Are the holiday traditions in your life creating stress?
Do you feel like a sloth at this time of year?
Are you burned out, fried, feeling empty and wondering why
you don’t enjoy the holidays anymore?
You are not alone as millions of people sit silently feeling
this way, but no one really talks about it.
I am the Band-Aid ripper…(don’t worry, I’ll be gentle) so that’s
why I am going to do this – let’s talk.
First, let’s look at the commercialized idea of what the
holidays are….A date on the calendar which dictates you are obligated to
conform to getting things done by that imposed deadline.
REALITY CHECK: The
holidays come and go and no matter what you “think” is a disaster because you
did not cross everything off your list of ‘being perfect’ – taking the self-imposed
pressure off of yourself is the best gift you can give yourself as well as your
loved ones. No one has fun with
stressed-out, frantic, manic, uptight loved ones, and you probably don’t feel
celebratory either when you feel like that. So take a deep breath and learn to
accept what you did do as ‘enough.’
WHY? Because YOU ARE
ENOUGH.. Just as you are. These ‘ideas’
of ‘perfection’ do not serve anyone well during the holidays and it causes a
lot of dis-ease, and it is the main reason why people’s immune system gets out
of whack during the high-stress period and people get sick.
Release your ‘anxiety’ about what you didn’t accomplish. No
one will judge you as a total failure, so let’s begin with your own self-judgment.
Let it go. Accept.
Breathe. Enjoy your holidays a
new way. Remove your self-criticism about what isn’t perfect. Look at misfired attempts to create your
holiday as a humorous thing you can laugh at years from now, and appreciate
your owning your flubs. Sometimes that
has a long-term enjoyment beyond what you consider the most perfectly executed
efforts.
Do you want to do yourself another huge favor?
OPTION: Change
the date --- IT CHANGES EXPECTATION – especially that which you put upon
yourself and it takes expectation out of it for everyone else, too.
What? YES, you heard
me…Did you know this is an option?
If you have never done this before, you may thank me for
this later. Just because the calendar says the holiday is on a certain date,
doesn’t mean you are ordered to celebrate it on that exact date, right? So if you don’t celebrate the holiday on the
actual holiday, the world won’t end – in fact, you may have more fun.
THE BENEFITS:
- · If you throw the holiday off a day, two or three, or even at another non-stressful time, you’ll avoid the mass-exodus traffic jam/airport drama. This of course can be more affordable as gas prices aren’t spiked for auto and air travel.
- · Everyone is less stressed/more relaxed.
- · You extend the celebration.
OPTION: Opt for
the no-holiday-HOLIDAY. Treat the holiday as just another day. Plan for an
anti-holiday avoiding ‘typical’ THEMES.
YOUR PLAN/IDEAS:
We’re already so very blessed in life that we need to appreciate
what we so have, make the most of it and enjoy the fun. So why not have a
different kind of holiday?
Try new themes.
If you live in an area where you have chilly temperatures, go tropical with your
theme or if you have family traditions based on your ethnicity, try another
culture as your theme for everything from cuisine to movie-watching to games
and activities.
Mix it up: Do you
only celebrate Christmas? Try celebrating
Kwanzaa or Hanukkah or simply Winter Solstice with other groups of friends. One
year, I celebrated the HanuKlaus festival where my neighbors whose mixed family
of Hanukkah and Christmas celebrators came together by decorating their lawn
with a Santa wearing a yamaka. They had
a potato cook off in a latke vs. hash brown throw down and created rap songs
doing Karaoke changing lyrics of the 12 days of Christmas with the 8 days of
Hanukkah. It was a blast. There were
even dreidel and Christmas ornament piñatas with red, green and blue
margaritas. Hehe
You get the picture. We’re all going to hell, but we’ll all
be there together, soo…..
One year with my friends, we did Easter egg dying in
December, inspired by the Ukrainian egg tradition. We made ornately decorated eggs just to
switch things up on the tree ornament decorating and then had deviled eggs
afterward. It kept things interesting.
With the date change
-- Look for an event happening later on in the year where you can get time off
and make it a destination to attend as a group – you can make it a weekend, or
a full-day event.
Give. Why not
volunteer as a group for a charity or a shelter to make your holiday experience
more meaningful as a group? Or why not
create a holiday experience for some of the kids at a local children’s
hospital?
Holiday celebrations boarding
travel: Do you have loved ones scattered all over the place? Why not do
bus/train celebrations and pick up new members as you go to a destination?
In sports … Create
teams of holiday boycotters and lone celebrators. Whether its playing softball
or creating bowling teams or your own relay/obstacle courses – create a
competition tradition and have fun with it.
Flash-mob – do some
impromptu choreography and create your own annual tradition while making an
unexpected appearance where others are camping out creating lines waiting for
stores to open. You will entertain them, create happiness, and have fun knowing
you are not participating in their madness.
One-on-one
celebrations: Do you think you know
the people in your circle? Think again. Try one-on-one celebrations with certain
family members or friends rather than group gatherings. Most ‘group’ gatherings limit conversation. Sometimes people keep ‘quiet’ and stick to
shallower/safer topics because other members get agitated. So improve the quality of deeper and more
meaningful and ‘out there’ conversation with one-on-one celebrations like
walk-n-talks/hikes or working on projects, etc.
You’ll be surprised to be with an older relative who will find the ‘kid
within’ doing something silly like finger painting or changing up someone’s
world who has no previous experience talking about or doing something opposite
of how they live day-to-day.
Christmas in July
– Uh, yeah, it is a real thing. There
are parts of the U.S. who celebrate in the summer, carolers, and all.
If you are reading this, and if you have never done any of
the above, you may be skeptical.
Right? I know. I see you traditionalists shaking your head
or carefully chosen finger at me with your rebellious choice of communication.
Hehe
If you or if you have a relative who is in some sort
of service profession, they will nod their head in agreement with me, that not
everyone gets to have the traditional on-the-day holiday celebrations like most
people do.
For workers in airports, police/law enforcement, firefighters, restaurant and hotel industry, public transportation workers, hospitals/health care, convenience markets, gas stations, and the list goes on... you have not always had the traditional-on-the-day celebration.
For workers in airports, police/law enforcement, firefighters, restaurant and hotel industry, public transportation workers, hospitals/health care, convenience markets, gas stations, and the list goes on... you have not always had the traditional-on-the-day celebration.
For so many years, I worked on most major holidays to create
holiday memories for other people doing the work I do. To be honest, other than recalling my early childhood and pre-teen years,
where I did actually have traditional holidays on the actual day, I do not
remember holidays being the way most people normally celebrate them.
Most of my “adult life”” - I have always worked in a service-oriented
profession, so I really don’t know anything else. Even today as a life coach, I always have a
client who may have a sticky-wicket situation to get out of, needing help, so I
plan my holidays a tad differently than most going off the grid at
non-traditional times.
From my early teen years with Meals on Wheels, to later teen
years at Disney (which never closes), to adult life cooking/baking for catering
companies, producing holiday music concerts, plays, major events and productions, to huge charity toy drives for kids or canned
food drive and fundraising non-profit groups/food banks with my PR clients and
more – I did not have holiday celebrations ON THE ACTUAL HOLIDAY. I ended up celebrating early or ‘belated’ holiday
or birthday celebrations and those were just as good if not better.
I would not change that for the world and I have yet to have
a ‘traditional-exact-day-on-the-calendar’ holidays that are status-quo and
stressful. I do not know what that looks
like except for what I see on TV or in movies.
Yes, I am like the real-life version Sandra Bullock’s character Lucy
from “While You Were Sleeping” in that scene where she watches others in their Norman
Rockwell holiday scenes as if she is watching something foreign. Most of what most people do is foreign to me,
in many regards.
Even though many friends like to try to drag me through
their self-imposed ‘chaos’ of complaints, I smile and just say, “Why not try
something else and be Zen through it – enjoy what you have!”
When they realize my place of not having my parents around
for more than half of my life, they usually begin to appreciate where they are
and when I tell them about some of the bizarre wacky things I’ve done, I can
see them wishing they could convince their family to do this as well.
Only, most of them are afraid to ask, suggest, or mention
breaking tradition. I have many coaching clients in this position as well.
Moreover, I get it… there is backlash for the most resistant
of traditionalists. Nevertheless, try it
– just once and see how you feel and do not forget to remember that you are
doing something brave to get out of your comfort zone.
You’re welcome.
Don’t get me wrong, I DO know the ‘crazy hell’ of the ‘worst
case scenario’ – which is why I can smile.
When I was a teen, I had a friend who did all her shopping
on December 24th. What
started out as a ‘let’s meet for breakfast/coffee’ at 8 a.m. did not end until
4 a.m. December 25th.
Yeah, I
got hell from my folks Christmas morning for the state of my zombie being (I
had to work that night back at Disney til 1 a.m. on the 26th). But how could I not be a zombie after I went
with her to four major malls and two grocery stores, then helped her cook and bake
her family potluck dishes? I helped her wrap
her gifts (of course we had to go to a drug store to buy the paper goods to
wrap it all first) and deliver them to several recipients. Since all the mall Santas were gone by then,
we went to Disneyland so she could take photos on the only Santa’s lap
available. Thank goodness, we were
employed there and could sign ourselves in free. Of course, while we were there we
had to squeeze in a traditional Christmas Eve dinner at the Plaza Inn. Then of course see the holiday parade viewing
with the dancing gingerbread men we had seen a gazillion times as employees but
never as guests, cuz YOLO/Carpe Diem – we were insane that way. Then we had to find an all-night copy center
to mass produce the photos to make homemade holiday cards, cut them and
decorate them, calligraphy them, and then learn the hard way that if you have a
headache after all that, you should NEVER take an aspirin with a Coca-Cola in
lieu of water. Hey, I was pure and naïve,
what can I say? I vowed this would never
happen again and it never did.
Anyway…all the while I was grateful to have experienced the bizarre
hell I fondly look back upon for saying I have experienced it. However, to have this as a way of life year
after year… uh, no thank you. Life is
short and there are too many other experiences to have. When you get older and
begin to lose your family, you can look back fondly upon the hell, BUT… that
does not have to hold you prisoner to continue to live it that way. You can honor your lost loved ones in a new way by living new terms they did not get to experience, too.
When I was six years old, my mother had me on massive
cooking and baking duty for holidays. We
would make batches of homemade fudge and one year (the ultimate record) 21
different kinds of cookies. She would
insanely shop and fill her closet full of gifts for ‘unexpected gift-givers’ or
‘random dropping by people’ so no one ever left without something. She never
wanted to be the one to only receive. While
this sounds really sweet, it was a behavioral dysfunction, which she grumbled having to do year after year. She would freak out trying to figure out who would drop by unexpectedly and try to anticipate how many gifts to buy in advance. It was stressful for her to think about and yes, took all the joy out of what it was intended to be.
It took all of my twenties for
me to overcome her 'be prepared' overkill habits, that depleted her vigorous sense of overdoing. I had to later learn how to receive without anxiety and guilt from inability to always be prepared for immediate reciprocation.
What I realized was FREEDOM when I was able to do that. I bet you probably have adopted some behavior from your family traditions which cause stress, anxiety or worry. Trust me when I say that when you face them head on and get rid of them, creating your new terms, you'll feel pretty liberated.
Yeah. Hey, I have
done a lot of personal homework/footwork to ‘undo’ some bizarre holiday hoarding/storage habits. My mother used to buy ugly candles to light
and save the pretty candles for centerpiece decoration, so we never got to
enjoy pretty candles.
When she died, there were all these pretty candles after several decades that
had turned dusty, old, discolored, and were never enjoyed. It was sad.
So I lit them all and said “Sorry Mom, but life is meant to be lived”
after she passed and had my own ceremony of sorts the first Christmas I had without her vowing to not ‘become this.’ I buy pretty soy-based lead-free candles and
light and enjoy them whenever I want as a result creating holidays on random
days at will, “just because.” Every day
can be a holiday at my own choosing.
That’s LIVING to me and in a new way, this honors her, getting rid of old behaviors that do not serve to be purposeful today in my life.
Some 'traditions' were made only to be broken. It does not dishonor, it only breaks old cycles. In essence, it gives you new life and new opportunity to expand your world beyond what you've considered 'the only way' to do things.
My father used to drag out the electric knife to carve whatever feast we were having. Since I am living plant based and do not eat meat and miss that revving sound reminiscent of the holidays, I've replaced it with an electric shredder. Now I have shredding parties - which multitask, get rid of old energy, turn into recycled packing material for those who still ship gifts galore in traditional fashion, and accomplish creating a new tradition to ring in the New Year, getting rid of old documents. It's freeing.
Two years before my father died (which we did not know he
would do), and five years before my mother would end up in an Alzheimer’s
facility, I suggested that instead of gifts for Christmas and birthdays and
holidays – we opt to have ‘experiences’ instead.
There were things we had not done before as a family like
trying a different ethnic cuisine no one else had tried – thus it was a ‘mystery’
for all involved, putting us all on the same page for a unique bonding
experience.
We also had not gone as an entire group to the movies (as
everyone has different tastes of genre).
So we picked a random film that no one had heard reviews about at the
only time slot available for showing. It
was a horrible film, but we all ended up laughing about it…again, putting us
all together in a different setting where we got to learn more about each other. We got to see how others watched the movie
and discuss what was more important – writing, cinematography or plot … a more
in-depth anti-holiday discussion we would not have had, had we not done this.
We even attended a seasonal festival and went to the local
beach in the winter – (why did previous visits only have to be when everyone
else went during summer months?). Silly,
eh? This was particularly silly growing up on the West Coast where there are
holiday decorated boat parades, holiday lights in palm trees and people build
snowmen out of sand. But like anywhere, you always assume there is ‘tomorrow’
to experience things most tourists flock to experience. I am sure there are
many New Yorkers who have never been to the Empire State Building and Seattle
residents who have never visited the Space Needle and people in Arizona who
have never been to the Grand Canyon.
It was so nice to go when there were no crowds and took in
something we wouldn’t have, if we had stuck with doing things the way we always
had done them before or ‘like everyone else did things.’
You get the picture. If
you spend your entire group gatherings only around a meal table, while there is
nothing wrong with this at all–think of what else you can do. You may miss opportunities to experience
other things unless you actually take on the challenge of doing something
opposite of what you normally do.
I don’t regret boycotting commercialism in holidays or the
'same ‘ol' traditions because I was able to experience life on a whole different
level and create moments that may not have been deliberately chosen to do, and live to tell and share.
One day I
do look forward to revisiting tradition, though I no longer eat refined sugar
and I do not believe in cutting down trees for sport or holiday, and gave away all my ornaments... thus perhaps a
new hybrid holiday awaits.
You can do this, too.
You just may save yourself some stress and meanwhile you may create something
completely unexpected to cherish for years to come.
Create a new link for your holiday traditions and you just
may rediscover the real meaning of what those precious moments can become.
Namaste.
