The Christmas season is full of wonderful traditions. My favorites are sipping on hot mulled wine at the Christmas market, listening to joyful music while decorating the tree, and strolling through the city center at night to enjoy the lights strung across the narrow streets. However, my favorite Christmas tradition by far is the total neglect of my physical, emotional, and mental health.
You never forget what it feels like to be a child when the holidays approach. Even if my parents both worked full-time and their stress tripled during the end of the year, they still tried to do it all: attend Christmas work dinners, go out for Christmas drinks, send cards to all their friends, decorate the house from top to bottom, buy overpriced gifts for us kids, and plan a sumptuous meal worthy of a king. By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, my parents had transformed from their usual well-balanced, energetic selves into blubbering, exhausted shells. That’s real magic.
Sadly, when I got into my 20s, I forgot about all of those stressful holidays of my childhood. I moved to a big city far away and rarely went home for Christmas. Instead, my friends and I – all childless and mostly single – would do things like try new restaurants, go ice-skating, visit the spa, or just sit at home and do nothing. Sure, those activities were relaxing and fun, but they left me feeling serene and mostly healthy. Something was missing.
It was only later, in my 30s when I settled in with my partner, that I began to feel a deep longing for imbalance and excess. After we had our first child, we decided that it was time. We went all out, buying a bunch of decorations for our tiny apartment without realizing we had nowhere to store them. We spent a small fortune on trendy baby gifts that probably ended up in the bin two weeks later. Afterwards, we felt tired and empty, but that was just the start. Now we’ve got three kids, and we really go out of our way to ruin ourselves.
In the run up to Christmas, my partner and I stop going to the gym or even taking short walks. We accept any and every invitation, and we make sure to stuff ourselves with rich food, sugary desserts, and enough alcohol to make our livers bulge and resemble foie gras. As our health goes down the toilet, so do our moods, so we try to compensate with increased levels of caffeine, sugar, and yet more alcohol, which of course makes us feel even worse. And that’s just the beginning!
Our kids don’t ask for expensive gifts, but we convince ourselves that unless we go into debt spoiling them, we’re bad parents. Nothing says “Christmas is here” more than suffering from the guilt and anxiety of a very serious spending hangover. While my own parents used to lose their composure over making Christmas staples like baked turkey and pudding, we take it one step further. We always go for new recipes with pricey, exotic ingredients and unconventional cooking methods in which we have zero experience. Also, I’m a terrible baker, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to make hundreds of cookies every year! The entire day before the big meal is nothing but arguments, hopelessness, and lots of blame being thrown around, just like when I was a kid but more so.
When we finally sit down for the meal, my partner and I are physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted, and the kids can feel it, which is what’s most important of all. I hope that one day, they’ll pass this cherished tradition on to their own children.
Cassie K. is a mother of two who lives in Niederanven
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Originally published by RTL Today
