Why is Christmas so Overwhelming?!
Welcome to episode the Mumstoppable blog! This week I am in FULL BLOWN Christmas mode, as I ask “why is Christmas so overwhelming?”
But before we get into that, yes, that means I’m currently sat writing this post in a Christmas jumper. I have tinsel on my desk, I have Christmas lights on my laptop, and the dog is wandering around somewhere in disgust that I’ve put a Christmas jumper on him too. Anyway, if you're here to listen to the podcast episode of the same topic - catch it here:
Along with all the glitter and sparkle of Christmas, comes a load of other BS like:
Dealing with expectations (from others and ourselves)
Planning what gifts to give (and buying and wrapping them)
Making sure the kids have things to do over the school holidays
Finishing up work, for those of us lucky enough to be able to take time off
Sorting Christmas food shopping
Meal planning
Endless amounts of food prep
Elf on the sodding shelf (see last week’s post for more on that one)
Having relatives over throughout the holidays
AND/OR going to visit numerous relatives
The argument about where to spend Christmas each year - be it with your family or your partner’s
All the school stuff, from nativities to carol services, to sorting raffle prizes, to Christmas Fayres to cake sales to sorting teacher’s gifts
Christmas cards!
I could go on, and on, and on…. But you get the picture. And I realise you may not relate to every item on that list, by the way, but my guess is you do relate to most of them, and you probably have a few more to add to the list too!
The fact is, there is SO much going on during the holidays, and for mums the list is so long that it just becomes impossible to get through it unscathed.
Last week, in our warm-up to Christmas, we talked about a strategy to beating The Juggle, and during coaching corner I talked you through 7 steps which, if you’ve worked through them this week, will hopefully have set you up to beating overwhelm by accepting that WE CAN DO ANYTHING, BUT NOT EVERYTHING. And working to scrap a lot of the things on our lists, before working through whatever was left.
If you haven't yet listened to last week's episode, this is your cue to pause here and go read that blog entry. It’s called The Juggle is Real and it will set you up with some good foundations as we move ever close to Christmas week…
Right, back to this week. When I was thinking through what I was going to write about this week, I got a bit overwhelmed myself, to be honest. Because I have SO many tools that I want to share with you all, a lot of which can be really useful over the holidays. So, I decided to take a step back and look at the research…
I’m going to be quoting Peanut AGAIN this week, because their “The State of Invisibility” report is just full of golden nuggets of information about how UK mums are feeling. So I was absolutely spoilt for choice with my stat of the week again, but I have gone with this beauty:
As if that’s not shocking enough, when asked further about expectations of things like family labour (which contribute to this idea of self-sacrifice and invisibility), UK mums are saying the pressure is coming from a lot of different angles from family and friendship circles, to strangers and neighbours.
For some context, this report was published in September of this year (2023), so I can only imagine what the result would be if they were to repeat this study around this time of year… Can you actually imagine!?
One absolutely brilliant (albeit amped up) example of how Christmas makes us mums feel (at least for me) is the movie “Bad Moms Christmas”...... now hear me out. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, BUT I do think it brilliantly illustrates just how much we all feel like we need to be constantly self-sacrificing, as well as showing that these expectations often come from those closest to us - our families and close friends, as well as society at large. And in fact, we can’t bloody win, can we?!
I’m going to do my usual self-indulgent piece now and tell you a few stories to further illustrate the point. So are you sitting comfortably, Mamas? Good… then we’ll begin.
Now as a caveat, I joke about my husband a lot in these podcasts, but in reality he is brilliant and supportive and also takes all my digs at him on the chin, so further props there.
And with that, let’s talk about cleaning for Christmas… To be totally clear, cleaning is probably my least favourite thing to do. Ever. Like, I would rather spend an hour sticking pins into my eyelids than clean. Add to this, we live basically on a farm and have 2 boys, a dog, 2 cats and a load of other animals. So our house is extremely…. Well lived in. Often there will be balls of dog hair wafting around, the lounge carpet is often littered with bird seed where my son’s cockatiels have just chucked it everywhere whilst wolf whistling, and the hallway is always, always covered in mud.
The exception generally being when we are expecting guests, as the thought of being judged is what will motivate me to actually clean up. However, whenever I have mentioned this to my husband, he just does. Not. Get it. Because he has never felt the judgement. So he thinks I’m just being an idiot about it.
However, there have been COUNTLESS times over the years where I have been judged quite openly by people mentioned in the intro to this podcast - from family and friends to neighbours and strangers. And they’ve ranged from “well meaning” comments offering to help me find a cleaner, to comments like “well I can tell you focus on spending time with your kids rather than cleaning”.
I get that these comments are likely coming from a good place, but I could just do without them to be honest! And what annoys me the most is - the judgement and comments are ALWAYS aimed at me. Never at my husband. Me. Despite the fact we both work full time.
Now, related to this whole thing around cleaning is a BEAUTIFUL example of invisible load, and that is… when I ask for help (which I do now, because at the ripe old age of nearly 40, I’ve realised life is too short and we should just ask for help), I am met with “right, what do you want me to do”. This EXACT example happened at the weekend, when by some miracle I actually felt like cleaning the house (and it’s great timing given we are expecting visitors over Christmas), and so got my husband and the kids involved by asking for help. But being met with “right, what do you want me to do”, actually adds even more stress, because at this point I am clearly being seen to be the household cleaning manager, and am expected to keep a mental list of all the jobs that need doing around the house so that I can delegate them. When in fact what I would like is for my family to NOTICE what needs doing, and do it. Just like I have to.
Now, again I totally appreciate that a lot of mums may not have husbands or kids that even ask the question, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but also… I absolutely know I am not alone in this, as I’ve had so many conversations about similar things where mums crave some help or support, and are met with “well tell me what you want me to do”.
Over Christmas for a lot of mums this ranges from sorting presents for the kids, to organising family visits, to playdates, to Christmas activities, to the various dishes at Christmas dinner.
And that leads me BEAUTIFULLY to our quote of the week - which is this…
Because, I really think we forget this point as often we are so busy trying to do ALL THE THINGS, and making Christmas as magical as we can for everyone else, that we forget that it’s our Christmas too!! We deserve as magical a Christmas as everyone else, Mamas! And this year we are going to realise this, because to quote Bad Moms, we are taking Christmas back!!
And to do that, we need to visit #coaching corner:
Right, here we are again, Mamas! Back where the magic happens - welcome to Carly’s Coaching Corner.
This week we’ve continued our topic of juggling all the things, and specifically we’ve honed in on looking at why Christmas is overwhelming for mums. As I mentioned previously, there are SO MANY tools I want to take you through which could help here, but I’ve picked one and I’m ready to talk you through it.
So last week we talked about prioritisation, and part of that was looking at which tasks you can delegate to others to help with. However, as we’ve seen in the example of cleaning in the Mumstoppable house, this doesn’t always work completely as intended… So we’re going to work on BOUNDARIES in this week’s coaching corner.
I absolutely LOVE this one, as it is SO useful in so many contexts. For example we can use boundaries when talking about how the house is going to get cleaned over the festive period. We can use it when one of our friends or neighbours expects us to drop off and pick up all the kids from football practice, because that’s always what’s happened before. We can even use it when talking to our partner or family members about where we are spending Christmas this year.
The first thing to note with boundaries is, IT’S OKAY TO MOVE YOUR BOUNDARIES! Or even set boundaries up where they haven’t previously existed. Setting boundaries can be really freaking scary and hard - especially when we’ve been used to self-sacrificing for so long. But, let’s remember IT’S OUR CHRISTMAS TOO, Mamas. And this year, WE ARE TAKING CHRISTMAS BACK. Setting boundaries is healthy. It’s self-preservation and it’s going to mean we are happier mums who are therefore better able to take care of our kids (as well as enjoy Christmas to the max).
Now, for our first example I’m going to assume this is a boundary that hasn’t existed previously. Let’s say every year you spend your Christmas going from your parents’ house to your partner’s parents’ house (Four Christmases style) and you feel like you and your family are SO busy running around to visit relatives that you don’t have a chance to enjoy Christmas yourselves. (This again is a common one that I hear from my clients a lot). The issue here is that a precedent has been set in that, this is just how we do Christmas. But not anymore.
The first step to setting this boundary is to ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT’S HAPPENED UP UNTIL NOW. This might sound like this “Mum, I know in the past we’ve always come to you on Christmas morning…”
STATE YOUR NEW BOUNDARY like this “...but this doesn’t work for us anymore because the kids don’t get to enjoy Christmas in their own home, and having to travel stresses out the whole family when we should be enjoying Christmas. So from now on we are going to spend Christmas morning at home unwrapping gifts”
SUGGEST AN ALTERNATIVE if you want to, to keep your relationship in a positive place. This might sound like this “...However we would still love to see you over Christmas, so you are welcome to come to us on Boxing Day if you’d like that?”
Can you hear how that might work? Now, of course this may not end smoothly depending on the sensitivity of the situation, but in this example you’ve clearly communicated what the issue is and why, and you’ve given an alternative solution. So this opens the door to wider conversations about solutions where you both get what you want, and you’ve managed to set a new boundary! YAY!
Let’s look at another example though, as we don’t always need to go full 3-step into setting boundaries. For example, let’s say every year your school PTA has asked you to host the mince pie stand at the Christmas Fayre, and you’ve always said yes despite not wanting to… We would handle this one slightly differently as follows:
First we again ACKNOWLEDGE the ask like this “Thanks so much for asking me to help on the mince pie stand this year…
But now, all we need to do is STATE OUR BOUNDARY like this “...unfortunately I can’t do it this year”. The key here is you do not need to apologise and you DO NOT need to offer excuses.
Only add this step if you feel you want to - otherwise leave it at the above, but you could again SUGGEST A WAY FORWARDS, for example “...let me have a think about anyone else I know who might be able to help” or “...but feel free to ask me again next year” (only say this if you DO actually want to help next year!)
Can you hear the difference between those two examples? Now we have one final example to talk through. This is where you’re setting a “no” boundary for someone not particularly close to you. For example, a neighbour invites you to a party at their house over Christmas, which you just don’t want to go to.
This solution is simple… JUST SAY NO THANK YOU! There is absolutely no need to make up excuses (and to be honest that’s often what gets us into trouble) and there is no need to prolong the awkwardness. Just say no thank you and move on!
And congratulations, because just like that, Mama, you’ve TAKEN BACK CHRISTMAS! Woop!
COACHING CHALLENGE
And that leaves me with one final thing for today’s episode…. Setting your coaching challenge for the week! This is such a gorgeous one, which I am actually going to commit to doing with you this week. This challenge is about breaking free from invisibility AND setting boundaries in one. It’s about finding your voice, and the confidence to JUST SAY NO.
So, here we go. At some point this week, I want you to find a quiet, private space where you can be uninterrupted for 5 minutes. BUT it needs to be somewhere you are comfortable being LOUD.
When you’re ready I want you to start by whispering “no” as quietly as you can. Then whisper it a little louder, and keep increasing in volume gradually until you are literally SCREAMING NO! at the top of your voice.
Notice how it feels to say NO! confidently and loudly! Does it feel scary? Does it feel good? Maybe it feels uncomfortable? Or maybe it feels magical! However it feels, embrace it.
Now, once you’ve got to the loudest NO! I want you to carry on but decreasing in volume, back down to a whisper. Do you feel the difference? Which extreme do you prefer?
Finally, go back up from a whisper and FIND YOUR VOICE! Keep getting louder until you find a volume and level you are comfortable with saying NO at. I want it to be a volume where you sounds and feel confident and self-assured.
Once you’ve done that, I want you to practise a few times and then go out into the world and say NO for real at some point this week. (See, I told you this was a fun one!)
And that, Mamas, is it for today!
Next time I write to you, Christmas day will be upon us - yikes! But it’s okay, because we have totally got this, Mamas.
And as a Christmas gift from me to you, next week’s Podcast episode is going to be a bit more chilled and will include a gorgeous and relaxing meditation/visualisation (I’ve not decided which yet!) for you all as we round out the year by being thankful.
That brings us to the end of this week’s blog! Thank you once again for joining me, and well done for spending the last 30 mins doing something just for you!
Enjoy working through this week’s coaching corner tips, and as always, I would LOVE to hear how you’re getting on with the coaching challenge, so please feel free to send me a quick email at [email protected] or find me on Instagram at @mumstoppable_ and send me a DM or leave a comment on one of my posts.
You will also be able to find reminders of the coaching corner tips and details of the coaching challenge on Instagram towards the end of the week.
Over the coming weeks I’ll be talking to you about challenges facing mums ranging from feeling lost and like you don’t know who you are anymore, to surviving overwhelm as a mum, to motherhood and the strains that puts on your relationships, to the struggle of returning to work. Please also feel free to email me with any challenges you’re facing which you’d like me to cover off on upcoming sessions.
If you’ve liked what you’ve read today, please do sign up to my newsletter by heading over to mumstoppable.com. By signing up, you’re guaranteeing you’ll never miss a blog post (or Podcast episode!) as they will land directly in your inbox every Monday morning.
For now, though, have an awesome week, and remember:
I see you, Mama.
You’ve got this.
You are Mumstoppable!
