Every year, the holiday season arrives with a wrapped gift, the gift being Mariah Carey’s defrost and her infamous “it’s time” riff. While her joyful defrost continues with a variety of Christmas songs, others are experiencing a not so similar defrost. Rather than singing Christmas classics for a living, these people are experiencing the annual, what I like to call: “Holiday Humbug Sentiments,” which consists of stress, stress and stress.
As far as anyone can remember, the holidays have always been unequivocally stress-inducing. There is always the chaos of trying to pick out the right gift for the right person. You never want to give a gift that says “too much” or “too little,” especially when it is for that certain someone, if you know what I mean. Once you have finally purchased all of your gifts and the flood of relief rushes over you, you then remember that one cousin who is coming into town: the one you forget to get a gift for. Then, the joyful stress of gift-giving starts one more time and it is not until Dec. 26 that this gift-giving epidemic ends.
Now that you have all your gifts acquired, it is time to venture into the social circus of hanging out with family and friends you see once a year. Family gatherings are packed with people who you love, but can be so irksome that you want to put your hand in a toaster. But before this lovely crisis begins, you have to rehearse polite lines to avoid any awkward predicaments. The usuals are as follows: “Yes, school is going well. I’m doing fine, thank you. No, I’m not dating anyone. Yes, Aunt Joyce, I am eating my fruits and vegetables.” As predictable as these conversations may seem, one of them always ends up going south. While every family member in existence is trying to talk to you, there is the pressure of making everything perfect: tree, food, house, cleaning, photos for the scrapbook, just so you make it the most wonderful time of the year.
Oddly enough, as much as this seems like misery, we crave it. We crave the stress of the holidays. The stress is not a sign that the holidays are crumbling at the seams, rather it is a sign that we, as a society, are still desperately trying to preserve the holiday spirit. The stress of the holidays that seem to roam around us constantly only sprouts from our devotion. Why would we panic if we did not care so much about getting the right gift and making the crowded extravaganzas better than last year’s if we did not yearn to make the holiday season special? Eliminating the holiday stress is undoubtedly impossible. The real trick to the disorderly festivities is understanding that the holidays are beyond the frantic never-ending to-do lists. The immense joy that hides in the shadow of the holidays is what we should never lose sight of.
