The holidays can be hard. We spend so much of our year building up to this magical season and trying to find ways to make it great for our kids. We want things to feel as magical as they did when we were younger. Or if the holidays weren’t magical for us, we want to make them magical for our kids. But sometimes the onrush of holidays makes our minds go blank.
What does your son want for Christmas? What does he need? What’s the plan for Thanksgiving this year? Are you bringing something for the in-laws? Did you get tickets to that show? Are you taking the kids to see Santa? When are we going to have our Christmas? Will you be with his family or ours this year?
I don’t know about you, but the holidays feel more exhausting than exhilarating as an adult. The questions pile up in my mind, and it simply goes blank. I sometimes wish I could hold up a 404 Error sign when people ask me about my plans or gifts or anything else.
There’s a comic I like to reread every so often that talks about the mental load. Researchers define the mental load as “the behind-the-scenes, cognitive and emotional work needed to manage a household.” For better or worse, the mental load is “invisible, without boundaries, and never-ending,” primarily because it involves taking care of other people. Now, without arguing about who deals with the mental load more or less in a relationship, I just want to say the holidays tend to put added burdens on an already overwhelming mental load.
As a parent, I keep a running list of the things I need to do around the house or for/with my kids. There are always chores to do, homework to help with, food to prepare, and appointments or extracurriculars to manage. I’m sure you could add to this list, too. And for most parents I know, we’re busy and trying to make sure we keep up with all the things without dropping too many of those spinning plates we’re balancing.
Then school starts back in the fall, and we pick up a few plates. October rolls around, and suddenly we’re thrust into the holiday season. The kids are excited for the different events, get-togethers, parties, and other activities they’ll do, but the parents? We’re adding to the mental load with each thing we have to tick off our lists.
Did we buy presents for everyone? When does that free visit with Santa end? Where did we see the good Christmas lights last year? Have we planned ahead for Thanksgiving? Do we know where and when we’ll visit with family? What’s grandma’s best sweet potato pie recipe again?
It’s not just about managing our kids’ experiences, though. It’s about coordinating with family for events, dinners, gifts, and more. It’s about decorations we drag out and put up and traditions we instill for years. The mental load grows through the holiday season until we hit that inevitable moment; for me, it’s sometime right after the New Year, when we can finally take a breath.
I don’t have a solution for managing the holidays without adding to the mental load.
More than ever, the holidays are when we want to spend more time with our families and remind them of our love, and we choose to add these things to our list as a means of creating magical moments. And that’s not a bad thing. I just want to spend even a fraction of our time admitting how the holidays can be draining, how the mental load increases, and how sometimes it just is what it is.
I don’t think it’s necessary to do all the things, and in any case, there’s not enough time in the season to hit all the different Thanksgiving and Christmas events I might like to. Magic with the family can come from simple moments and cherished traditions as much as from the places we visit and the times we stand in line waiting for something we’ve paid for. But it’s nice to acknowledge the added burden of making these things happen, even if it’s just to ourselves.
So if you’re struggling with the holidays this year, if your mind has gone blank when someone asks what present to get the kids, if you’ve wanted to crawl under a blanket and vegetate till January 2nd, I hope you hear this: I see you, the mental load is real, and you’re not the only one. Let’s grab a cup of our favorite fall beverage and raise a glass to the increased mental load, and maybe take an hour or two to vegetate in the midst of a hectic season.
