Or is it? I know – there are a whole load of think pieces and “how to make Christmas stress free this year” type pieces coming out at this time of year. And honestly, I worry about some of the advice given. I mean, I’m not sure when I’ll do the food shop this week, never mind get a facial or a relaxing massage. So I’m going to share what my Christmas period will look like.
I’m working until 3:30 tomorrow (23rd December) I may or may not be putting up some Christmas lights or a tree after I finish work, but who knows how my energy will be. My husband isn’t in any condition to put up decorations, so we may just be lighting a few extra candles instead of decorating the house, and you know what? It’s not the first time we’ve done this. It’s ok. We survived. If decorations aren’t your thing – skip them.
On Christmas Eve, I’ll probably be doing the shop for the week. My aim would be to get to Lidl as soon as it opens and stock up for the week. There’s only two of us, we’ll probably have duck on Christmas Day, we still have crackers and napkins from a few years ago – be grand. For the rest of Christmas Eve, I’ll be recording the daily videos for the upcoming 30 Days of Brigid course, starting on 1st January. I have to pre-record the videos, because otherwise it’s too much stress on me. At least if I can set things up a week in advance, I can relax and adjust as needed and pay attention to what support people need during the course rather than worrying about uploading videos. Hopefully I can get the back broken on the 30+ videos in one day, so I can leave them to upload overnight.
On Christmas Day, I’ll be preparing the Facebook posts and emails etc for the course, linking them to the videos and making sure the words are alright and I haven’t accidentally written a curse instead of a prayer. I’ll also be spending a good portion of the day snuggling on the couch with my darling husband, although we haven’t decided what DVDs we’re going to watch this year. I may see if I can persuade him to a rewatch of True Blood…
On Stephen’s Day, I’ll be finished up the 30 Days of Brigid stuff and hopefully managing some more hours snuggling on the couch. Or sleeping. Or both. I can multitask, y’know!
On the 27th I’m back in work for the annual shutdown, 3 days of highly organised, safe mayhem on site, where my job is to spend the days walking down jobs and making sure permit conditions are adhered to. And to be available for people to bring me issues to solve, concerns to listen to, that sort of thing. I rarely have to come up with solutions you understand – people mostly want to just talk through the issue and get support for the decision they make. But it means for the 27th – 29th, I’ll be busy.
On the 30th, I’m hoping to work from home, and keep an eye on any start up issues after the shutdown. That evening, husband and I will be heading up to my parents to see in the New Year with them. Also hoping for some dedicated sleeping time here as well – Mam has already given me a piece of Christmas cake, some mince pies, Christmas pudding and her extra special, Bailey’s chocolate biscuit cake, but there’ll be more goodies for the New Year as well. Mam is an amazing cook and baker and she goes all out this time of year, so it will be a lovely time.
We’ll be back home on the 2nd January at the latest, back into work on the 3rd.
I mean, we don’t have kids, we don’t have too much visiting to do (for those wondering my husband’s parents are in the UK and we’ll hopefully get over to them in the New Year sometime – we ruled out travelling at Christmas years ago!) but it’s still hectic with little time for rest. So we’re cutting back on the non-essentials. We have a tradition between the two of us that on Christmas Day we have our starter for breakfast, main meal for dinner and dessert for tea/supper cos that suits us. And there won’t be a great deal of fancy prepping either – I like cream cheese with lemon juice and red onion wrapped in smoked salmon for starters, husband likes eggs of some description. Main meal is a roast duck with spuds, carrots, parsnips and gravy – basically, if it can be thrown in an oven to cook, I’m ok with that. Dessert will be some of that lovely biscuit cake or Christmas pudding with brandy butter or ice cream. If I’m feeling really energetic, we might get custard with it. St Stephen’s Day is leftovers day. Microwave day. Possibly even takeaway day if things get really bad.
We deliberately reduce our social engagements and our housework and all the rest of it at this time of year, because we know we’ll be exhausted. And this took a while to arrange for ourselves. But it’s still busy, because of the minimal days I have off work this year. So things like decorations may not happen. And you know something – that’s ok.
Everyone talks about the importance of the real meaning of Christmas, but when you take steps to allow yourself that rest, that reflection time and that has a knock on effect on the outward symbols of the season, people start to worry or give out or not like it in general. So here’s my advice to you this Christmas – be strong for yourself and your family. Hold the lines you need to hold to make it as good a Christmas for you as you can. Ask Brigid for help – she’s usually more on the seeping through boundaries side, but she’s good at holding the really important ones – think of the forge, and the hammer blows and the shaping of things to work for you. Here’s the energy we need this season.
Brigid, at this season, help me and my family, by blood or by choice or by circumstance, to create the holiday we need and want this year. Help us to establish and hold our boundaries against the creeping tide of expectation and other people’s wishes. Help us give ourselves the gift of a period we feel happy about rather than exhausted by.
A lovely and thoughtful post, I think , sometimes, it takes getting older to set those boundaries.good luck with the course and have a lovely holiday
It’s interesting that the suggestions to avoid holiday stress included spending more money to add another thing to the schedule. Making time for a massage is too much when you’re already doing too much. But I guess that’s how capitalism works