Christmas is not only the most wonderful time of the year, but it is also one of the most stressful times of the year (at least for me).
There is always a giant list of things to be done, and if you're anything like me then you wait to the last possible minute to do anything. Like last year my sister and I actually went Christmas shopping on the day before Christmas, you really can't get any more last minute than that. I always have a hard time figuring out what presents to buy people and I am surrounded by a lot of picky people in my life (whom I love), but it makes shopping just a little harder than normal. Last weekend my sister and I ventured into the lovely mall to search for potential presents and of course, I walked out of the mall with lots of presents for myself and very little presents for other people #ihatemyself. I'd like to officially come out and say that I happen to suffer from a very serious and severe shopping addiction, and it tends to get worse around stressful events and holidays happen to stress me out.
So even when I am Christmas shopping for other people, the thought of not getting someone a good gift stresses me out and therefore I cope by buying myself something that I do not need. First world problems, I know.
Another thing that stresses me out during the holidays is my family. I love them all to death but unfortunately, they too struggle with stress during the holidays, which ends up making my house filled with a lot of passive aggressive comments and hints of hostility. Everyone is stressed about:
Buying all the right presents and
Hiding all your presents and
Going grocery shopping and
Wrapping gifts and
Having all the Christmas decorations up and
Preparing all the meals and
Making plans with all our friends and
Figuring out what is appropriate to wear on Christmas and on the rest of the celebration days
And many many many many other things. I'm not sure if this is a normal occurrence in most families, but it is definitely normal in mine. Everyone just wants everyone to have a perfect Christmas, so we all end up trying our hardest to make it perfect and then, as a result we turn into giant stress buckets.
At the end of the day I know it isn't really about the presents, it's about family and joy and happiness and peace and all that stuff, however when your family can't decide on a Christmas movie to watch there is no joy, happiness, or peace. Then everyone turns into a giant Grinch, but no one can agree on watching the Grinch #thestruggleisreal.
