Christmas: Stress
NB: The Mary Sue pop culture site wrote a far better article on Christmas stress. Go read it here.
I live in fear of Christmas from about October onwards. (I also start buying presents for my kids at that stage, which I like doing—so there’s that.)
It’s particularly tricky for those who are at the “moved out of home but don’t have a family of their own” life stage (which can be incredibly lonely) or those who have recently lost a close family member to death or divorce.
And of course for those who suffer from depression, social anxiety, or other chronic illnesses. The pressure to be happy and joyful can be horrifying, and it climaxes on Christmas Day. It feels like the whole word is saying, “You must be happy and healthy at this time and place!”
There are four major sources of stress around the holiday season:
Finances
There are two ways to make finances better at Christmas. Either you spread things out over the whole year (buy one present a month, for example; buy travel tickets in February and then pay off a little each month) or you reduce the cost of Christmas.
Sometimes, the only option is to be honest: If you can’t afford travel, tell people that you can’t. If you really want to travel, it may be possible to receive travel costs as a gift—send an open group email to the whole family and say, “Instead of gifts, can everyone put in $20 so I can come to the beach without breaking the bank?”
Gift-wise, especially with kids, remember that YOU are setting the standard of what is normal. If the kids get a single gift from you each year, then that’s what they’ll accept as normal (with the occasional comment of, “All my friends get ten presents for Christmas” which you’ll have to resist along with every other “All my friends…” comment that the kids send your way the rest of the year).
EXPECTATIONS are crucial, and honesty, though awkward (and I guarantee some people will just think you’re cheap—screw ’em) can save a lot of pain.
I knew someone who would pick a fight every December and then not show up at Christmas. That’s… certainly a strategy. I would really rather this person just talked to us.
I know someone else who gave spectacularly expensive-looking but wildly thoughtless gifts. Every time they saw something on a massive sale they bought several. And that’s what everyone got for Christmas. They once got really weird about having gifts with half our family at one event and half somewhere else—because of course they’d bought the same thing for everything. Again, that’s a. . . strategy. That one could have worked great if there was any correlation between the gifts and the recipients. Like, if someone hates reading, don’t give them a book? Save it for someone else.
Family
Family is complicated. Some people love getting the full set together in one room (I’m one of them). Other people would rather not see a single member of their family ever again.
If your family is truly abusive, you don’t owe them anything. Get out fully if that’s truly what’s best for you.
If your family is annoying, or just one or two are awful but the rest are great, see if you can work out a way to take the bad with the good (or, if you’re especially cunning, find a path where you get more good and less bad).
If your family is mostly good, be honest about your abilities to give/host/travel/etc. Traditions don’t have value if they’re hurting you. For me, it’s often easier to host than go somewhere else.
Travel
It’s really, really hard. Things will also go wrong. Travelling at Christmas is harder than at any other time because (a) So many people are doing it, and (b) You gotta pack gifts (both giving and receiving).
If you know you’re not physically, mentally, or emotionally up to it. . . you have a choice.
If you can handle travel, work out what you need to make it suck less. For me, an ample supply of chocolate, water, and snacks makes a huge difference. Air conditioning is crucial, and so is ‘down time’.
Take your painkiller of choice, and if you’re inclined to get travel sickness of any kind then take supplies for that too.
Pure Busyness
Don’t be an idiot and promise a 3-part Christmas blog.
Manage expectations, both those others put on you and the ones you put on yourself.
Learn to say “No” and/or “Not this year”.
Basically, expectations (including traditions) can be helpful (“I know I’m meant to bring a plate every year”) or harmful (“I know I’m meant to bring a whole roast turkey even though I’m driving interstate to get there in time aieeeee”). In the end, although manners are important, you are the boss of you. Take charge, and make Christmas fun for you—whether that means staying home and watching “Die Hard” with no pants on, or travelling in convoy with your 32 cousins to great-grandma’s retirement home and eating nothing but funyuns for two days.
Kids home from school
That’s a whole ‘nother story. I haven’t worked out a good strategy for being “on” for ten hours a day for 6 weeks, so feel free to share your strategies in the comments.
The moral of today’s blog: Kids, animals, travel emergencies, and health are unpredictable. Plan for that.
But most of all, plan for who you are and what you can realistically do.
Good luck.
Christmas: Gifts
Last Christmas was tricky. Louisette (then aged nearly-6) well and truly understood Christmas, and she knew exactly what she wanted. . . and was loudly disappointed when a gift didn’t live up to her expectations.
She’s a sweet girl really, and we’ve had a lot of conversations since then about how to react when you don’t like a present, including the fact that she can secretly come to me if she truly doesn’t like something and I’ll buy it off her.
This year both kids have been pure adorable. So that’s nice! TJ has been opening incredibly random items and saying things like, “This is what I always wanted!” which is hilarious.
(Those are not oars, by the way. They’re novelty pool noodles; one with a unicorn head and tail and the other with a shark head and tail.)
There is a fundamental problem that permeates virtually every aspect of parenthood. Every parent wants to make their kid’s life better than what they experienced. Did they always desperately want that one special toy? Did they wish with all their heart that they didn’t have to share a room with their siblings?
So we give our kids what we never had… and they take that as normal, because for them it is. Yay. And then they want a BIGGER room, and a more expensive toy… and the parents are left wondering how their kids became so spoiled and ungrateful.
My only advice is to say ‘no’ often, and stick to it. But choose your moment to say “no”, and choose your moment to say “yes”, too. And teach your kids that life is never perfect, but if they work hard and make sacrifices, they can probably get a bigger room (or whatever) when they’re an adult. They still won’t be able to get everything they want, but they can choose what to give up and what really matters.
I looove buying gifts for my kids. But I do get stressed when there are toys all over the floor and/or no room to move because there’s just so much STUFF in my house.
Some parents incorporate charitable giving in their family Christmas traditions (I really like TEAR Australia’s Really Useful Gift Shop for that—keeping in mind that it’s usually more efficient for recipients if you simply give a donation and let the charity sort out where it’s most useful at the time).
There is a famous ‘list’ going around (if you know the original source/s, let me know):
Something you want
Something you need
Something to wear
Something to read
And there are a couple of variations: Something to do and something to love.
I think most kids would be annoyed at getting something they need and/or something to wear. How would you feel to get a new school uniform under the tree? So I personally would only use those if I wanted a few extra things to wrap (and I thought I could get away with it… it very much depends on the kid and the age).
Having said that, TJ is getting an insulated lunch box for Christmas (he’s going into pre-school so he’ll be taking in his own lunch for the first time… and the lunch box has dinosaurs on) and Louisette received drink bottles (Doc Macstuffins ones).
So there’s a different between getting something plain and something that feels special, even when it’s something the kid legitimately needs. But I’d still advise caution.
And I definitely think every xmas gift list should include something to DO. A puzzle, construction set, activity book, etc etc.
In all honesty, one of the reasons I like getting the kids gifts is so that they bother me less when I’m trying to work. Is. . . is that the real meaning of Christmas?
I usually buy more than 4 presents, but then “sell” several to relatives who want to give the kids gifts and ask me what to get them. (FYI That kind of relative is the BEST.) But four gifts is usually plenty.
My mum tends to buy a LOT of gifts (it’s her love language, and definitely expressed in quantity), and one will be the ‘main’ present—considerably more expensive than the rest. That’s a good system in its own right, although not well suited to those who get stressed by large amounts of cheap plastic nonsense in their house.
Sidebar: Christmas is a great time to have family members with inattentive ADD (aka Chris and Louisette). This year Louisette was looking through photos on my phone when she came across a gift I bought for her. It’s literally sitting on our couch, out of the packaging—I took the photo for Chris since I thought he should know what I was spending all our money ON before I wrapped it. It’s a Doc Macstuffins pet carrier including a pet, and one of Louisette’s biggest gifts (she’s obsessed with Doc Macstuffins at present).
“Oh, Mum!” she says. “That is so cute. It would be a really great gift for me for Christmas.”
Me: *internally swearing* Hmm? Oh yes, it’s very cute.
Aand… she accepted that, and has forgotten all about it.
And of course, as far as adult presents go… it’s all about books for me. I buy lots for others, carefully chosen (I get all bewildered with friends who don’t love fantasy novels, but I do like one or two non-fantasy books a year so that’s handy). It’s tradition in my family to read a book before giving it to someone, and then give a kind of review as part of the gift. “This is so deliciously eccentric; you’ll love it” “Watch out! It’s a 4-book series and the cliffhanger at the end of Book 3 will drive you nuts” etc. Great tradition.
I get quite stressed nowadays when I receive physical books, because I vastly prefer reading on my kindle (it’s easier on my wrists and neck). So that’s awkward. But they’re still books, and books are always good.
Between Chris and I, Christmas is an excuse to buy something way more expensive than we’d normally buy for ourselves. Chris is getting ug boots (he likes ‘proper’ ones, and wears them constantly around the house), and I’ve already ordered and received a made-to-order corset from Gallery Serpentine (they make high-quality corsets and are the go-to shop for Canberrans despite the fact they’re based in Sydney).
For many years, when I was living on very little (there were times when I didn’t have enough to eat three meals a day), Christmas was all about tricking people into buying necessities for me, like clothes or a secondhand microwave. My finances revolved around Christmas, and I’d carefully think about what I needed most, that could appear to be a fun and frivolous gift. There are definitely others out there going through the same thing. If you know your friends are super pov, a gift of shoes can make a big difference (obviously you have to figure out where they’d like to buy shoes from, and give them a voucher). Or a gift basket of food (either sensible or silly; both are expensive). Or something they can regift to someone else, because of course gift-giving is very hard when you’re too poor to afford anything much.
Christmas, commercialism, and the sheer push-and-pull of STUFF are all inextricably bound together. It’s worth thinking about what you really want, and what you really want to give.
Christmas: Jesus, Gifts, and Stress
So Christmas is about three things for me. (Cunning readers may guess what they are based on the title.)
This is the beginning of a three-part blog series on Christmas (aka holiday therapy for yours truly).
Fairly obviously for a Christian, Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus aka the God I follow. Yes, I’m aware that the date is wrong and most of the traditions are stolen/borrowed from Pagan traditions, etc etc.
Still.
It is extraordinary that my God chose to set up a universe in which he himself would be required to be tortured and killed and condemned in order to show us in the clearest possible terms that being “saved” is a gift that he desperately wants to give us. Easter is at the heart of every Christian. It’s why we call it “Good” Friday when it’s marking the darkest day in the history of the universe.
In some ways, Christmas is even more shocking. The God of all creation had his nappy changed, was breast fed, struggled with toilet training, and probably grew up wondering in his heart of hearts why he always found the smell of manure strangely comforting.
For those just tuning in, I have two kids of my own. Currently Lousiette is 6-nearly-7 and TJ is 4 and a half. Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
It is incredible to think about the whole “having a kid” thing. These two started off as nothing more than a goofy hypothetical notion, then Chris and I MADE them… but they were only about this big:
.
And now they walk and talk and have opinions and dreams and say all kinds of weird and wonderful things both good and bad. In the blink of an eye they’ll be as old as I am now—then older—perhaps with kids of their own, and jobs, and much stronger opinions that I may find utterly horrifying.
How can a tiny dot grow into a whole person?
It’s part of the glorious nonsense of being alive.
Even more bonkers is the idea that God could squash himself down to fit into that tiny dot.
Exhibit C:
.
And even more bonkers is… why?
Jesus spent thirty-three years on Earth, as a man. He was sweaty, and he was sometimes attracted to people he didn’t want to be attracted to, and he ate freshly-baked bread, and he sometimes disagreed with his mum and brothers, and he lived through the death of his mortal dad. Why didn’t he just skip the whole ‘being human’ thing, get crucified, and save the world over a single rather intense long weekend?
It wrecks my mind that he chose to become one of us. He really understands, from our side, what it’s like to be mortal: messy, scary, and smelly.
I love that.
I even made a little YouTube video trying to point out just how bizarre it is that God really did become a slob like one of us.
It’s a mishmash of different messages really. Is it just an excuse to show off old pics of my kids? Is it a brilliant mix of the carnal and the divine? Is it just too much fun to see babies looking wise/annoyed/gassy? You can make up your own mind. There are a couple of other baby pics in there too so go ahead and play “spot the cousin” if you like.)
So. When Jesus Christ, creator and saviour, was born, he probably looked not that much different from my own brown-eyed, dark-haired TJ (although being from the Middle East, Jesus would have had darker skin):
If you want to know what God looks like, that’s pretty similar to one part of it.
Cat VS Tiger
I acquired this giant tiger, which Tim shall receive for Christmas.
When I chucked it on the couch, Zipper PANICKED and FLED FOR HER LIFE.
So I sat down next to the tiger and gently encouraged Zipper to overcome her deep and genuine terror. While I took photos.
Then I put it on the floor for her to stalk, as her courage slowly grew.
It was terrifying for the poor innocent kitten. She crept closer bit by bit.
At last she attacked!
After a lightning strike, she decided to declare the tiger beaten and retreat.
And so our house returned once again to peace.
NaNo Oh No!
Astute viewers may have observed a certain lack of blog posts lately… a dearth of content that started just before November and is now ending just after November.
Not a coincidence.
November (and sometimes July) is National Novel Writing Month, when thousands of writers around the world attempt to write the first 50,000 words of their novel in a month. It’s a glorious, unhealthy, stressful ride.
This year I wrote a game. It’s a magical murder mystery named “Death at the Rectory”. It’ll most likely be available via Choice of Games’s “Hosted Games” label sometime in 2019.
It’s set at a very real, very specific location: the 140 year-old rectory of St John’s Anglican Church in Gundagai. It’s no coincidence that my mother is currently the priest there (until the end of this year). Every time I go there I think how amazing it would be to have a writing retreat there (bags not organise such a thing, though) because of the history of the house and the ridiculously high number of external doors (8, almost all in bedrooms). And incredible views from a deck that wraps around three sides of the house.
The idea of doing a fictional writing retreat there percolated in my brain for a while, and now it’s a fully-written interactive fiction story. With murder. And magic.
(This is the church, which is even older than the rectory—and right next door, too.)
By “fully” written I mean there are over 50,000 words, the quality of which I cannot vouch for.
Zipper is doing just fine, for those who come here exclusively for the cat pics.
Felicity Banks 