How did Christmas get so stressful?

Tis the season to be jolly.

Yet in the shops this week, I saw no smiles, no laughter. Just faces etched with stress and women especially moving as if the weight of the world is upon them. 

“What else?” one exhausted-looking woman screamed into her phone in the toy aisle. “Say it NOW or it will have to be Hogwarts!”

Every time I switch on the TV, it seems there’s a show guilting me into some new, labour-intensive preparation activity. 

Hand-made Christmas decorations. Hand-made gifts. All wrapped up like artworks and festooned with ribbons and bows. (Hand-made, of course.) And I hope you’ve knitted your own kitsch jumper, because a shop-bought one is plain lazy.

Then there’s the food. 

So much food. And so much cooking, shopping, eating. We’re supposed to make everything from scratch: cakes, puddings, appetisers, amuse bouches, and a lunch that seems to get bigger and more complicated by the year. 

Apparently, we now even have to make our own bespoke biscuits and treats to leave out for Santa and the reindeer. 

When did the holiday season become such a relentless slog? 

So I’m not aiming for a perfect Christmas.

Or anything close, this year. I’m tired. The whole family has been ill, one way or another. So for me this holiday season will be successful if it’s messy, disorganised, relaxing and fun. 

It’s going to be a participant sport, with everyone pitching in with the lunch if they want to eat, and a shop-bought dessert. 

The tree is only sparsely decorated, there’s no wreath on the door, and we’ve kept cards and gifts to a minimum. 

I’m not shouting bah! humbug here.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a recovering perfectionist, so downsizing the holiday will be challenging for me. But for me it’s about being comfortable, relaxed, good enough.

This time of year tends to bring out the perfectionist in all of us. There’s so much pressure heaped on this particular holiday. But as a result it has become oddly joyless, a grim festival of (over) consumption.

So here’s a public service announcement.

In the end, it’s just another day. With some gifts, and a roast dinner.

Keep it simple. 

Make it easy.

Make it fun.

Buy what you can afford. 

And nothing else.

Hand-make or bake what you have time to, for sure. But only if that gives you pleasure. Working parents don’t have to feel guilty. Or indeed any of us.

So relax. Rest. Keep your loved ones close. Give to others if you can. Aim to laugh as much as possible.

This was supposed to be fun. 

The winter festivals were once a way of warming up the coldest, darkest nights and feasting on the last of the fresh food before the hungry months of winter.

In case it helps, my best childhood memories are not about the presents, the food, the stuff.

They’re more about my mum playing Slade at an obscene volume, impatient for her teenagers to get out of bed; the Birmingham lights starting with Diwali in autumn and continuing to twinkle into January; board games and walks; incomprehensible charades in which drunk uncles acted out films I’d never heard of; the entire extended family watching Morecambe and Wise on TV; my usually dignified great-aunt falling asleep after lunch, her paper hat askew. 

2025 will soon be here.

I was going to start talking about plans for the coming year, in this post. But I think you probably have enough on already. And we have that lovely, liminal time after Christmas and before New Year to think about all that. 

So have a great break, whatever your faith and wherever you are. This year more than ever, I wish you all peace, safety, joy. 

Have fun, if you can. I’ll see you on the other side.