Holiday Triggers

We're getting down to crunch time with only 7 days to go until Christmas. Alas, my home is bursting at the seams and more to come and I'm still not comfortably ready. At some point, I suppose, a gal just goes with what she's got and tries to make the jolliest of things. This is the time, however, when I start to get triggered. No matter how hard I work to fight off that ancient, subconscious "baggage"--it has a way of snapping open and spilling out its innards right around the winter solstice.

Some of it is that I just get tired--yesterday afternoon after work I stood in line at the grocery store for nearly a half-hour--twenty minutes just to get through a long single line to get in line at a check-out counter (this was after 45 minutes of shopping.) The store was crowded to bursting with people who had been shut in because of the weather and who were trying to get their holiday shopping done before another storm hit. I was right there among them as I knew I was going to have a house full again and the cupboards had been stripped this past weekend by the kids and their friends. I lugged home my five big, canvass shopping bags on the bus, steadying myself as I got off and had to walk the block on icy sidewalks to my townhouse. Fortunately, Stuart was there to help put everything away and as soon as we did that, we immediately started dinner--enough to feed the eventually 5 young adults and myself that were in residence last night.

I feel myself start to get a little blue and I know I am in great company--I've heard so many people confess to the same. For me, there is a history of rugged holidays to work against: first, my childhood holidays that always felt precarious, gloomy and stressful; then the holidays of my twenties and early thirties when I had young children and learned how to handle just about everything from putting up the outside lights to shopping to cards to menu planning and cooking on my own; then a few holidays when my kids went to their dad's and I either tried to spend a disorienting day meeting someone else's expectations or learning how to move through the days alone. In so many ways, I have worked to focus on the appreciation and little joys of the season but there are still those triggers that seem to catch me off guard as the month draws to a close.

It is not the end of the world, however. I go for long walks, tidy the house yet again to keep it from feeling overwhelmingly disoriented with all the activity, try to take the days in stride and stay in the moment, and give myself permission to be human. It is hard NOT to focus on what feels "off" during these final days of another holiday season but I work at it--my task list remains long, I know my kids are depending on me to make another pleasant, cozy, homey holiday for them, I know that I still have to work and that there just won't be the money to do everything I would like to but at this point in the "festivities" the goal becomes to get through it and try not to give in to all those triggers.