by Nancy Twigg Adapted from Celebrate Simply: Your Guide to Simpler, More Meaningful Holidays and Special Occasions LET ME share a little story. I call it “The Tale of a Holiday Gone Horribly Wrong.” This incident took place during the Christmas season, but it could have easily happened during any other holiday or special occasion.
It all started so innocently. The heroine of our story simply wanted to make the holiday something to remember for her family and friends. As a one-woman Christmas machine, she was determined to see that the Yuletide holidays were perfect for everyone that year. Great idea, right?
Wrong! What was meant to be Christmas magic quickly became Christmas mayhem. Her desire to have an enjoyable Christmas soon became an obsession with orchestrating the perfect Christmas, complete with picture-perfect meals and perfectly crafted homemade gifts for everyone on her list. Beginning in early November, Christmas became her new full-time job—in addition to the one she already had—since it would certainly take that much time and effort to pull off such an elaborate scheme. All her nights and weekends were spent hunched over her kitchen table, slaving away at the many gifts and lavish menus she felt her perfect Christmas celebration must include. Instead of a joyous occasion to look forward to, Christmas became a deadline that the woman had to meet regardless of the personal consequences.
By the weekend before Christmas, her family’s Christmas tree was still undecorated because she was simply too busy to take time for this treasured family ritual. On the verge of total exhaustion, our heroine resembled a human time bomb ready to blow at any moment. To make matters worse, when her poor husband tried to ease the tension by giving her an affectionate hug, the time bomb detonated. Jerking away from him, she exploded, “Don’t touch me now! Can’t you see how stressed I am?”
As you might have guessed, the rest of that awful day was spent in stony silence. Despite her best intentions, this poor woman could see that her lofty aspirations siphoned the joy and spiritual significance right out of her family’s holiday season. All she wanted to do was make it a Christmas to remember, but it seemed the memories would all be unpleasant. If this Christmas was supposed to be perfect, she sulked, why do I feel so rotten?
Does this sound familiar? Have you ever been so caught up in the hype and hubbub of a holiday that the true sentiment of the occasion completely passed you by? Have you ever let your quest for a spectacular holiday destroy all hope of having a sane holiday? If so, take heart. I wish I could tell you the sad story you just read is merely a tale I concocted to illustrate my point.
I wish I could say that the harried heroine is a fictitious character with any likeness to a real person being purely coincidental. I wish I could say all that, but it’s not true. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m the woman who single-handedly ruined Christmas for my family that year. I’m the woman who made Dr. Seuss’s Grinch look like a nice guy. I’m the one who could have passed for Ebenezer Scrooge’s twin sister.
What Went Wrong?
Oh, my intentions were noble, but my follow-through was pitifully offkilter. As I look back on that event in the Twigg family history, I can see several reasons that it turned into a self-inflicted disaster:
- Too much to do with too little time to do it
- Unrealistic expectations of what makes a celebration memorable
- Inordinate emphasis on gifts and food rather than on spiritual reflection and quality time with loved ones
My story is not uncommon. What happened in my family one Christmas happens frequently as families everywhere celebrate special occasions. Gift giving gets too expensive. Simple family dinners quickly become ten-course meals. Husbands and wives bicker over where to spend the special day—with his parents, her parents, or at home where they both would rather be anyway. Quality family time gets lost in the shuffle, and everyone ends up disappointed.
Let me assure you that there’s a simpler, more meaningful route to holiday harmony. One that involves less stress and less expense. One that leaves family members exhilarated, not exhausted. I can’t say that my family attains this harmony for each and every holiday or that we never temporarily veer off course. But we’ve learned a beautifully simple and meaningful way of honoring the special events and seasons in our lives. We’ve crossed over to the simpler side of celebrating. We can now say with full assurance, “Celebrations can be simple! They can be meaningful! They don’t have to be stressful!”
