A Different Kind of New Year’s Post

Are you making any New Year’s resolutions?

I’m resolutely not.

Okay, that’s sort of a lie. I made one. And kept it. Winner.

I resolved not to be hung over on New Year’s Day.

I get the urge to make lists and look back at the year gone by. I do. But I don’t think December is the time of year to be deciding anything.

First, it’s cold (where I live, anyway). And dark. If there’s no snow, much like this year, it’s pretty depressing out.

Second, the holidays are STRESSFUL.

Everyone on the Internet seems so cheery. I don’t begrudge you that, but it’s just not my reality.

My reality is this. I have no energy left by the time January 1 roles around.

Here’s what my Christmas looked like. Christmas Eve with Lucus’s parents. Christmas with my dad’s family. The day after with my mom’s.

It’s exhausting.

Compounded by the fact that, even though my parents have been divorced since I was one year old, they still fight over me around the holidays.

They love me. This is a good thing. And I so deeply love them. That’s why this entire process is stressful, after all. If I didn’t care…I wouldn’t care.

So I try. It’s a scheduling nightmare. Me..my husband…my parents…my husband’s parents. I drive from suburb to suburb, buy presents for all (our immediate family alone brings the total to 14), and try to ignore the fact that, no matter what I do, someone is unhappy with me.

Everyone compromises to such an extent that no one is ever truly pleased. Not a year goes by that I don’t hear how I’m messing up someone’s Christmas plans.

I know this isn’t a unique situation. But it’s not one we talk about much, in the flurry of posts and Tweets about decorations and caroling and gratitude.

Those things are true for me, too. But they’re not my whole truth. Probably it’s not yours, either.

This is not an energetic space conducive to reflection. Indeed, reflection is to be avoided at all costs from November through January.

The holidays are magical. They also suck a little. It’s complicated.

So, if your holidays are anything like mine, chill out today. Make your own traditions. Reflection is absolutely important. But you don’t have to do it by January 1st.

I do my reflecting and planning dance in March. It works.

Today, I’m going to celebrate my non-hangover by playing a rowdy game of Apples to Apples with friends. Just what I need to start the year in the right frame of mine.

Hope you’re doing something just as fun.

I’d like to make a toast to a New Year with a little more lightness and a lot less stress.

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