It’s that time of year. The one where it’s not quite Christmas but somehow everything already feels urgent.
My kids are hopped up on a very steady stream of sugar and overstimulation, and I’m one string of blinking lights away from absolutely losing it. (Who am I kidding? I’ve lost it and found it and lost it 10 times over this week… and as I’m writing this, it’s only Tuesday evening.) The Elves on the Shelves are back (yep, we have two), which means every evening around 11:47 p.m., I’m launching myself out of bed like a half-asleep ninja because I forgot to move the little felt menaces again.
Meanwhile, my emails, texts, and school Parent app are blowing up with field trip reminders for sports (both boys are on two sports teams this season), school, friends, work…
And normally this wouldn’t rattle me so much except this week I get to contend with the joyous news that my shellfish-allergic child is going on a field trip to… an aquarium. With touch tanks. As the main attraction. (I’m anxious and trying not to make him anxious while also trying to instill in him that this is no freaking joke but please have fun…)
I love the holidays. I do. I swearrrr.
But this in-between stretch – this post-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas purgatory – is a lot. Honestly, it kinda sucks.
It’s the pressure of creating magic, mixed with real life not taking a break. It’s trying to figure out what to get for every person in your family who claims they “don’t need anything.” (Or kids who know what they want, but the things they want are either completely unrealistic or completely stupid… There, I said it, that toy is dumb!) It’s managing the emotional climate of your house when one kid has ADHD and the other thinks literally everything is negotiable. (And, spoiler alert, he wins almost every damn time.)
It’s watching the daylight disappear at 4:15 p.m. and knowing your regular anxiety is about mix in with it’s annual sprinkle of seasonal anxiety and your nervous system is about to have a field day.
I live in New England, so winter is not exactly a soft landing. The gray is relentless. The rain (because it rarely snows here anymore – thanks climate change!) is freezing. And the energy in my house? Somewhere between gremlin and feral. Everyone is tired. No one wants to do anything they’re asked. And I’m expected to keep on keeping on with my work and the house stuff and the kid stuff and the pet stuff… and add in the holiday stuff. With a smile. A SMILE!
Here’s what I’ve decided: This year, I’m trying to lower the bar (for myself, at least).
If we do some of the fun things? Great. Excellent. If the kids get to participate in all the school events and the sports events and the family events and maybe have way too much candy and their diet is the exact opposite of “balanced” for a couple of weeks, that’s gonna be okay.
Because the holidays aren’t a performance. They’re a season. And seasons, by definition, come and go. And my kids are going to remember the season to be as enjoyable as I let it be. And if I am struggling and stressed and fighting … that’s what they’re going to remember.
Any Holiday Magic that I try to force out of my being (because honestly, I am not exactly a bringer of cheer on my best day) will be forgotten if I spend the next 4 weeks on the verge of a breakdown.
So I’ll do what I can, let the rest go, and know that somewhere out there, another mom is also Googling “gifts for 8 year old boys” (and coming up short) for the 12,000th time this month.
Solidarity, sister. We’ve got this. Kind of.