Q: How can I keep making progress on my dissertation with all the holiday obligations?

    —Rather-be-Writing

A: The holidays can be wonderful times for reconnecting with family and friends; taking breathers from the daily-weekly-yearly chase of accomplishment; kindling or rekindling feelings of love, warmth, and generosity even to those who’ve published much more than you; and indulging in delectable seasonal goodies. But dissertation candidates, bent on making progress during the break from other duties, often feel conflicted about how much time to “take off.”

Maybe you’re feeling the pressure of having to participate in holiday events. Maybe you’re worried about being grilled by well-intentioned family or friends about the progress of your dissertation. Maybe you’re very aware of the dangerous loss of momentum from your work. Maybe you just don’t like all that jolliness.

From clients who have suffered through such “maybes,” here I suggest three holiday strategies you can apply, depending on the severity of your “maybes” and your fortitude.

Jabs from Family and Friends

When you receive that in-person invitation for the holiday dinner/day/weekend and swallow hard instead of replying immediately, the other person instantly knows your real feelings. The comeback usually goes like this: “Oh, come on. It’s only an afternoon (or day or weekend). You can take a break to see your family (or twenty-five best friends) for that long.”

To such responses, I’ve found particularly supportive—and a great rationale for declining an invitation—a letter from Charles Dickens to a friend:

“It is only half an hour”—“it is only an afternoon”—“it is only an evening” people say to me over and over again—but they don’t know that it is impossible to command oneself sometimes to any stipulated and set disposal of five minutes—or that the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometimes worry a whole day. (Lettres, American Reader, n.d.)

As Dickens well knew, family and friends may not understand your need for solitude or have much sympathy with your explanation that you’re on the tantalizing cusp of a brilliant synthesis of the literature. They may not fathom your actual enthusiasm for your work. They may feel rejected and declare with impeccable logic: “But it’s only an afternoon . . . .”

Your urge to decline may also be fueled by last year’s embarrassing holiday questions from the most intrusive relatives (“How come you’re still single?”) or friends (“How soon will you get a job after your dissertation?”). And if you get together now, they’ll probe more. (See last month’s column, “Those Horrible Holiday Questions.”)

With family, it’s a fact of family systems that when we’re with generations of relatives, most of us revert to our earlier, family-defined roles and the stepping-in-wet-cement pattern of dynamics (Esposito, 2014; Travers, 2025). With friends, we often regress, similarly, to the “roles” we’ve accepted from the group. If you’re “the brain” or “erudite one,” your friends may pounce all the more quickly when they hear you haven’t finished your dissertation.

If we’ve been sincerely working on growing emotionally, we can gain some distance and not react in our old ways, even though Great-Uncle Harley or your friend Angelique the anti-scholar continue to try to suck you in. So, for your holiday tactics, I recommend three basic positions (and they can apply to any other holiday).

Take the Scrooge Position

Negotiate, bargain, promise, vow to do anything later for your family or friends as long as everyone leaves you alone for most of the day. Hole up in your study or other favorite cave and steadfastly ignore passing merrymakers and candy-cane lattes. Clients have told me that when they’ve taken this position, they prefer the complete solitude of their home, or possibly a European-style café frequented by intellectuals, who are probably like-minded and scrunched over their laptops.

Scrooge position advocates realize they risk “offending” the host relative or friend. If you’re a Scrooge, send a phone, email, or text message to “explain” why you just can’t make it (keeping Dickens’ observations in mind), but you know everyone will have a grand time. Encourage your family and other friends to go and promise to make it up to everyone (a dinner, a football game together, appearance at another holiday celebration—two years after your dissertation is completed).

Take the Semi-Scrooge Position

I learned this variation during my own dissertation days. Several fellow students at similar writing stages were comparing how we spent Christmas. When it was Hugh’s turn, he said, “I told my wife I’d go with her and our kids to the big dinner at the grandparents’ house on one condition: after the meal I go upstairs to their spare room and work on my dissertation.” We all stared at him.

He continued, “Sure, I wore a Christmas vest, but right after dinner I took my pie and briefcase and laptop upstairs and worked for the next four hours. When my family was ready to leave, they called me down, and, surprisingly, everyone was civil. A cousin even wished me well with my dissertation.”

Everyone in our group praised Hugh to the skies, and I still appreciate what he did. He set his standards and didn’t care what the rest of the relatives thought about his stipulation. And he was ready not to go, if necessary, and weather the inevitable disapproval.

You can use variations of Hugh’s semi-Scrooge position: arrive late or for dessert only, leave early, appear for the after-dinner games. Your compromise should (somewhat) appease your relatives or friends and, more importantly, will satisfy your need to continue working on your project.

But if you can’t quite muster Hugh’s courage, or actually look forward to the holiday gatherings or even the people . . . .

Take the Santa Position

Get up early the day of the event and inform your family that you must put in two hours on Chapter 2 before you all leave for the celebration. Your academic superego will be satisfied, and you will make real headway.

Once you tear yourself away, hide your work under a red blanket with white trim and go stuff yourself. Listen and nod often to your brother-in-law sounding off on the political commentator whom he loves-hates. Get into the backyard touch football game, with its own peculiar family rules. Cheer raucously with everyone at the playoffs. Or praise (extravagantly and sincerely) the hostess’ side dish recipes and ask for copies. Empathize with your best friend’s latest six disastrous blind dates. Offer to research the best grass carpet squares for your neighbor’s fading front lawn. Let the kids climb all over you for the day.

With surprise, you may discover a few perks. Over dessert, your cousin the full professor asks you a sharp question to refine your methodology. Your friend Angelique gives you a grudging compliment on your determination. Your little nieces and nephews adore you for being their “horsey.” And your brain and emotions, if not your digestive tract from all that sugar, will likely benefit from the respite.

Choose Your Position

Whatever position you take, decide on it beforehand and inform your most significant others (Lou, 2023). That way, your spouse, relatives, or friends won’t be shocked when you suddenly disappear after the hors d’oeuvres and before the traditional teary-eyed choruses around the piano. Or, conversely, when you roll on the rug with kids pummeling your head all afternoon.

The holidays are to be enjoyed—one way or another. You don’t have to be at the mercy of someone else’s idea of how to observe them. If you choose not to show up, or to show up for only part of the day, you may risk some disapproval, but so what? The relatives or friends will get over it, and they may secretly admire you for your stand and dedication.

Do what makes you feel good and serves your best interests. Choose the best strategies that honor you and protect and advance your dissertation. You may even enjoy the holidays—on your own terms.

References

Esposito, L. (2014, December 19). Holiday anxiety—The gift that keeps on giving. U.S.

News & World Report. https://wtop.com/news/2014/12/holiday-anxiety-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/

Lettres. (n.d.). 3 April (1855): Charles Dickens to Maria Winter. American Reader.

https://theamericanreader.com/3-april-1855-charles-dickens-to-maria-winter/

Lou, J. (2023). How to be there (or not) for holidays and occasions. In

1. Ratnasekera, M. Neff, K. Yoon-Flannery, & A. Beekley, A. (Eds.), General

surgery residency survival guide (pp. 97-99). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25617-2_24

Travers, C. (2025, November 27). Therapists explain why your family drives you crazier

at the holidays. Huff . https://www.huffpost.com/entry/family-holidays-more-stress_l_69278123e4b08a35c1aeb36a

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Dissertation coach, nurturer, bolsterer, handholder, and editor; scholarly and mainstream writing consultant; author of writing craft, spiritual, and academic articles; and spiritual and motivational counselor, Noelle Sterne has published many pieces in print and online venues, including Author Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children’s Book Insider, Graduate Schools Magazine, GradShare, InnerSelf, Inspire Me Today, Transformation Magazine, Unity Magazine, Women in Higher Education, Women on Writing, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. Noelle’s ninth story for Chicken Soup for the Soul appears in June 2025 in the volume Self-Care Isn’t Selfish. With a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Noelle has for 30 years helped doctoral candidates wrestle their dissertations to completion (finally). Based on her practice, her Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015) addresses students’ often overlooked or ignored but crucial nonacademic difficulties that can seriously prolong their agony. See the PowerPoint teaser here. In Noelle`s Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), she draws examples from her academic consulting and other aspects of life to help readers release regrets and reach lifelong yearnings. Following one of her own, she is currently working on her third novel. Visit Noelle at www.trustyourlifenow.com