Holiday madness or holiday gladness?

One down, one (or more) to go.
Here are some guidelines for making the holidays more about gladness and less about madness.

1. If a tradition isn’t working for you, ditch it or modify it. In fact traditions inevitably and naturally evolve. Make the choices that work for YOU and your family. If your needs or circumstances change, change the traditions AGAIN. Traditions can evolve without being lost; and some traditions should be lost because they are no longer healthy or safe or appropriate.
For example, think about the foods your family was probably eating and the way those foods were prepared 50 years ago. Do you still cook with lard or chicken fat? Do you still serve veal? Do you serve eggnog made with raw egg? Perhaps your family is now vegan or gluten intolerant. It is the natural course of things for people and needs to change. Traditions can and should change as well. 

2. Do not believe that it is your personal responsibility to make everyone happy all the time. It can’t be done, by you or anyone else. Be kind, respectful, and generous, sensitive to people’s feelings and needs, and then let it go. Trying to make everyone else happy is likely to make you miserable, short-tempered, and exhausted. And you’ll still fail.
For example, the average American family, with two adults and 2.4 children, is likely at any given moment during a holiday to have 4.4 divergent needs and wishes. Learning to accommodate and adapt to other people’s needs and limitations is part of the process of growing as people and as a family. Learning how and when to say “no” is part of growing as a person.

3. The holidays are not a competitive sport. You do not have to spend more money on gifts, get fancier gifts, make more homemade gifts, or be more clever than your neighbors or friends. There is no actual award for recycling the most or fanciest wrapping paper and ribbon, boxes, and bows. If your kids complain that someone in another family got more or better, you may acknowledge but don’t apologize. Gratitude, not greed, is the attitude you’re trying to teach.
For example, a stack of fancy boxes is an iconic holiday image but highly impractical if each of those boxes houses an item priced over $100, as is common with electronic gifts. I encourage making your best effort to get or make each person one highly desired gift, within reason, and without regard for how another family may be doing it. After that it should be, if anything, small pleasures, the more personal the better. 

4. Do not try to squeeze more into a day than can be done without sacrificing good mood or well-being. Just because your mother/mother-in-law/father/cousin/great aunt insists that you be there for breakfast/midnight mass/appetizers/dessert does NOT mean that you must comply. Making a pre-schooler participate in activities from morning to evening is begging for a melt-down. Asking yourself to stay cheerful and enthusiastic from early morning through late evening, possibly plus hours of driving, is requiring a lot of a human being. Give yourself permission to say “no” to doing more than can be reasonably done. Say “no” as necessary, take breaks from festivities and carve out some down time, or beg off and call it a day before all the activity has ended. You’re not obligated to keep going until you drop. No, really, you’re not. 
For example, it’s quite common now to have multiple family units that want you to participate — a mother and step-father, a father and step-mother, a mother-in-law and father-in-law, etc. I strongly encourage families to split up the dates instead of trying to squeeze it all in on one day. This year in-laws get Thanksgiving ON Thanksgiving, and biologic family gets it on the weekend before or after. Or this year biologics gets Christmas Eve and in-laws get first night of Chanukah. Ditto for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Three Kings, etc. If family locations are close enough, the day can be split up — pajama breakfast with one group, dinner with another. But let me assure you that four Thanksgiving meals in one day leaves people thankful only for the holiday’s end.

Make healthy and self-respectful choices. May your holidays be filled with gladness, not madness. Wishing you joy as a participant, not misery as a victim. Happy Holidays!