Slap on your biggest fake grin and double-check your wallet – it is holiday time! If the word “holidays” makes you lapse into an anxiety-induced shudder, then you’re not alone. It’s the perfect time to become greedy, slothful, and ungrateful as we rejoice in the peripheral things…like the massive bag of holiday chocolates I’m consuming while I type and frantically scavenge the internet for gifts for way-too-many people.
Vacillating between feelings of excitement for snuggly warm socks, smells of cinnamon, and vacation time and also the feelings of foreboding for the impending family drama and chaotic schedules, I find myself in the usual holiday mood conflict. Holidays are wonderful, but boy do they suck.
We run around freaking out about purchasing the right gifts, preparing the right foods, receiving the right approvals from our friends, and ultimately turning our homes into a place of contention and work – but we don’t get paid for it. We behave in manners inconsistent with our usual selves and resort to considering gift propositions like Rachel Ray’s Garbage Bowl. Have we fallen so far to consider spending money on a “garbage bowl” to sit on the counter? Why not just use a bowl-bowl or, heaven forbid, a garbage can?
We try to build lovey-dovey feelings of peace and togetherness by melting down our favorite trendy scent in our trendy scent warmer and turning on some holiday music to drown out the kids yelling at each other. We set out piles of board games and try to force are family to participate in archaic rituals, knowing that they’ll all wind up around the TV shrine. Then, we shrink away in our cowardice and disappointment and hide behind a mountain of dishes even if just to avoid the following conversation: “What do you want to watch?” “I don’t know. What do you want to watch?” “I don’t know. You choose.”
So, with these things considered and combined will my ability to state the obvious, I give you six tips for surviving the holidays:
- Do less. Stressing yourself out in a desperate attempt to please everyone will not only succeed but it’ll make you feel even worse. Do less and you’ll still get the same results.
- Take shortcuts. Costco, Dream Dinners, and HoneyBaked Ham provide great products to make the holidays easier. Also, gift cards solve that problem. Gone are the days where gift cards were impersonal; if you still cling to this notion, it is time to let it go. Guess what? People want gift cards.
- Don’t buy things for adults who don’t need things. Buying something for another adult often creates a sense of obligation which sucks away the purity in the gift in the first place. It is what it is, folks. While your intentions might be thoughtful, it adds more stress for the other person who might not be in the same financial or free-time situation as you. It’s okay to make agreements with your friends to NOT buy each other anything. In fact, I’ve found this to be a huge relief.
- Spend your money where it matters. If you’re blessed to have leftover funds from 1-3, invest them into your community. Visit your local food bank, community action center, soup kitchen, et cetera – they would be happy to take your donation.
- Don’t put your own expectations onto other people. If you put out a pile of board games and then are disappointed that no one played them, that’s your own fault. Put out the pile of games anyway, but don’t attach to them any emotion which is contingent upon whether they’re used. This works the same way for gifts and talents – someone’s gift or talent will always be better than yours. If you buy the gift or perform simply for the sake of doing it – and without comparison or expectation – then you’ll have a much better experience.
- Enjoy yourself anyway. People will fight, your turkey might be dry, many would rather sit around watching football or movies than talking, your house will be messy, and many people will be ungrateful. While you can’t always control those things, you can accept that things will go wrong even as great memories are created and relationships forged. What is right or wrong is all based upon perception – and most people will perceive things as juuuuuuuuust fine. So, get over it. Be part of the relationships. Let the dishes sit in the sink a little longer. And, it’s okay if that garbage bowl was a terrible gift. We’ll laugh about it for years.
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