How To Keep the Joy in Your Holidays
There’s so much pressure to make the holidays magical and perfect and to get it all done. I liken the season of October through January to running a marathon in high heels without having any spectators to cheer me on. No one’s waving encouraging signs, no one’s offering me a Dixie cup of water, there’s no medics if my body fails from exhaustion or if I just trip over my own two feet, and I can guarantee no one’s jumping up and down with my name on a T-shirt.
Admittedly, much of it is self-induced.
I set the Christmas bar high for myself those first couple of years, so I basically set myself up for failure in the long run. My oldest was born just as Elf on the Shelf came out. Had I known then what I know now, I would have lit that little Christmas demon on fire the day he was gifted to us. We had no idea that by accepting this gift we were committing to years of daily stress and feelings of inadequacy for the 24 days leading up to Christmas.
Elf on the Shelf has basically, for me, become a microcosm of Christmas. You have the parents who go above and beyond – who lay out elaborate displays of Elfish mischief and then post it on social media just in case our motherhood Christmas egos are still intact.
Covid was a good Christmas for many of my friends in the elf department. There was a lot of “social distancing” with the elves that year. I have a friend whose elf got “frozen” in a block of ice and she doesn’t deal with it anymore. She just shoved him in one of those glass tiles used for walk-in showers and he sits there all season.
For my household, the elf has taken on this strange mysticism just short of cultish. I’ve caught my kids having more than one conversation with our elf asking him to plead with Santa for a certain gift on their behalf, as if the elf were the Pope and Santa was God. Our elf moves once a night, but it’s usually from one part of the bookshelf to the other. Once a season he’ll eat some cookies or do something out of the ordinary, but for the most part, our elf is a sedentary creature.
The problem with Elf on the Shelf is it’s just one more way to gauge our unworthiness as mothers. I’m sure there are the select few who honestly enjoy it. But I really believe those people are few and far between.
For me, it’s just one more bar I’ve had to lower for myself and every time I lower the bar, I feel like I’m failing. I know I’m being realistic. I’m recognizing what I can and can’t do while keeping my sanity, but it still feels like a failure.
With having started two businesses within the last couple of years, I’ve had to lower the bar even further. There’s only so much I can do and only so many hours in the day and I just don’t have the bandwidth for a lot of it this year. We had one weekend to get a tree and set it up this year and it didn’t happen. So, I ordered a $150 fake Christmas cactus that came with lights ready to go. It was a great decision and now the kids are calling it “The Wacky Christmas” and I’m just going with it.
My kids won’t look at the changes I made as failure. As long as I’m keeping my sanity, my kids’ Christmas will be just fine.
Last year, with one business newly off the ground, I started to really take inventory of what was important and started cutting out what wasn’t important. Sure, I’d like to be the mom who bakes homemade cookies and bread and makes those bento box lunches and who spends hours coming up with new things the elf does every night. But that’s not where I’m at right now and I’ve learned to be okay with that.
Once I sat down and really analyzed what I wanted my holiday season to look like, once I examined what was important to me based on my priorities, I was able to change my expectations and yes, lower the bar, but not because I “couldn’t” do it, but because it stopped being important to me.
Here are some of the short cuts I’ve come up with that I can still feel good about:
1. I got rid of any Christmas decorations that didn’t bring me joy.
The turning point for me was when I realized all those decorations I was putting out that were “gifted” to me from my mom weren’t really gifted. She didn’t want them anymore and she felt guilty getting rid of them, so she gave them to me. I kept the few decorations that held special meaning for me and got rid of the rest.
I came to terms with the fact that I hate red and green.
Break-light red screams stress to me, not “Happy Holidays.” I changed my holiday décor to cream, sage and gold and it made all the difference for me mentally; it changed Christmas for me.
I don’t do excessive decorations.
I use throw pillow covers and blankets on the couch. They take 10 minutes to put out, they’re easy to store and they’re something that would be there anyway, so it doesn’t feel like chaos to my overstimulated mind.
I use salt and pepper shakers to delineate the seasons.
Salt and pepper shakers are easy to store, easy to put out and easy to put away. They’re something we use on a regular basis and they change the feel of the table in a quick and easy way.
2. I use smells to trigger that holiday feeling.
Smells are uniquely intertwined with memory and emotion. Smells are processed by the olfactory bulb and take a direct route to the amygdala and hippocampus which are related to emotion and memory. That’s why we can be walking along and smell something and all of a sudden, a feeling overtakes us and we’re right back to that time and place.
I change up the essential oils in our diffuser or I put some cinnamon sticks over a candle burner and add some water and let the smell fill the house. You can do this on a stove too. Throw some cinnamon sticks into a pot full of water, add an apple that’s on its way out or even an apple core or orange peels and let it simmer (just don’t let it run dry and don’t leave the house with it burning).
3. I skip the homemade cookies.
I found a great brand of gluten free frozen sugar cookies. We still bake them, and the kids still get to decorate them, but I get to skip the mess and the stress.
4. I limit our Christmas lights.
The stress I feel every time my husband risks his life on a frost-covered roof to put out Christmas lights just isn’t worth it for me. I spend the majority of my time in our house, not sitting outside of it, so in reality, they’re for others, not me. We bought some of those web lights and throw them over some of our smaller trees and shrubs in the front yard, I don’t feel like Ebeneezer Scrooge, and I don’t have to medicate myself while my husband’s on the roof.
5. I’ve embraced the magic and beauty of gift bags.
I wrap what I can but I refuse to feel guilty about anything I put in a bag. I skip Target and their $10 gift bags and stock up at the Dollar Store. I add fun tissue paper and I walk away and don’t look back.
6. I don’t sweat the small stuff.
If my kids don’t get their hair cut before the Christmas concert, oh well. Pomade works great for controlling their cowlicks and they just have the long hair surfer look. If I don’t have time to get my hair done, Clairol makes a great root touch up spray that washes out.
7. I don’t over-schedule our holidays.
Holidays fill up so fast, it’s inevitable that we’re going to have a full calendar no matter what, so I do my best to not commit to too many things. If it feels like a burden, I decline the invitation. Sometimes that means if I can’t think of an outfit to wear off the top of my head, I’m not going, and I’m okay with it.
8. I focus on our values.
My grandmother grew up during the Great Depression and would tell a story about one of her favorite Christmas presents – a coconut. That was all she wanted. She vividly remembered going outside and taking a nail and a hammer to break it just enough to get the milk out and sharing it with her 9 siblings. Then they broke it all the way and each had a piece of fresh coconut and she was thrilled. That was her single gift that year and she felt like the luckiest kid alive. To her, it was exotic. Each year, the first thing to go under our tree is a fake coconut in honor of her. It reminds my kids what life was like for someone they knew and loved. It puts things into perspective and it keeps them humble.
9. I consistently bring myself back to my center.
My kids won’t remember what gifts they got. They will remember what the feel of the house was like. They’ll remember the excitement leading up to Christmas and they’ll remember how I was around the holidays – they’ll remember if their mom was stressed out and short with them, not whether or not we had as many decorations as the neighbors.
10. I give myself grace.
I don’t focus on the things I’m not doing. I focus on the things I feel good about and I let the rest of that shit go. It’s the hardest lesson I’ve learned in motherhood, but if I spend my kids’ childhood looking at all the ways I’m failing, I’m missing out on the magic. I don’t want to look back and realize I spent 20 years not feeling worthy while I was doing the best I could. We will all have fails and wins in motherhood. That’s just the nature of motherhood. But my “fails” don’t have to feel like a failure. It’s simply my style of motherhood and that’s okay. I’m raising kind, compassionate, thoughtful and well-rounded human beings and that’s what’s important.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, if you’re feeling like a failure, if you’re feeling like you’re not measuring up or you’re stretched too thin, take a breath. It’s going to be okay. Don’t be afraid to take a moment to breathe. Do what you need to do to take care of your mental health. CBD has changed my life. So has meditation and mindful breathing. Prayer is your friend. Sit in silence with the one who created you – whoever you deem that to be and just be at peace for even a moment.
This is a season just like everything in life. Take a moment to enjoy the magic of this time. Try and remember that wonderful childhood anticipation of Christmas morning and remember those warm feelings. Yes, part of it was about the gifts, I’m not going to lie. But so much of it was about a warm house and family being together and good food and that festive feeling. Those feelings aren’t created by things or events. Those things are created by how you frame it and by what your mindset is.
And most importantly, remember you are not alone. This is a stressful time of year for all of us. But if you’re stressed because you have kids and your schedule is full and you’re trying to fit it all in, count yourself as blessed. There are so many who are lonely this time of year, longing for what you have. Take a breath mama. You’re doing wonderful, and you’re almost there.
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