Ho, Ho, How Do We Enjoy the Holidays?
The holidays are a funny time of year. Funny in an, I’m laughing but without actual humour, kind of way. There’s magical moments and festive events to enjoy, from Christmas craft markets and parties with friends, to decorative lights and delicious baking… But then there’s the pressure. Pressure from society to spend money and collect more stuff. Pressure from family to show up and participate in the ways they expect. Pressure from yourself to be festive and jolly and capture the spirit of the season by filling your calendar to its brim. In a season promoted to be the most wonderful time of the year, it can often be one of the most stressful.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas and the traditions that come with it. Give me a holiday Starbucks drink and cheesy Christmas movie and I am one happy gal. But the marketed joy of it all tends to create a sort of internal tension for me.
Leading up to our first Christmas, Stu and I decided to have an annual “Christmas-fy” day. A day when I would wear red lipstick and he’d put on his red Icelandic sweater and we’d deck the halls and bake something yummy and watch a Christmas movie to kick off each year’s Christmas season. I still get excited for it because these days hold some of my favourite memories of us. But, if I’m honest, as special as they are, the first few years we often had a fight on our Christmas-fy day. And if I’m really honest, it was usually because of me.
You see, I’d go into these days expecting holiday cheer and nothing less. We needed to be HAPPY and EXCITED and do. all. the. fun. things. with. big. smiles. and make it the MOST magical day ever. So, you know, no pressure.
Surprise, surprise, it turns out that my hopes and plans for perfection were impossible to meet. One year, no Christmas tree farms were open yet. Another, we disagreed about our decoration budget. In the midst of my curated Christmas itineraries, life happened. Plans were derailed and necessary reality checks, and instead of rolling with the punches I would get upset and shut down.
It feels silly and embarrassing to admit that I, a fully grown adult who is generally emotionally sound, threw some holiday hissy fits.
But on the other hand, I think it makes sense. The holiday season is filled with cheer, yes, but also this simmering pressure for a perfect performance. We’re inundated with a host of seasonal to-dos. Family dynamics create tricky situations and expectations. Budgets bump up against the gift list.
As much as we might try to make everything perfect, life in this season is still, well, life - messy, wonderful, complicated, boring, with some magic sprinkled in.
And maybe letting that be okay is the key to enjoying, or at least embracing, the beautiful mess the holidays often are. Maybe the peace and joy can coexist with the hard or boring or sad parts.
I know that’s been the case for me, at least. We had our Christmas-fy day last week and it didn’t really go according to our loose plans. We went into the day exhausted, the appointment to change our car’s oil got pushed back, our three month old was angry about being in the car when we got stuck in some traffic… And yet, we ended the day with our house decorated, wearing matching pjs and big smiles.
May we make space for all that comes with our holiday season this year, embracing the boring, braving the difficult, and looking for the beautiful.
