Pressing Pause this Holiday

Shifting the celebration and finding the joy.

I’m slowing down. I can feel it. An almost imperceptible shift in my “Go” button.

This happens every year. At some point after powering through an always busy Fall, travel season, Thanksgiving, and then prep for Christmas, my systems start to fail. It’s not unusual for me to get sick the last week of the year, my body finally intervening to take me down while my brain continues to bang into its front windshield in an impossible effort to just. keep. going.

I’m feeling differently this year, though. It’s actually my brain that’s downshifting the treadmill, as if it can feel my body’s mutiny on the horizon and is attempting, for once, to be the better leader.

I’ve mentioned ad nauseum how I feel about Christmas, but for a holiday I don’t even like, damn do I wear myself out! I’m not even in search of perfection, really, just some strange combination of obligation and my Enneagram 8 mentality that if I just do more, maybe I’ll like it more. It’s a faulty assumption, for sure, one that has never borne fruit. I know I’m internalizing my mother’s love of the holiday, desiring to keep her traditions if not her spirit alive for my brother, my niece and nephew, and most notably, my daughter.

Our tree. Notice the exceptional box wrapping! Ribbons fix everything, people! 🤣

Except, I remember when my mother bought her first Charlie Brown Christmas tree, a $5 find on December 23rd that she decorated with one strand of lights and all her Grinch ornaments. I thought she had lost her mind, but I’ve never seen her so tickled with herself. My Mom didn’t cook on Christmas. There was an open invitation for everyone in the neighborhood and beyond to fill our first floor on Christmas night, pretty much any time after the family obligatories were over and all the way up until the front porch light went off. She bought a Honey Baked Ham and pulled out every last thing in our fridge and cabinets. We ate all the food gifts she got from students or, later, clients, which meant there were only about 3 of any one thing. First come, first serve. She sat this hodgepodge out on her Grandmother’s ironed tablecloth and slapped down a stack of mismatched paper plates next to the ever present basket of napkins. She didn’t clean on Christmas night. She didn’t serve anyone. She sat there and chatted, laughing her big laugh, completely unconcerned with what we ate, what we watched, or frankly what we did. She was off the clock. Christmas closed.

Maybe “doing Christmas” did my Mom in too?

Because of my propensity for being moody around Christmas and my husband’s propensity for snowboarding, we dip out to our house upstate for the holiday week. He and I love the quiet, the cold, and the slow nature of wine country. My daughter, on the other hand. Well, as an only child, she would prefer a playdate…on Christmas. I’ve learned the past two years that we do an epic job of the buildup, winding her up to the big finale, but when everything is unwrapped and she’s sitting amongst a sea of plastic crap, its inevitable that she will look up at some point and ask, “What’s next?”

The first year, I almost snorted my eggnog, incredulity mixed with mild rage assaulting my rum-seared nose. What the actual fuck kid? (not what I said, mind you, what I thought). We…ahem…Santa just unloaded a freaking sleigh full of stuff your way and it’s not even 2pm! I was frustrated…and disappointed. How had I raised a child that couldn’t even appreciate for one day how blessed she was? And how had I so thoroughly failed to live up to her expectations?

Last year, perhaps a bit more emotionally secure than the year prior, when some version of this question popped out while she was dutifully building the LEGO set Santa bought her, I was more prepared. I got curious instead of angry. Turns out, she loved her presents, but we’d spent the past twenty-four days stoking the flames of her excitement, and in a little over 90 minutes, we’d let her down fast and hard.

It was over. Just like that. Three and a half weeks of build up, and now nothing. Nothing to look forward to. Exhausted parents who just wanted to nap. And new toys with no one to play with.

Yeah, I might have seen that one coming.

As a young adult, I hardly ever asked for advice. I’m not sure I thought I knew everything, but I just trusted myself more than most people. As I’ve gotten older, better friend choices and the humility that comes with marriage and child rearing has clued me in to the wisdom of asking other people to weigh in on your internal struggles.

Knowing that I wanted to do things differently this year, but having no clue how, I posed this question to some friends over brunch one morning. Each friend’s family situation is unique, and I loved hearing them share, one by one, how they have chosen to make the holiday special. What works for them, what traditions their kids value, and what matters to them, personally, this time of year. One friend, a fellow do-er, offered this, “You know, historically, Advent was really a time of preparation, a time to slow down, to get ready for Christmas. The actual celebration happened after.”

That hit me some kinda way.

She’s right. Despite the song that plays incessantly on the one holiday station in our area, the original Twelve Days of Christmas actually began on Christmas Day and extended to Epiphany. These were the days of decorations, feasting, and celebrating. Even the poorest were given a reprieve from work, and while some of the traditions seem barbaric (check out Childermas…😬), the point was that everyone spent this time in celebration.

Y’all, I have been trying to fit in preparation, celebration, and every other ‘t-i-o-n all into those first 24 days! No wonder I’m tired! I’m exceptional at doing one thing. You put me on “preparation” only, and I will blow your mind! But things start to fracture when I’m multitasking across too many ‘t-i-o-n’s. By the time I hit Christmas Day, I’ve so worn out the t-i-o-n’s that all I want to do is another 4-letter word.

Rest.

But, my kid has only been preparing. She’s been counting down the days, putting up the little felt thingies on her father’s O-G Advent calendar, popping out a chocolate the size of a thimble from her Trader Joe’s calendar each night, and watching boxes she’s not allowed to touch pile up beside my desk. Shocker that come the BIG DAY, she’s like, “Where’s the party?!?”

Of course, the dogs get one too.

So, this year, I’m inviting the slow down. I need to get some rest in now, because come Christmas Day, it’s about to go down! We have plans, y’all. Finally watching Wicked, with a hot chocolate contest, and a bake-off! We’re going to see the reindeer on the 26th, when they’re all nice and sleepy like after their hard work the day before. And then there’s skiing, and swimming and tubing and it all culminates with a bowling/arcade/pizza package dealio with buddies on New Year’s Eve!

We shifted the celebration this year, and as a result, there’s so much to look forward to! For once, my daughter is equally as excited about the days after Christmas, and I’m honestly not dreading it, a massive accomplishment. I’ve still baked the cookies and finished the shopping and have a date to wrap the presents, but I’m not running solely on coffee and willpower. There’s joy in store. I can feel it.

You, too, can get diabetes for Christmas after eating just one of my daughter’s sugar cookies!

So, if you are feeling your Bah Humbug in full force or the deep desire for a Red Bull and vodka, know that you have permission to cut the crazy. Prepare. Rest. Pause on the party. Save something for the Season. Give your joy to those you treasure most. They just want to celebrate with you.