What if I Don’t Feel Like Doing Christmas This Year—And That’s Okay? Reflections on Holiday Exhaustion, Tradition, Grief, and Creating a Gentler Christmas
What If I Don’t Feel Like Doing Christmas—and That’s Okay?
The Nudge Toward a Real Tree
I was pretty much set on going out to buy a real Christmas tree today. We haven’t had a real tree as our main tree for 40 years. And I don’t want to put in the time and effort it takes to assemble and decorate our 9-foot tree.
You see…I just returned from essentially 6 weeks traveling on and off, the last week helping my younger son move to Boise Idaho with hardly a moment to breathe in between.
A few days ago, walking past real trees at the grocery store, I had this nudge of “I’d like a real tree this year.”
Listening to the Body’s Pause
When I got home, I looked around the neighborhood to see where I could get one. It’s December 14.
I noticed a lurch in my stomach when I was about ready to set out this morning and my new practice of listening to my body made me pause…
And ask: Do I have the energy to do this—buy, carry, set up, decorate, undecorated, take down, carry out to the curb?
What’s behind and under my interest in a real tree?
What kind of stage do I want to set for Christmas THIS year and what do I have energy for?
THIS Christmas.
The Weight of Tradition
Like a lot of people, particularly women, Christmas tradition has been the guiding light for me for most of my life. Exhaustion? Depletion? Too big of a to-do list? None of it mattered.
I had rules of engagement that I needed to observe to the letter.
My parents decorated inside and out of their home into their 90’s. My mom had 2 closets and one attic filled with Christmas decorations that she artfully rotated from year to year.
I had to meet or exceed their standards, didn’t I?
When Autopilot Cracked Open
I was mostly on auto pilot, doing things the way I’d always done them until my then 6-year-old son asked me why we couldn’t turn the lights on sooner than December 13…
Why? Inside my head I was thinking because that’s the feast of St. Lucie, that’s why…
And in a flash, I had the wisdom to note that the purpose of the lights was to bring pleasure. My son delighted in the lights. So did I! So why not turn them on sooner in the season?
December 1 lighting was born.
Creating Christmas at All Costs
Through the years, I worked very hard to create Christmas, to set the stage for a beautiful season…no matter what. It was all the physical trappings that I got caught up in. Baking every cookie known to man. Covering stair and table space with my Pere Noel and nativity collections as well as ornaments dangling from all light fixtures.
Granted, it was gorgeous.
But how much was from me and how much was from the pressure I felt?
The Year Everything Shifted
You know when it shifted?
In 2020. For the first time ever, my elder son was not with us for Christmas.
To say I was bereft is an understatement.
I felt depleted, depressed, disconsolate.
And I let all that flow over me instead of denying it.
I refused to force myself to feel gay when my firstborn was far away for what had become one of my favorite holidays.
A Quieter, Gentler Christmas
That looked like this: no tree. Sparse decorations. I don’t think I even put the main nativity set out that year. And there were no lights outside. Truth be told, as the day got closer, I stuck more little tidbits out, but it was a very low-key Christmas.
It was…gentler, softer, kinder, yes, sadder too. But my world didn’t collapse. The Earth kept spinning. My younger son, my husband, my mother and I on zoom with my son and daughter-in-law.
Quieter nights.
Surrounded by soft lights.
And I had the energy to savor it all.
Learning to Ask a New Question
Since then, I’ve gone in and out of feeling compelled, feeling pressured, feeling guilty and feeling at ease in my choices to do or not to do according to how I’m feeling THIS Christmas.
I have strategies now to help me land in the pause to ask my body-mind-spirit:
What do I want?
AND
what do I have the energy to do?
Choosing What Truly Matters
A few years ago, I asked my sons: What kinds of cookies do you want?
Their answer: our family chocolate chips and gingerbread boys and girls.
So that is what we do…sometimes, together.
Letting Go of the Big Tree
Last year, I looked at the boxes and boxes of our 9-foot artificial-but-looks-really-real tree that has graced our home for 40 years. The view deflated me. The thought of all it involved—carrying the boxes up, putting each and every branch on the trunk, fluffing it, putting lights on, then decorating then undecorating, then boxing it then carrying it all downstairs again…
I asked myself and the answer was no.
Finding a New Way to Bring the Tree In
And I got very creative about how to bring a tree’s essence into our home and installed 2 then 5 mini trees, with lights and fabric and ornaments. It was quite lovely.
This Year Is Its Own Answer
This year? I WAS feeling nudged toward one sizable real tree. But now? less so.
I have a hangover of emotion and travel and emotional travel. I may feel differently tomorrow. But today, I am confident that whatever I do THIS Christmas will likely be different from last Christmas and certainly different from the Christmases before.
Sharing the Load, Sharing the Light
My younger son will be home. He made sure of this. He loves the spirit of the holiday as much as I do—family, comfort, ease, joy…
Asking, “how do I set the stage for this THIS year with the energy and time I have?” is making all the difference for me.
Engaging those I love who I know want to imbue our Christmas with their light…This is what we do now. It’s not all on my shoulders.
We plan together based on MY energy levels and my emotional capacities.
An Invitation to Create Christmas Anew
You can do this, too. I promise.
Your little ones (like when my son at age 6 set me on a path of asking—what reflects who WE are today?) will likely love being part of the setting the stage.
Some of them want and need the traditions.
Some of them will love creating Christmas anew each year.
There’s room for all of us.
And all of us is welcome!
What ARE Some of Those Strategies to Help You Get to the Place Where You’re Able to Give Yourself Some Grace?
I created a video for you that shows you where I start whenEVER I’m feeling that I can’t catch my breath or that I’m letting people down, or feeling overwhelmed. The link is in the first comment (I think!)
blessings,
paula.
Here’s more about me
