Calming the Christmas Chaos
Note to reader: I know not everyone celebrates Christmas, and that there are many holidays and cultural traditions during these final weeks of the year and into the new year. I want to acknowledge that, and for the sake of simplicity (we love keeping these simple), I’ll be referring to Christmas throughout this post as that is the holiday my family celebrates this time of year. That being said, the concepts of overwhelm and stress around a holiday aren’t exclusive to Christmas, so please feel free to insert your holiday tradition because I think there’s something here for everyone, no matter what you celebrate.
When I first embarked on the role as Magic Maker for my children at Christmas, I took the job incredibly seriously. I love holidays and traditions and since my family of origin didn’t do a lot of celebrating, I wanted to make sure that I created a family culture of celebration, especially around my favorite time of year - Christmas. I believed that in order for my children to have the full Christmas experience, I had to DO IT ALL. The house had to be decorated by a certain day in a certain way. There always had to be the best outdoor lights display we could manage. We had to go to every tree lighting and special event available. We had to bake all of the cookies and make the gingerbread houses. It all had to be done by December 25th, and it all had to be the same every year otherwise what even is the definition of a tradition anyway? It was exhausting. I had zero fun trying to make sure the children had so much fun, and I was always unhappy by the end. I can remember one Christmas Day in particular where the pressure had built up so high that I exploded on my family with an epic emotional outburst that completely ruined the day. Thankfully, my 3 children were so young (all under 4 years old) that they don’t remember this at all, and once I was able to do some soul searching about what made me explode, it was a great time to course-correct and reevaluate how I handle my role as Magic Maker.
That turning point for me helped me come up with a new mindset for Christmas. There are 1000 things my family enjoys doing during Christmas and we simply cannot and should not do all of them, but we certainly can and should do some of them. I needed to be ok with the idea that not doing something every single year doesn’t mean it’s no longer a tradition or part of a future Christmas celebration. As an enneagram 1, I can very easily fall into a black and white mentality that can be quite limiting. My nature wants to say “we do this thing every year and that’s how it is,” but life requires me to learn to say, “we enjoy doing this thing some years and sometimes we skip it.” As a result, I have started a brand new tradition that we do every year (see what I did there? A leopard doesn’t change her spots), but it’s far healthier than previous traditions. Every year shortly after Thanksgiving, I ask my kids the same question: “What’s one thing you’d really like to do this Christmas?” It’s that simple. And guess what? Their one (or sometimes two because we aren’t being legalistic about this) thing is almost always something so easy. It taught me that most of what I was insisting we do every year for the magic of it all was not that important to them, and that the magic is often found in just being together in a special way. It was once told to me that when looking back at their childhood, children most remember how their home felt vs. what you did. That doesn’t mean that doing some big things won’t be meaningful to them, but there have been years where one child has requested to watch a Christmas movie and drink hot chocolate. Why was I making this so hard?
This year, I asked my kids what one Christmas thing they wanted to do, and here is what they said: (We live in New York City, so our list might feel extravagant, but these are actually easy things for us to prioritize)
Look at Christmas lights (there’s a great neighborhood in Brooklyn that does it BIG that we’ll hit for this)
Visit FAO Schwarz (toy store by Rockefeller Center)
Visit the Bryant Park holiday market
See the lights at the Plaza Hotel and go ice skating (see sometimes they pick 2 and that’s ok)
Our family doing something on our “one thing” list last year: Seeing the tree at Rockefeller Center
One final thing I will say that might be slightly controversial but has opened up a whole new world for me is that not every Christmas thing has to happen by Christmas Day for it to count. I used to feel like doing Chrismassy things after December 25th was kind of strange and basically cheating, but then I learned that Christmas is actually a season, not a day, and that the Christmas holiday actually begins on 12/25 and doesn’t end until 1/6, so live in the freedom to do Christmas activities until at least New Year’s Day, but even beyond. This is particularly helpful for those of us with children in school and activities that don’t relent until so close to Christmas that it’s difficult to squeeze in extra things. My family basks in the joy of experiencing Christmas until the kids return to school from their winter break, which could mean a Christmas movie on December 29, and we’re totally cool with that. What are any of us even doing during that weird week between Christmas and New Year’s? We might as well fill it with lights, cookies, and move marathons! So, if you’ve previously been a “no Christmas after Christmas Day” person, I’d like to invite you to try something different this year and see how it feels. Maybe you’ll love the low and slow Christmas vibe!
If your Christmas spirit has been stolen by the work of doing Christmas, I hope you can find some freedom in the permission I am giving you to not do it all every single year. Have a conversation with your family (or yourself!) and ask the magical question, “What’s one thing you’d really like to do this Christmas,” and let that be your guide. Maybe you just do what’s on that list. Maybe you put those things at the top of the list and have an “if there’s time” section at the bottom of the list. It’s totally up to you what you do with the information, but the ultimate goal is that you find out what is actually meaningful to your family, and let everything else go with no guilt.
No matter what ends up on your family’s “one thing” list, I hope you discover some new joy this year in not doing it all but rather in doing what matters. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours from all of us at House Peace!
— Colleen
PS. You can get to know me and my family a little more here!