What Is Christougenniatikophobia, And What Do I Do About It?

While most of us are decking the halls with boughs of holly, pity the poor Christougenniatikophobiacs out there this season – and not just because it takes them so darn long to pronounce what’s wrong with them.

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Why? Because this condition describes a terrible fear of nothing less than… Christmas itself. And yes, that means that once a year, just as everybody around them reaches the apex of “excited and merry”, these guys are stressing out more than any other time.

It must be incredibly isolating… if it’s real. But is it? And if so, what can you do about it?

Come on. Is this actually a real thing?

Okay, so it has a fancy name – Christougenniatikophobia, if you’re wondering, splits up pretty literally into “Christ-birth-related-fear” in Greek – but surely, a genuine fear of Christmas is impossible. After all, it’s famously the season of food, fun, and festivities – what’s not to love?

Well, for a larger section of society than you might expect, the answer is “quite a lot”. “Although there is no ‘Christmas phobia’ as such, what people frequently do during the festive season – partying and shopping – can severely affect a surprisingly large proportion of the population,” Trilby Breckman, national director of UK-based charity Triumph Over Phobia (TOP), told Devon Live back in 2017. 

For example, “going to a party or Christmas family gathering can be excruciating for those with social phobia – a fear of interacting with other people – as well as for those with claustrophobia, a fear of enclosed spaces, and those with emetophobia, a fear of vomiting,” she explained. “Meanwhile, going shopping can be almost impossible for both those with agoraphobia – a fear of open spaces – while the crowded shops at Christmas time can reduce those with claustrophobia to a state of near panic.”

These aren’t rare phobias. The lifetime incidence of social anxiety disorder in the US is a little over 12 percent, or about one in eight people; roughly one in 14 of us experienced symptoms of it within the last year alone. An even larger proportion suffer from claustrophobia; only slightly fewer admit to experiencing emetophobia. 

And those are only the general fears that might get triggered. There’s a bunch of extra phobias that can manifest only during the holiday season – like Santaphobia, for example, which, now we think about it, kind of makes total sense. “After all, Santa Claus is a strange, unknown man dressed in red who breaks into [your] house via the chimney,” points out mattress company Dreams’ Sleep Matters Club. 

Meeting the guy face-to-face often involves loud, crowded malls or shopping centers; being surrounded by crying kids, and having to wait in line for long periods of time – an experience which ends with being taken from your parents and told to sit in the lap of a stranger. 

“Add in the fact he’s known for watching [your] behavior all year round, and it’s quite understandable why some kids are scared of old St Nicholas,” Dreams writes.

And for some of us – especially in recent years – it’s just difficult to have to make nice with our relatives for an extended period of time. “When we spend time with our families it is almost inevitable for us to fall back into our childhood patterns of sibling rivalries and family power struggles,” noted Nilufar Ahmed, a Lecturer in Social Sciences at the University of Bristol and chartered psychologist, back in 2021. “This regression is a common psychological defense mechanism.”

“Christmas is stressful,” she wrote. “Our brain thinks it is helping us out by taking our minds back to the patterns of thinking when we had to deal with them a lot, i.e. our childhood.”

Overall, then, there are a lot of things to fear about the festive season. But if we’re affected by these anxieties, what can we actually do about them?

Wrapping up the problem

When the rest of the world seems to be Christmas-crazy, it can feel overwhelming to be the only one you know who hates it. But “any phobia can be cured,” Graham Price, a chartered psychologist and stress management consultant, told Total Health in 2019 – and this one is no different.

If your phobia stems from some kind of childhood trauma, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) might be an answer, he said. It’s the tactic most commonly prescribed for anxieties, and it’s kind of like a personal training program for your brain – it might take the form of exposure therapy, or practicing small talk, or simply mindfulness around your thought processes.

Others recommend finding a community – whether in person or online. “Because part of social anxiety is trying to avoid others seeing your fears, it can be refreshing to interact with other people who understand those worries and can empathize,” Louisa Hatton, an administrator for UK-based forum for social anxiety sufferers SAUK, told BBC News in 2013.

“It also empowers people to take a lead in their own recovery by giving them access to information and the experiences of others,” she said. And she’s speaking from experience: once “essentially housebound,” she described herself now as “almost social anxiety-free.” 

In the moment, there are plenty of grounding techniques that can help you through a stressful situation – as can simply reminding yourself that this whole thing will soon be over. “It’s just a few days,” Ahmed pointed out. “The worrying about it can overshadow the fact that the amount of actual time you will spend in a stressful space is actually quite limited.”

The most wonderful time of the year

If the thought of Christmas makes you shiver, then know that you’re not alone – and neither are you doomed to feel this way forever. With a little mental work, mindfulness, and me-time, you’ll be as merry as the next guy in no time – or, at the very least, not about to have a panic attack at the thought of a mince pie.

And remember: if you’re feeling bad about it all, then you deserve to do something about it. “Repeatedly, we have people coming to us who have suffered long and needlessly as a result of their phobias and OCD,” Breckman said. 

“Many are reluctant to seek help because they are afraid of not being taken seriously.”