the break, we're going to whizz
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  Speaker 1: through those. I promise we'll do them quickly. But again,
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  Speaker 1: if we can practice these things, it makes Christmas more
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  Speaker 1: magical for us.
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  Speaker 2: Hence the podcast today.
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  Speaker 1: Stay with us, we're back. It's the Happy Families Podcast.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking about the psychology of Christmas magic.
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  Speaker 3: You said there was four more? Do we only do three? Well?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you started talking me.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't believe you're blaming me. What's the number four?
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  Speaker 2: So permission for wonder, Permission for wonder.
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  Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is like, as adults,
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  Speaker 1: we're always so serious, we're always so efficient, we're always
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  Speaker 1: focused on the here and now, the concrete. The real
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  Speaker 1: Christmas gives an opportunity for abstraction and magical thinking and
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  Speaker 1: play and childlike wonder, which are things that we normally
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  Speaker 1: suppress as adults. They're things that we're not really that
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  Speaker 1: focused on. We get to believe in magic, we get
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  Speaker 1: to talk to the kids about magic. We get to
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  Speaker 1: create elaborative narrative elaborative elaborate narratives that I've argued for
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  Speaker 1: years that we shouldn't around Santa. And now I don't
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  Speaker 1: know why, but I've softened as I've gotten older, and i'm.
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  Speaker 3: It's because your granddad.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe maybe.
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  Speaker 3: The other day, we had our two year old granddaughter
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  Speaker 3: come over and I had put together a small box
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  Speaker 3: for her, and when I thought about when I would
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  Speaker 3: give it to her, I realized if I waited till
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  Speaker 3: Christmas Day, then all the Christmas outfits and Christmas books
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  Speaker 3: were kind of You're so bad, it's going to be
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  Speaker 3: a one day.
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  Speaker 1: I guess this an awesome Christmas present that you've given
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  Speaker 1: to her at the start of December.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't help myself, but was so gorgeous. So
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  Speaker 3: gorgeous is this little two year old She saw this
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  Speaker 3: basket coming towards to her, and her whole face lit
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  Speaker 3: up and she was like, oh me, And then she
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  Speaker 3: asked if she could open it, and we opened it up,
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  Speaker 3: and what I expected was just for her to just
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  Speaker 3: pull everything out. She pulled a book out, and she
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  Speaker 3: literally sat there and read this whole book to herself
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  Speaker 3: and then finished that and looked and send it my
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  Speaker 3: way and said, oh done, And she pulled out the
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  Speaker 3: next book and she was halfway through and I said,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: would you like Wally to read it to you? And
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: she said, no, Indy do it herself. And she read
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  Speaker 3: that book. There was five books. She read each book
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  Speaker 3: one by one.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it took us about forty minutes to open the box.
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  Speaker 1: So that leads into the next one that I want
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  Speaker 1: to read. And I've gone out of order and I
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: think we've lost count. So I'm just going to save
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the next one. And that is savoring and gratitude. Savoring
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and gratitude. There's a guy called Fred Bryant. He did
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  Speaker 1: this really cool research back in about the nineteen nineties
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  Speaker 1: and he found that when we save something, that is
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  Speaker 1: when we amplify and magnify the positive experience of an experience.
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  Speaker 1: When we extend that moment, we find more joy. Savoring
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  Speaker 1: is one of the best ways to be happy. And
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  Speaker 1: as I sat there watching that happen, I just saved it.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't say a word. I sat there for forty
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  Speaker 1: minutes and literally didn't talk. I just sat in the couch,
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  Speaker 1: did the grandpa thing and watch this little granddaughter sit
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  Speaker 1: on your lap and read books and pull things out
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  Speaker 1: of the box one at a time and spend five
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  Speaker 1: or six or seven minutes with each gift before she
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  Speaker 1: went to the next.
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  Speaker 2: One, and I just thought, oh, my goodness, this is.
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  Speaker 3: And she wasn't being coached, That's what I loved about it.
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  Speaker 3: This was just she was just in autonomously her.
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  Speaker 1: But this is this is the magic of Christmas. This
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  Speaker 1: is where time slows down. This is where we sit
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  Speaker 1: in gratitude, This is where we savor would I would
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: define it as follows. Christmas is culturally sanctioned slowness, and
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  Speaker 1: we all talk about how life is too fast. But
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  Speaker 1: my goodness, if we can just anticipate and then be
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: present and then reminisce rather than rush through, we get
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  Speaker 1: to savor it and it feels so good. Savoring is
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  Speaker 1: the practice of grateful attention. And I can't wait for
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  Speaker 1: Christmas Day now so that we can savor that day
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  Speaker 1: as well.
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  Speaker 3: A couple of weeks ago, we talked about this idea
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  Speaker 3: of giving ourselves permission to let go of the things
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  Speaker 3: that don't bring us joy and just focus on the
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  Speaker 3: things that do. And too often we kind of fill
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  Speaker 3: our Christmas season up with so much that it's hard
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  Speaker 3: for us to slow down and actually savor the moments
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  Speaker 3: we feel really ragged, time, poor, money, poor, the whole bit.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that just remembering that this is actually
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: a time for us to slow down and to actually
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  Speaker 3: really savor those things that matter makes such a huge
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  Speaker 3: difference to the way we celebrate.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So I don't know how many we've done, and I've
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: crossed one off the list anyway, because I've decided that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: our time is up and we just need to go
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and get ready to save a Christmas and be efficient
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and effective so that we can slow down and literally
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  Speaker 1: enjoy that culturally sanctioned slowness of Christmas. I believe that
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: with these ideas you can have an empirically valid, scientifically backed, joyful.
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  Speaker 2: Magical Christmas. And how good does that sound? Aren't you excited?
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  Speaker 3: I just go you you.
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  Speaker 1: But the thing is, we do it automatically, like this
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  Speaker 1: is the science that underpins why Christmas feels so good.
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  Speaker 1: And if your Christmas sucks, like literally, and I'm not
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: trying to be rude, I'm not trying to be disrespectful
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: or any of those things. If your Christmas is not
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: looking good or feeling good, these ideas will change it right.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Focus on relationships, focus on savoring and gratitude, focus on wonder,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: focus on collective effervescence, and focus on the anticipated joy.
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  Speaker 1: Finding ways that you can create sensory anchors and bring
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: those into your home, whether it's trees or gifts, or
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: smells or drinks. Like we only have ginger beer on
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Christmas Day, right, the kids only have ginger beer on
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Christmas Day in their stockings. That's the Christmas thing, right,
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  Speaker 1: That's that sensory anchor. And so if your Christmas isn't
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: looking great, but you can pull some of these things in.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: This is where science shows us that we can make
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: our lives better.
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  Speaker 2: And that's really why I wanted to share it.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Whether you're going to have a great Christmas or you're
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: kind of dreading it, this can make it better either way.
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  Speaker 3: For some families that the idea of connection and spending
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: time with our loved ones can be really challenging. I
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: just think it's really important that we just focus on
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  Speaker 3: the relationships that are going to bring us joy. Whether
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: they're blood related or not is irrelevant. It's an opportunity
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: for us to celebrate building and sustaining loving, strong relationships
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: in our lives.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just so impressed with my Christmas is culturally sanctioned slowness.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: The Heavy Families podcast is produced by Justin rull On
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: from Bridge Media.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Imhamitance provides additional research and admin and other support and
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: for more and fo about making your family happier, especially
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: out of the Christmas break. Grab one of the Happy
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Family's books. You'll get them at happy families dot com
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: dot au