dashing through december

This is going to sound strange but December 26 through the 31 are my favorite part of the holiday season. Once the presents are open, parties are over and the massive to-do list has been achieved or ignored, I can finally breathe out the stress that has been building since Thanksgiving. I previously wrote about how involved just the process of designing and distributing holiday cards is (See, “Holiday Card Hustle”) but there are so many more pressures that all arise during the holidays. Adding to the stress is that most of the skills required, other than shopping, are not in my comfort zone. Year after year, I flounder and try to assess how to improve for the next year and, so far, there has been only marginal improvement.

Listed below are some of the more difficult challenges that arise during the holiday season and why, each year, they cause me to be overwhelmed and exhausted.

* Holiday Decor (indoors and outdoors): The season really starts when you book the handyman who puts up the outdoor holiday lights. Outsourcing this task definitely improved relations in our house and having the house lit up for almost two months is one of my favorite things. For the last few years, we have had the house lit with the remainder of our non-LED lights but the trees are now lit with LED’s – and they are not the same color. Plus, this year, one of the trees is wrapped with lights on a green wire while the other two are wrapped with white wire. I know people have noticed this faux pas and have somehow resisted the urge to make me feel badly about it. A friend of mine is committed to having non-LED outdoor lights and, when replacement bulbs are needed, she has to ship them to her mom in Pennsylvania who smuggles them into California when she comes to visit at Thanksgiving. I’m considering a similar import scheme except I will be bringing non-LED lights into California from Mexico along with my normal haul of drugs that are prescription here and over-the-counter there. 

Indoor decorating is its own beast. We have had real trees and fake trees. We currently have a fake tree and are really happy to have no more pine needles in a trail from the driveway to the living room tree stand (and a dead tree to drag to the street and pray gets picked up with the trash.) For about fifteen years, the tree was decorated with a transportation theme – all of the ornaments were cars, trains, boats, spaceships, etc. As my kids got older, I shifted into the more adult motif using clear glass and silver tree ornaments.  I am always walking a very thin line with holiday decor because I don’t celebrate the holidays without a religious angle, but with a nod to Santa, Rudolph, the rivalry between the Heat and Snow Misers.

* Holiday Attire: While I can easily make decisions about holiday attire for my family members, I struggle when choosing my own outfits for a holiday party. I know that most guests will be wearing “festive attire” but I do not own anything that I have come to understand is “festive” – not a sequin, nothing in velvet or plaid, and almost nothing in red. To make matters worse, I almost always fail to prepare and start trying to put together an outfit about an hour before the party starts. Then, I try on several options – pants with tops, dresses and maybe even a jumpsuit. I had one holiday party to go to in December and, once again, I struggled. I had a dress I was excited about, but no matching shoes, bag or coat to wear with it. It’s a little strange that I am extremely organized about Halloween costumes and am dumbfounded by putting together a holiday outfit.

* Being clever with white elephant gifts: This category is a hot mess for me, especially if everyone is supposed to bring an ornament. I have no clue what makes an ornament more special than another one. Is glass the way to go? Should it be big and sparkly? Or creative and alternative? I have shown up to so many of these parties – ornament and regular gift exchanges – thinking I have for sure brought the best gift that will be stolen the maximum number of times only to find out that my gift is nothing special and will likely be re-gifted. I leave sad and disappointed, unable to unlock the mystery of how to select the “right” gift for this setting.

A cousin of the white elephant party is the “It Gift” party which is hosted by a friend every year ahead of the holidays.  The premise of the “It” party is for each guest to present and/or describe your favorite item of the year – something you have enjoyed yourself or think would be an excellent gift for others. I am determined to bring something to this party that is unexpected (for example, edibles in 2019) and that causes me to wrack my brain and google some weird stuff. Why do I have to be an outlier? I have no idea. But, something in my body won’t let me phone this in. 

* Choosing, ordering and purchasing gifts for everyone: My kids and husband, count and compare the quality, size and value of gifts received and then complain about a lack of equity. Apparently, this is consistent among my friends too. I watch them count boxes, consider each other’s level of excitement and/or disappointment and then decide whether they won or lost the holiday in comparison to their sibling. To this end, I keep a google sheet with each person’s name, the items purchased, whether it has been delivered and if it has been wrapped. I do usually get a little nuts and end up stuffing several things in one box to make the number of bundles more even. And, while I attempt to keep a tenuous sense of fairness and balance, I must also keep all receipts and email confirmations so that each item can be returned or exchanged so that loser gifts can be turned into winners.

Most of my female friends and I are the CEO’s of the holiday gift giving, meaning that we manage the gifts for our own kids, spouses and then often advise grandparents what to get for our kids. The advisory role is often the toughest in that you have to consider your parents budget and decide who gets to be the hero of the season, them or you. If the grandparents buy the one gift your kid really wants, they get the credit. That’s always a tough trade off for me.

* Wrapping and hiding gifts from Santa and remembering where you put them: In February a number of years ago, I found a backpack that was purchased for my daughter for the holidays and hid in my bedroom dresser. It became a surprise Valentine’s Day gift. Even though this is no longer relevant for my family, my friend Katie still hides presents in the same location and delivers them to her kids as if they are from Santa – even though her youngest child is 21! 

As I prepared to write this blog, I asked a few of my friends about how they handle the pressure of the holidays and what tasks are most problematic. I got two responses that I thought were particularly funny. “I especially hate when, on Christmas Eve, my husband asks me ‘if we have gifts for the kids’” she admitted, and then added, “and I work especially hard to respond calmly and not let that comment escalate into a full blown fight.” Another friend responded, “ Funny you should ask…I locked myself in my room earlier today and told the kids I was wrapping presents and to please not interrupt. I didn’t wrap a single f-ing present. I just laid down and tried to avoid thinking about anything by watching Molly Shannon clips from SNL…”