Post Christmas Burnout : The Invisible Labor of Mrs. Claus

Christmas is ruined for me. Year after year, I spend countless hours trying to do it right, only to disappoint people and to leave myself exhausted in the process. December becomes progressively more and more stressful, and toward the end, the stress compounds hourly.

Expectations flood in from every side. Traditions demand to be kept. The kids want all the things that have ever been done in the past. Any one thing I can associate with happy memories and think, ‘no, we can’t get rid of that’. But all together, there are many straws breaking the camel’s back. By late December I can’t breathe. I can’t sleep. Hours after opening presents, I am hit with a massive cold or some other virus. My body just gives out.

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I like to sing Christmas carols. But many are bittersweet since my faith transition. Listening to Christmas music I sometimes wonder if it is worth passing on to my children. The lyrics of many songs are old fashioned and even weird. We play them almost daily, until we are sick of them. We play them when we wash dishes, and when we drive around looking at Christmas lights. We sing them, some children competing with others. One daughter is always racing through the 12 days of Christmas, to finish the verse before everyone else (no matter that I remind her the song is not meant to be sung as a round).

The kids always want to make treats. Especially at Christmastime. But it ends up being multiple times a week they need some supervision baking, and I am always the ingredient brain. I must know everything in the house at all times, even if someone else uses things up. And I must run out and buy anything they need. They want to make sugar cookies (the dessert from hell), the dough inevitably sticks everywhere and the shapes never look like they are supposed to. Then you ALSO have to make frosting and decorate them. They always look like someone finger painted with sugar. Then I am almost apologetic when the kids take plates to the neighbors. I myself gave up neighbor gifts a few years ago, trying to carve out sanity for myself.

The lights must be hung outside, off the edge of the roof. Even though my husband fell off the roof one year and broke his foot. Since then he sends the kids up there to do it, and my heart stops. The secondhand fake tree gets pulled out from the garage and all the old mismatched ornaments are hung. There is always at least one string of lights that doesn’t work, and hours are spent trying to find out which bulb went out and spoiled the whole string. Some kids want to cut snowflakes, some kids want to print Christmas pictures and color them or make Christmas crafts or ornaments for the tree. Some kids want to make gifts for their teachers.

Service opportunities abound at Christmastime, and there is a lot of pressure to remember the “true meaning of Christmas”. We contribute to the school food drive, and sometimes give ‘Angel tree’ gifts. We shovel walks for neighbors. We do secret service.

Christmas stories are pulled out of the box, and we retell old favorites. Many old copies of the nativity story are laid out alongside the toy nativity set. It is weird remembering how central this used to be to Christmas for me. I don’t always know how it fits now after my faith transition, but there it is. My grandfather was in town from thousands of miles away and he read to my children the nativity story from an anthology on our shelf.

This year instead of acting out the nativity, as I always did as a child, and my children used to do, the kids did a play of “The Grinch”. Perhaps a new tradition? But it made them happy to have us sit and watch them, and while they were preparing it bought us an hour to wrap.

Perhaps the most overwhelming of expectations I feel each December is the expectation of gifts. We are always on a limited budget and I want the kids to be surprised and happy on Christmas morning. It is so difficult to stretch my budget and find something each of them will love. At our house we do stockings full of small gifts (often things the kids need), and big gifts under the tree for every child, keeping in mind the likes and dislikes of each. I agonize over which gifts I am willing to bring into my home, knowing it will cost money AND clutter my living space. I have to balance that with the potential joy quotient of each gift for each child. Sometimes I hit the mark. Sometimes they end up disappointed.

Family obligations at Christmastime can be a big dinner, a party, a gift exchange, etc. I opted out of the family gift exchange last year and it made a lot of people grumpy. It disappointed people. My own daughter suddenly and unexpectedly left home last month, and we barely saw her over Christmas. Now I feel the weight of separation and the unmet expectation of family togetherness.

It’s funny how culturally, we have all these expectations coming at us from every side. Women especially feel like they are responsible to do all the things. Whenever we try to set boundaries or let things go, it has a steep cost because it disappoints people who want our free labor. Who expect and feel entitled to it.

I collapse after Christmas. This year hours after presents were opened, I felt a huge sore throat coming on. My sister’s family of 9 was over, and I was feeding them dinner. They didn’t stay late. I went to bed at the earliest possibility and am still fighting something. It doesn’t help that 2 of my children have birthdays in the week after Christmas. And I am also the birthday elf. I have started delegating some of the birthday magic, but I am already so empty, it doesn’t feel like its helps.

Every year I tell myself “Next year will be different!” I want to escape. I don’t want responsibility for any of the things. But by the time December rolls around again, I realize I am too weak to disappoint everyone so completely. And I become the Christmas martyr all over again. I hate it. I feel like a Grinch, like my heart is several sizes too small. But I am not coward enough to steal everyone’s Christmas and dump it from the top of a mountain. I don’t have enough faith in my family that they will still sing with joy when ‘no Christmas is coming’.

I wish Santa Claus would really come and magically fill everyone’s wish list. I would like to have a present under the tree for me. I would like someone else to take over all the things and make Christmas magical. I have used up all my magic. I just want to fly away and read on a beach for a week. Preferably on a hammock in the shade. With no kids, no husband, no relatives, and no expectations. Why do I feel such mixed feelings? Loving most of the things individually, but hating them all together.

Have you managed to reclaim Christmas? Found a way to fill your bucket and make it joyous? Have you disappointed a lot of people to save yourself? Tell me your secrets, sisters.