The most wonderful time of the year really isn’t so wonderful when you’re overwhelmed or lonely. At this point, I should know better than to watch any Hallmark movies during this time of the year, but I can’t ever seem to quite let go of the fantasy of the holiday season.
Every year it’s the same–I see the holiday season coming and I vow that this will be the year I lower expectations, tighten boundaries, and become a more graceful and breezy mother, daughter, spouse, and friend. I start the season off pretty solid with my “no’s” and intentional naps or spending limits on Christmas presents, and then…
It’s hard to know exactly what happens.
Sometimes it’s my inner child that gets SO excited and just decides to “deck the halls!” (so to speak) and I start saying “yes” to everything again.
Sometimes it’s the mom in me that just cannot resist buying anything and everything that I can so clearly picture my daughter going crazy over on Christmas.
Sometimes it’s the pleaser in me that anticipates everyone else spending and doing more than me, and I feel like I’m letting them down if I can’t match their energy or reciprocate the effort.
Sometimes it’s realizing that my relationship or my personal self-care has had to take the backseat for too long and suddenly I’m on fire for planning our next family vacation or an unrealistic fitness goal when I should just hit the pause button and rest.
Every part of me wants the same thing–a joyful, fulfilling, loving, balanced life–but when every part of me thinks there has to be room for (x, y, or z), the result is the same every time. Every time it’s a matter of days before I run out of energy and get stuck in overdrive determined to do it all.
I suspect this has a lot to do with my neurodivergence and a difficulty with accepting the holidays for what they are–a beautiful time that is also slightly impossible to get right.
However, I find myself infinitely frustrated with how I perceive (through a warped lens) that everyone else has figured it out and I’m the only one that can’t seem to get it together.
If you can relate, I have good news and bad news:
The good news is you’re not alone and simply sitting down to read this and recognize these feelings and parts of yourself is progress.
The bad news is, I’m not sure there’s any solution.
Here are some of my attempts at solutions:
Doing the bare minimum. I’ve tried not having a real birthday for my daughter when she was 1 and we had just moved into our new house. Despite me literally inviting no one except my immediate family, I STILL wound up crying my eyes out the day of her birthday when she spiked a fever and all of my (very minimal) decorations were blowing away in the wind.
Doing it all. I’ve tried hosting holidays and just going for it. I look back on those holidays fondly, but I somewhat resent the amount of work that went into them just to end up feeling like I barely got to sit and enjoy myself.
I’ve tried meticulously divvying up the to-do list with my husband, but I have to admit that even when he’s doing everything we’ve discussed and then some–I find myself resenting how much easier it is for him to be satisfied with his work while I tend to feel judged by others for my inadequacies.
It’s an unfortunate reality that women are just held to a different standard when it comes to everything related to the household. I can rebel against that standard and not clean the house, order the gifts, etc. but it’s still frustrating that the standard exists. It’s still frustrating that it’s a whole thing to explain why you didn’t put up a Christmas tree this year.
I’ve tried staying laser focused on what the holiday means to me. This attempt is probably the closest I’ve come to getting it “right”. For instance, if the holidays are about family and drawing closer to God–it’s pretty easy to say no to traditions that pull me away from that. However, it is still a challenge to draw the line at “good enough”.
So what gives?
I mentioned there is no real solution, or at least that I’ve discovered yet. My hunch is that it gets a little easier every year, and that eventually you get a little better at managing the chaos and rolling with the punches. I imagine my husband and I will get better at coordinating who does what–the same we did prior to having a kid. I also know the deeper reasons we really feel stressed this year and that buying presents is a stand-in issue.
When knowing doesn’t shift my state–here is what I’m learning to do:
1. Surrender to something bigger than myself. I think we all need a vision for how we want our lives to go or we risk becoming bystanders to them. However, I also know that I’m one piece of every equation.
For example, I can buy a gift, but I can’t guarantee my daughter will like it. I can coordinate our schedule with family so we get to see everyone, but I can’t control what mood everyone is going to be in once we’re together. I can’t control what illnesses come into our house right before the holidays either.
So instead of clinging tighter to what I want– I find it more useful to practice surrendering to the one who knows my heart and my story better than I do–God. I’m learning to look for Him right in the middle of my storms and trust that He’s with me…no matter how trivial and downright petty some of my disappointments may be.
2. I will myself to sit down and notice the different parts of myself running the show. I can say pretty confidently that the part of me sitting here calmly reflecting on all of this is not the part of me that shows up when my daughter opens a present and doesn’t say “thank you”. There are different parts of ourselves that often take the mic and throw us in a tizzy, and simply knowing what they are is huge. (Think the movie Inside Out).
When you know how those parts look, feel, and sound–you’re more equipped to name and tame them as they surface. In most instances, you don’t have to change anything about yourself in order to, um, get a grip on these parts.
Instead–the goal of identifying parts is just to recognize they’re there and to honor what they’re afraid of and what they’re trying to accomplish.
When I want to bark, “Did you say thank you??” to my daughter, I can notice the pleaser in me and turn to the person that gave her the gift and tell them “thank you” instead of shaming or startling her with my tone. I can recognize that I care about raising a kid that appreciates what other people do for her and focus on gently nudging her in that direction by helping her slow down or I can simply model sincere appreciation so she knows what it looks like.
The beauty of knowing yourself is that the more you do, the more you realize you don’t need to control what any person says or does. You just have to get familiar with your own responses.
3. Lastly, when I inevitably get overwhelmed or frustrated by the chaos of the holidays–I put more stock in repairing than getting things “right”.
I try to own when I was wrong or when I snapped at someone, and I try to give my partner the benefit of the doubt when he does the same.
It’s so human of us to make mistakes, and it’s really no fun to spend the whole time tensing and trying not to make one.
So–if you can–cut yourself some slack this holiday season! You don’t have to laugh at anything that doesn’t feel funny, but it’s also ok to laugh when something does. There’s a lot of humor in all the things that go wrong over the holidays. If you can forgive and move on, you’re more likely to store these mishaps as a positive longterm memory rather than a negative one.
In all honesty, there’s nothing I love more than being around family every holiday. I usually just need help remembering it’s ok to be me.
Protip: If you tend to feel a little anxious before big family gatherings, it might be helpful to remember that we tend to picture the worst version of people prior to seeing them. Our anxious brains are wired for the negative.
When this happens, it can help to think beyond the moment and center on the more pleasant memories you have of people.
Whatever your situation may be, I hope you can remember that you are worthy of connection and joy this holiday season. You don’t have to do everything perfectly to experience that, and–in fact–attempting to is a burden we don’t have to carry. Your efforts mean you care, and people are usually very forgiving when they feel that. Your best is good enough.
I’ll leave you with a song my daughter and I listen to that ends up being more for me than her every time:
