Crushed under the mental load of the holidays
Trying not to be a total Grinch this year
Last week, as I put the finishing touches on my Thanksgiving newsletter, Ken said to me, “I’m sorry you don’t like the holidays. I really enjoy them.”
Dear reader, I lost my shit, and poor Ken never saw it coming.
“Well, maybe I would enjoy the holidays too if everything was catered to me, and I didn’t have to lift a finger,” I said, my voice rising. “You have no idea how much work it is! You don’t cook. You don’t shop. All you have to do is show up!”
This is a pretty unfair assessment of Ken’s holiday participation. It’s true he doesn’t cook any of the meals, but oftentimes neither do I because members of Ken’s family host, and we don’t do more than bring a bottle of wine. And last week, after Thanksgiving dinner (a meal I did help cook, even though my mom was running the show), he cleared the table and, with the help of his dad, hand-washed the fine china along with most of the pots and pans. I’m not sure the division of labor for the day was exactly fifty-fifty, but our Thanksgiving also wasn’t exclusively produced by women.
Still, I can’t deny my gut reaction to his comment about enjoying the holidays. As I say over and over again from late November to late December: This is not my season. I frequently feel totally overwhelmed. There is so much to do this time of year—gifts to buy, cards to mail, holiday tips to organize, homes to decorate, events to attend, memories to make—and you’re supposed to do it all with a smile and a lot of style so you can post it on Instagram to prove to the world that you do, in fact, live a picture-perfect life, AND that you’re making real magic, AND that you’re a GOOD MOM, god dammit!
This cartoon sums up so much of how I feel this time of year.
It really doesn’t help me that it seems like everyone else is having such a wonderful time according to the pictures they post on Instagram. Rationally, I know that it’s not reality, and yet, scrolling social media this time of year makes me feel bad. The holidays are not the highlight of my year, and my grid is not filled with cute photos of my family in matching PJs posed in front of the Christmas tree. It’s not that we’re having a miserable time. But some days, I struggle to not feel like a total Grinch. I don’t like that about myself.
I wrote in last week’s newsletter that I’m going to try to lower my standards this holiday season, but in retrospect, that feels a little disingenuous. I’m not one who feels good about lower standards. I’ll stew if something is not quite to my liking, and that just compounds all the stress. But I do think there are other ways to make the holidays a little easier. And I’m hoping by writing them down and sharing them with you, maybe 1) I’ll help you all find a way to manage the holidays better; and 2) I’ll actually follow my own advice and try to have a little fun.
Here are the five things I’m going to do to try to ease my burden this holiday season and find some joy.