Holiday Stress and Why You Don’t Need It, Featuring a Beer Drinking Baby

“Jen, if this needle goes past here, you’re fired.  Does that make you feel stressed at all?  Does it?  Jen? Are you sure?  Jen?  Does it?  Are you sure?  Are you sure?  Are you sure?” – IT Crowd

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Playing triangle in a band is something a Jamaican won’t do, mon.  It stresses them out to be responsible for every ting.

There is a love/hate relationship with the Holidays.  By the Holidays, I really mean Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve – and not any of the other 107 holidays in November or 69 holidays in December our crack Wilder research team was able to find with one Google® search.  There are (really) days like National Cookie Day on December 4, International Ninja Day on December 5, and National Salesperson Day on December 13.  National Salesperson Day?  I’m not buying that one.

One reason we love the Holidays is how we looked forward to them when we were kids.  The Holidays meant, at the minimum, time off from school.  In the American Dream Household®, there was time for snowmen, sledding, and mugs of hot chocolate while we sang Christmas carols for our neighbors.  On top of all of that, there was the smell of turkey on Thanksgiving, the tantalizing secrets of the wrapped mysteries under the Christmas tree, and the miracle of pulling Uncle Vern’s finger.

Okay, our neighbors had concertina wire and watch towers, so we couldn’t get within a quarter mile of their houses without the password.  I’m sure we would have belted out a few Christmas carols if they hadn’t fired those warning shots.

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I did accomplish one thing last Christmas.  I won the Netflix® marathon.

As I got older, the hate part of the Holidays begins to show up:  stress from bills, stress from dealing with corporate Christmas parties, stress from having to decide which sets of parents get which visits on which days, stress from having to deal with relatives that you’d rather never see again, and stress from hiding the bodies of those relatives you will never see again.

Some people get hit so badly with this stress that they actually panic.  And panic can be a serious mental illness, not carefree and happy go lucky like the ones I have.  But I gave up on being upset at Christmas years ago.

I’ve learned the secret:  I don’t care.

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I will say, the FBI looked more competent in Die Hard than they have for the last three years . . . .

Okay, that’s not entirely true, I do care.  But I choose what I care about.  And I choose what I don’t care about.

You see, the old line that “Aging is a matter of mind.  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter,” slightly modified, applies here as well.  I’ll customize it a bit:  “Holidays:  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

I think the biggest problem that most people have is high standards.  High standards are a gateway to constant disappointment.  If your life is wrapped around making the holiday perfect, then you’ll stress yourself out by trying to make the holiday perfect.  And then?  When you fail to achieve perfection?  Your stress will increase that much more.  Your stress might then turn from disappointment to depression, which I admire, because that shows real dedication that you don’t seen in those millennial kids nowadays.

As bad as that quest for perfection is, it can be even worse than that – often people want to view perfection not through their own standards, but through the views of other people.  Now, on top of trying to meet your standards, you have to imagine what the standards of other people might be, and try to figure out how to meet those as well.  It’s why Bill Clinton doesn’t do threesomes – if he wanted to disappoint two people at the same time, he could have just taken Hillary out for dinner.

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Bill was especially disappointed when Hillary lost because he realized he wouldn’t get a fresh batch of interns.

However, you can make the conscious choice to not choose perfection.  What happens if you don’t care if the turkey isn’t perfect?  What happens if you don’t care if other people are upset?

Well, nothing.

Certainly, there’s something on my list above from bills to parties to relatives that is (or was) on your list.  Me?  Sure, I’ve had a disappointment or two, and yes, I’ve gotten stressed a time or two.  But not recently.

If you’re feeling stressed at the holidays, the Internet will tell you to do lots of things.  The top five tips (really!) on one particular site?

  • Take a walk in the sunlight.
  • Smell citrus.
  • Take yet another walk. (Yes, it was item one, and also item three.)
  • Take a supplement.
  • Squeeze between your thumb and forefinger.

Yes.  These will all certainly help – help a journalist on a deadline come up with a “unique” take on holiday stress.  I’ll admit, out of the 27 or so tips, there were some good ones.  But when “Take a whiff of citrus” is in your top two ideas for dealing with stress?  That’s almost as bad an idea as when they decided to put an “s” in lisp.

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A journalist, an anthropologist, and a philosopher walk into a bar.  The bartender says, “Hey Anderson, still no job?”

Between now and the New Year, we’ll probably not get farther than 90 miles from the house, and that will be to celebrate Penultimate Day (Happy Penultimate Day 2018, and the Biggest Story of 2018: Societal Trust).  We’ll spend time with people we like, and not people we have to spend time with.

Might there be some stress?  Sure.  That happens.  But only if I want it to.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

12 thoughts on “Holiday Stress and Why You Don’t Need It, Featuring a Beer Drinking Baby”

  1. By October first, all my holiday shopping is done. By November first, the Grinch doll ( I mean, action figure ) comes out and is displayed at the work desk. He reminds me it is okay to hate Christmas. After that, it is just putting up with the Coneheads ( in-laws ) for two dinners. Which thankfully do not last long as I don’t try to hide my grumpiness. Being old might suck health wise, but at least you are allowed to be crotchety.

  2. Not much stress to Thanksgiving. Our family gatherings these days amount to about 20 people, grandparents, of which I am one, down to grandchildren, all immediate family. We don’t discuss politics or sports. We talk history, music, and books recently read. It’s pleasant conversation and good food.

    Christmas started last year being my wife and me and our children and grandchildren. There is a good deal less work involved that way. My wife does all the shopping. I usually bake a cake for each event.

    The worst of this time this year was I had to go get a cortisone shot in my right knee today.

    1. Ouch (on the shot). Our Thanksgiving will be small here – just the four of us, likely. Lots of time to sleep. And maybe the turkey will last until Friday.

  3. We barely do anything for the “holidays” anymore. Turkey on Thanksgiving with just my wife and I and the kids, some presents on Christmas day, very low key. Whatever Christmas and Thanksgiving used to be, now they are just another excuse to market cheap crap to us. No thanks.

  4. As I became older, I realized the biggest stress during the holidays was thinking there is some great importance in making them perfect. The presents (if any) were to be perfect. The meals were to be perfect. The conversations were to be perfect. Everything was to be perfect. If not, the holidays would be ruined.

    In spite of all my efforts, some holidays were far from perfect, but in retrospect, they were wonderful in their own way. All had moments of peace, with the knowledge my belly was full, my family was safe, and the whisky buzz would turn into a good nap.

    1. Yes. The best part is (here) if it’s cold. Then you have a great excuse to sleep off the turkey (baked and wild) on the couch.

  5. A couple points:

    A)
    Around 2004 or so, mom decided to have everybody over for thanksgiving… about twenty folks big and little.
    One niece and nephew called to say they would be late, save them plates.
    We ate, sat around chatting.
    An hour later, niece and nephew show-up, explaining niece’s brother died at hospital.
    My dear sweet mom, a specimen of the species Maximus Controlium Freakiziodia, nicknamed ‘Wired Too Tight’, yells for all the neighborhood to hear:
    “WELL! THIS HOLIDAY IS RUINED!”
    She was sure the dead relative’s inconsideration was aimed at her.

    B)
    I think each holiday is the hap-hap-happiest time!
    And I stay off the road during holidays.
    I also stay off the road on pay-day weekends.
    Holidays! The reason for Skype®!

    1. A) Yup, that’s a symptom of the Maximus Controlium.
      B) Yes. Time to relax, enjoy the family, and create scars that will echo through the lives of my children forever. Oh, I mean boardgames.

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