We’re just out of October, why am I already being sucked in by friggin’ Christmas adverts? It feels like the festive season seems to start sooner and sooner each year and it feels weirdly like Christmas becomes more and more stressful each year.
Now, I’m not being a Scrooge, I actually really like Christmas to be fair, it’s just it seems that everyone insists on documenting everything online and it creates a sense of pressure doesn’t it?
I wouldn’t say that I actually act on the pressure consciously, but the constant presence of what people are planning, what they are doing to celebrate Christmas, and what they are doing in the festive run-up can be overwhelming, not to mention so annoying.
There are some seriously creative money makers out there though. I remember pestering my mum to open a present on Christmas Eve and vividly remember it always being a no. Kids these days get bloody Christmas Eve boxes...seriously, to be a kid now would be mint!
I guess it’s just an amplified version of what happens during the school holidays. You are constantly asking if you are doing enough with your kids. Take Halloween for example, if you said you were visiting a pumpkin patch 3 years ago people would have looked at you in a weird way...now, you can’t scroll through your feed without seeing the obligatory pumpkin patch picture complete with abstract pumpkin choices.
The thing is, all of these wonderful things cost money or at least require resources and it can be tough. I’ll be honest, I can’t do creative Christmas activities, because I literally have zero skill at things like that. The other thing is that money does get tight at Christmas, it’s an intense time of year and I feel like you can easily get caught on the wheel of doing more because others are doing more. It’s like a vicious circle
I’m quite conscious of trying to keep things low key with the boys when it comes to Christmas. I want them to value the time together and not focus on what they’re getting and what they’re doing. I guess it’s hard now with school friends and other variables that we were able to control before the big wide world took hold...but as cliche as it sounds, I don’t want to add to the issue.
Please don’t for a second think that I’m against people documenting their time at Christmas, I’m totally not, I’m just really aware of how a picture or a post can be really impactful, often in ways in which it wasn’t intended.
As always, the message is that you just need to do you and not worry about all the white noise, but sometimes that is easier said than done.
