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Yes, “Christmastime is Here.” Given a moment's reflection, you could probably predict a variety of patterns that are likely to take place this holiday season. Cousin Ed will bring yet another weird girlfriend who constantly smacks her gum. Aunt Velma's certainly going to make that jello concoction that no one ever eats, yet no one ever criticizes. Uncle Frank's definitely going to slurp too much eggnog and make a fool of himself, and of course, someone's going to have their feelings hurt long before dinnertime.

Christmas is nothing if not predictable. We know to avoid the mall on the day after Thanksgiving. We know that our kids will change their minds about what they want from Santa just as you pull in from Toys R Us. But don’t forget the patterns that no one talks about yet occur just as regularly. Your best friend will last exactly four day with her new “take it easy this year” approach on her kids’ presents before she breaks. And out of all of your family members, you know darn well who will be the first to get bent out of shape if things aren’t handled “just as they always have been”.

All of this and more is predictable because of one simple, universal rule: When the going gets tough, people get reactive. Whenever life is at its craziest, whenever the collective anxiety gets the highest, that’s when we regress back to our reflexes. And whenever we rely on those knee-jerk reactions they produce, people usually get kicked.

All of this predictable craziness is enough to drive us just that, crazy. It may even lead us to make grand promises about how we’ll do things differently next year, or even question the holidays altogether. But what usually happens? You guessed it, we fall into the same patterns year after year and we end up disappointed. Far too often, we expend too much of everything (money, energy, time, expectations), and then find January filled with regret and exhaustion. It happens every year.

But it doesn’t have to. Not if we continue what we’ve started here, with one small twist. While it’s probably very easy to predict what patterns typically reign supreme with others every holiday season, it’s probably a little more difficult to predict what part you play in those patterns. Think about it for a moment. What would your family members predict for your behavior every holiday season?

I know this is a tough question, because usually we shy away from such thoughts, fearful of what we might realize about ourselves. But I have one step you can take tonight that will radically change your outlook before and after this holiday season. This step is simple, but it won’t be easy. All that stands between you and a much better holiday season is one simple line of questions:

“What are some things I usually do around the holidays that seem to just make things harder than they need to be?”

“When and how do I get reactive, and toward whom do I usually direct it?”

“What are a couple of things I could do differently his year?”

Now usually I encourage people to ask these tough questions of themselves. But in order for these to have their maximum impact this holiday season, try posing these questions to the people closest to you, like your spouse, or your kids. And when you do, you’ll have to work hard to control that knee-jerk defensiveness that seems to automatically happen by reflex. This means controlling the temptation to interrupt their answers with defenses to the contrary (“I don’t do that anymore”), or offer up rebuttals (“But you do the same thing”), or regress into the blame game (“I only do that because you do this”).

This really can be the most wonderful time of your year if you have the courage to focus on yourself and your own predictable patterns. And asking your loved ones for an honest evaluation of those patterns is an amazing way to start.

Or you simply could end up like Uncle Frank, making the same mistakes, even without the eggnog.