IT’S that time of year – everyone is switching on their festive cheer, you can’t walk into a shop without hearing Michael Bublé, supermarkets have stockpiled legs of ham (I’m not complaining about that BTW). Christmas!
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Every single year I’ve rejoiced in the festive season.
I’ve bought Christmas-themed earrings, wrapped my dog in tinsel, memorised all the lyrics to All I Want for Christmas Is You. But this year, I want to skip the whole thing.
It happened by accident. I found myself rolling my eyes when I walked into the shops and Happy Holiday was playing.
“That was weird,” I thought. “I freakin love Christmas.”
Same thing again, I shocked myself at my disdain of seeing a Christmas tree in Kmart. “Already?!”
And I did feel somewhat guilty when my friend bragged she’d done all her Christmas shopping already and all I could do was clench my jaw, nod, smile and refrain from yelling “no one cares!”
The first qualm I have with Christmas: I’ve decided its timing is epically off. Nearing the end of the year, some of us might have three weeks of holidays coming up (*cough, cough* me) which means you had to sell your soul for the last six months of the year to get some annual leave up.
The month leading into Christmas you’re exhausted, you haven’t seen daylight since November and the dark circles under your eyes have become a permanent fixture of your face. Your family would be LUCKY if you get up before 9am on Christmas morning because you’re so sleep deprived. Even if there was a puppy under the tree! OK, I’d get up for the puppy TBH.
Not to mention you get 10 more points of bonus anxiety if you look after/are a young adult in your house: exams, finishing school, Schoolies – Merry Stress-mas!
Secondly, there’s too much pressure. Every single year I watch my mum freak out over whether we have enough food or whether my grandmother will like her presents, or whether she evenly distributed gifts between myself and my only sibling.
God forbid if my sister got one more than me! Jokes. Kind of. Seriously, Christmas lunch will be great even if you get the cheap bon-bons – take a chill pill.
Thirdly, more pressure! In the way of gift buying for the significant people in your life. I love you guys, but I don’t know what you want any more and I’m done.
I wrack my brain every year trying to think of the most thoughtful gift, replaying conversations from July hoping that my sister dropped some kind of hint of what she wanted, but buying her bath salts anyway because she loves bath salts, right?! Everyone loves bath salts.
The month leading into Christmas you’re exhausted, you haven’t seen daylight since November and the dark circles under your eyes have become a permanent fixture of your face.
Christmas stress sounds pretty normal. You might even be experiencing some premature Christmas stress right now.
But have you ever heard of a “Merry Christmas Coronary” or a “Happy New Year Heart Attack”?
Yep, real-life Christmas stress was studied by real-life professors in a real-life laboratory. Robert A. Kloner’s study found that cardiac deaths during the holidays might result from “the emotional stress of the holidays, overindulgence during the holiday season, or both”.
In layman’s terms, you’re shoving too many fruit minced pies in your face or you’re seriously wigging out at the thought of waking up Christmas morning with your in-laws.
One year, my family kind of did decide to skip Christmas.
We still had a nice lunch, but no present was exchanged on Christmas Day. It was still a perfectly acceptable Christmas. Just with less scented candles and ties and no garbage bin filled with Christmas paper at the end of the day.
The point is, Christmas doesn’t need to be OTT and fancy and elaborate. I think we feel (especially women, and especially mothers) responsible for making sure Christmas is the best day ever.
We need to take the pressure off finding the perfect gift, being the perfect conversationalist at social events and just enjoy the time of year where you see your friends and family. And hope to God they enjoy unwrapping their bath salts.
Riley-Rose Harper can be heard on Hit 104.9 from 6-9am on weekdays.