The holiday season is just around the corner, and this is without a doubt my favorite time of year. I love it all — the lights, the music, the decorations — and I have the tree up well before Thanksgiving! You’ve probably heard the phrase “you can’t pour from an empty cup.” This is especially true when you are the caregiver of a chronically ill child. What should be the most wonderful time of the year can become the most overwhelming.
Our mama hearts want to make everything special: we want to do it all, see it all, give our kids everything, even when we know that it’s not practical, and we are going to be completely burnt out by Christmas morning. I think we double down on this if one of our kids is dealing with a serious illness or disease. I am very much guilty of this. My daughter has a rare disease that affects her lymphatic system.
She has spent months at a time in the hospital — there were times that her doctors told me she may never leave the hospital. That definitely led me to want to make every second of every holiday perfect, sometimes at the cost of my own mental health. If you find yourself in the same situation (or if you feel like you just tend to go overboard around the holidays), you need to give yourself the gift of grace this year.
First, give yourself permission to say no. We are sometimes over inundated with holiday invitations to go to events or parties, and it can be incredibly stressful, even when those events are with our extended family or friends. You are allowed to say “Thank you so much for thinking of us, but we won’t be able to make it.” You do not need to give any other explanation. This does not make you rude or selfish, and good friends will understand this.
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Next, social media. I have a love/hate relationship with social media. On one hand, there are some really amazing ideas on sites like Pinterest for crafts or recipes to try. On the other hand, when we compare what we’re doing to what the Pinterest moms are doing, it’s easy to start to feel like we’re somehow not that good of a mom or that we aren’t doing enough. That’s not true! It’s okay to take your kids for a drive through town to look at Christmas lights without making laminated golden tickets to the Polar Express and serving gourmet hot chocolate in the back of your van.
Finally, what about experiences? Be realistic with yourself. If you could just do one big thing this holiday season, what would you want that to be? Maybe it’s Christmas Candy Lane or Sweet Lights in Hershey. Maybe it’s a drive down to Christmas Village in Bernville. Just pick one big thing to do. You do not need to put yourself in debt trying to compensate for the rough time your child may be having with their health (ask me how I know all about this!) Better yet, think about simply planning one fun thing to do together each week at home as a family — baking cookies, decorating gingerbread houses, watching Christmas movies together with everyone’s favorite snacks — and plan for that instead. Taking the pressure off of yourself to constantly do, do, do for 25 days in December will mean you are not spending 25 days straight feeling stressed out and irritable. More importantly, your kids (and spouse) will not be stressed out and irritable either, and you will all enjoy this time of year — and each other — a lot more!
