There are holidays all year long, but when someone says, “I dread the holidays,” they generally mean that stretch of holidays from Halloween to New Year’s Eve (or perhaps Valentine’s Day). It’s easy to see why. Several holidays packed in cheek to jowl, dark days, slippery streets, many social expectations, too much food — it can seem overwhelming.
But it doesn’t have to be! The holidays are meant to a source of joy and connection, not a burden or yet another rat’s race of accomplishments. Here are a few life hacks I’ve developed over the years to keep the joy and connection, with a minimum of burden. I’d love to hear yours!
- Celebrate Greenwich Mean New Year. That falls at 6 pm here in Iowa, with adjustments for your time zone. We gather with friends around 5:30 to nibble and sip, toast in the New Year at 6 pm, and retire to the dining room for a long, leisurely dinner of Mongolian hot pot, homemade bread, chocolate charlotte, and lots and lots of conversation. We finish up around 9:30 or 10, the guests amble home reasonably sober and ahead of the drunks, and we get most of the clean up done before we go to bed.
- Consider making holiday candy, instead of holiday cookies. Much easier, and their novelty will earn you kudos. Melt chocolate chips in the microwave or in a double boiler, and have fun. Dip dried apricots, dates, or orange slices. Mix with raisins, pecans, or rice crispies. Mix one to one with melted butterscotch chips and make patties or a sheet which you cut up. Lots more possibilities! Using wax paper or baking parchment to lay the candies out makes it easy, too.
- Candles. Lots of reasons to have some candles this time of year. It might be an Advent wreath or a menorah, or any of several festivals of light, but candles help.
- If you have secular family or are yourself, consider celebrating the solstice. Tall Daughter and Son expressed their skepticism early on and Tall Papa is apatheist, so we observe the solstices and equinoxes. Our observance is simple but yours can be as fancy as you like!
- If you are bereaved or have painful associations with the holidays, don’t feel obliged to be merry and bright. Feelings are feelings, and don’t change just because we wish they would go away. Some alternatives that may be inviting or soothing: the Blue Christmas service some churches offer, volunteering at an animal shelter to cuddle the animals waiting for homes, volunteering at a hospital to cuddle babies, or binging on a humane series, like Call The Midwife.
- Family can be a gift or a curse. If yours is a gift, cherish and enjoy them. If they are somewhere else on the spectrum, decide what is wholesome for you and them, and then do it. It might mean limiting the holiday visit to one day or several hours. It might mean skipping a holiday visit altogether. “Love your neighbor as yourself” includes loving yourself.
- Madison Avenue wants you to believe this is all about how much loot you give or get. They lie. Gift giving can be the most burdensome part of the holidays. Take a bit of time to reflect on what you would ideally like that aspect of the holidays to be, and see what steps you can take toward it.
- Cloth makes great gift wrapping. I discovered this by accident when I hadn’t had time to wrap my daughter’s birthday presents and resorted to pillow cases. Now it’s quite intentional: some festive remnant fabrics and some fabric glue, and I have a stack of gift bags in various sizes that are reused over and over again. For small items, cloth napkins are fine.
What have you found that makes the holidays more fun?