Christmas Performance Anxiety
It is the most wonderful time of the year...so they say, but if you are a busy mom (does not matter if you stay home or work) busy is busy and Christmas just adds to the never ending to do list. Bitching to my girlfriend about how stressed out I was about Christmas, making it magical for the kids, buying all the presents this year (due to my husband being deployed), the decorating gingerbread houses, baking the cookies, looking at Christmas lights and going to the post office all the things that have to be done was stressing me the F out!
That is when the term "Christmas Performance Anxiety" was coined, every year I do this to myself, I want to buy the perfect gifts for the girls and family. I want to bake all the cookies with them and I want the tree to be decorated perfectly and all for what for more stress and heart ache. I think somewhere between Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook the meaning of Christmas has been lost.
Christmas used to be about being with family and making memories not about whose Christmas Cookies are a Pinterest win or Pinterest Fail. Mine are always a fail by the way, but we have fun making them, and we make memories every year wondering how bad they will be this year. Even Saturday Night Live got in on the action with Kristen Wiig playing a stressed out mom who got a “robe” while the family is flooded with shit you know they do not need.
So do you suffer from Christmas Performance anxiety? Next year I am going to take a chill pill and change my outlook on how Christmas should be. Christmas should be fun, Christmas should be magical, Christmas should be about giving. So next year I am not going to focus on being perfect, getting the perfect gifts or sending out the perfect Christmas cards.
Next year I am going to focus on the true meaning of Christmas which is family, friends and memories. So if you get a Christmas card on January 3 at least you got one and I was not risking my mental health to send it out on a strict timeline.
All moms I urge you next year to take the chill pill, it is not the end of the world if the gifts come late to family. Think of it as a second Christmas for them and break for yourself. Christmas does not have to be perfect to be magical, maybe some of magic comes from the imperfections.
P.S. Check out the full SNL Skit here on Slate.Com
https://slate.com/culture/2020/12/snl-kristen-wiig-mom-robe-christmas-video-bennett-fineman-mooney.html