I had an interesting discussion with one of my daughter’s boyfriends the other day. I’ve known him for years and we often commiserate about the issues of dealing with my family. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family…but you know how you have to let off steam sometimes. Especially to somebody who understands and won’t judge you for exposing the little irritations that exist. It was one of those discussions. 

So there we were, talking about all the things going on and he said “She always says that Christmas is her favorite time of year…but she’s such a pain in the butt during the holidays. She’s so stressed and a total bear”. OK, he didn’t actually say “bear”, but this is a family blog…so fill in the B* word yourself. 

After he left, I got to thinking about Christmastime and all the conflicting feelings I have during this season. In a lot of ways I repeat the same pattern several times a year, but this is the first time I recognized it. Honestly, the start of the school year, Christmas, the dawn of the new year, and the onset of summer are all essentially the same. 

• I start off energized 
• I do the planning and prepping 
• I give myself the pep talk…”this time I’m going to do things right”
• I get started 
• Things go well 
• I stumble but get reset with a bit of willpower 
• I revise my end-goal a tiny bit 
• I stumble again and it takes more effort to get back on the path 
• I revise my end-goal a bit more 
• Stumble again and I’m out in the weeds but make it back to the path with a Herculean effort 
• I decide to reset my goal to something more reasonable  
• I stumble away from the path and can’t find my way back 
• I lose all motivation for the original goal 
• I give up on this goal 
• I tell myself “Life Happens” 
• I try not to beat myself up too much for failing 
• I look ahead to the next opportunity to set a goal and achieve it 
• and I jump into the same cycle all over again! 

Does any of that sound familiar?  

As I’m writing this, I’ve just followed this pattern twice since Halloween. I set out some goals to complete holiday stuff very early this year. I was going to have the family work together to decorate our Christmas trees two days after Thanksgiving so we’d be able to enjoy the trees throughout all of December. I was going to have all the presents bought and wrapped. There wasn’t going to be any rushed shipping. We were going to decorate Christmas cookies in a relaxed and sane environment. 

Apparently I also planned for Unicorns to do a choreographed dance on the front lawn. 

Honestly, I don’t remember…because nothing has worked out as planned! 

With 8 days until Christmas, I’m still way behind on presents. The tree is up with lights…but no ornaments are on it. We’ve now agreed to host a family party for somewhere between 40-100 guests. We won’t know how many are attending…so I have to wing it entirely. The house is a mess. I own all the components for making Christmas cookies…but we don’t have time to make them. 

And I’m grumpy because “Life Happened” and I’ve failed again. 

Yup, I’m wallowing in the negative self-talk and it stinks. 

So here’s the thing…I know I’m not alone. And you should know you’re not alone. This is a problem for all of us. Maybe you don’t have it quite as bad as I do. Or maybe you’ve got a super-sized version. But either way, like they say in High School Musical, we’re all in this together. 

I’m going to be digging deeper into the problem itself and some solutions, so if you’d like to read more, come back and join me on the journey. 

In the meantime, don’t be too hard on yourself. None of us are perfect, yet we set these expectations for ourselves that are far above what any normal person can achieve. Then we beat ourselves up when we don’t excel. It’s time to stop doing that! 

So sit back and think about some of the good stuff in life. Recognize that you’re not going to fix this in a day, so get ready to take a journey. But also know that this is doable and little by little you can make life better!