I don't want a lot for Christmas, just everything.
I need it all! Or do I?
As always, check out the audio version of this post to hear me read this post. You can even subscribe to it on your podcast feed so it populates automatically when it goes live!
What I cover here today: How I’m navigating holiday overwhelm and overconsumption, a tour (with photos!) of my everything journal/scrapbook, my go-to self-soothing techniques, five totally immersive books, and some easy hosting tips/tricks.
A couple nights ago I awoke with a jolt at 2:30 in the morning (something that rarely happens to me as a person who could likely sleep through almost anything) and could not get back to sleep.
At first, I tried all my usual tricks. I revised chapters in my head and then wrote new ones. I designed different rooms. I imagined my completed in-progress office and visualized walking through my new morning there: Coffee, starting the fire, journaling, re-reading my writing from the day before. But, nope. It wasn’t working. I was fully and unwaveringly awake. So eventually, after an hour or so of this, I got up and grabbed my phone and downloaded Instagram. (If you’re new here, most of my last 6 months has been spent changing my scrolling habits/obsession).
Within a few minutes, I saw a reel that convinced me I really needed a $3,000, 9-foot-tall fake Christmas tree1, despite the fact that Jake and I had a date on the calendar for cutting down our own, and I was excited about it. Did a $3,000 fake Christmas tree sound a little steep to me? Sure. Could I afford it? Not really, no. But in the moment, all I could think of was the reel, and the tree, and its perfectly adorned, well-lit branches. Upon further inspection of the caption, the pre-lit tree had been wrapped in three more sets of additional lights for optimal sparkle, so then I looked up those too. Obviously, I would have to acquire the whole glittering package. I need it, I need it, I need it, I thought. Luckily for me, the tree was sold out. I let the need slowly fade and some time later, finally, fell asleep.
The next morning I was groggy and also a little horrified that I had been so close to buying it, anyway. That the day before it hadn’t even entered my head, and then the idea was right there, bright and shiny, irresistible. Sometimes I think this is what the holidays feel like, on a surface level. This baseline, constant yearning for more. The perfect tree. The perfect gift. The perfect plan for a better, more beautiful year ahead. Need, need, need, need. A biting desire to fill some deep dark void with pretty things.
I should confess I write all of this as someone who did spend hundreds of dollars on garland yesterday. It’s the first year we’re spending Christmas at our house, and I have specific, sparkling visions of an elaborately decorated staircase. Garland, velvet bows, Pinterest dreams, you know the ones. When we first viewed our house, I don’t know if adorning it in Christmas decorations was the very first thought I had, but it’s possible. I walked up and down the stairs and imagined it all.
Last year, our first year in our first home, not only was garland not in the budget, but finding the emotional or physical bandwidth to decorate the house after a year of DIY renovations was not really in the cards, either. In a way, the garland is a tiny, belated celebration of the home we have made. I’m sure for some people, the aforementioned Christmas tree is a similar thing. It’s not the tree itself that made me feel so uneasy (it really did look like a great tree), or even the question of whether or not I needed it (do most of us really need much more of anything at this point?), but the need itself. The raw, intense craving that I had to have it as soon as possible. The adrenaline that said go, go, go. This will fix something. Fix what? I wondered the next day. Fix you? Fix the world? The general sad state of things? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s all of it.
I feel this desire to fix things, to adjust them just so a lot around the holidays. January looms large in the horizon, and I become fanatical about a new, better me. At this point in my life, I greet this end-of-year set of feelings with a casual familiarity. I consider it a character in the story of my life. Some years, it looks like Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser and other years it’s some girl on Instagram who has Marie Kondo’d her life to such a degree that I imagine she has never struggled to close a too-full drawer or closet even once in her life, never once been acquainted with that dreaded kitchen cabinet that contains an mountain of mismatched plastic food containers. She has never yelled in frustration as an avalanche of lids from said containers falls down upon her, then immediately thrown them all back into the same cabinet, closing the door before they can fall again. Her energies simply go elsewhere, likely yoga or intermittent fasting.
This character is as familiar to me as I’m sure it is to you by now if you’ve read my essays for a while. Really, this again? you may find yourself asking. I ask this imaginary Betterment Guru the same thing, trust me. What is it you want now? I press. A better morning routine? Again? Alright, fine. Let’s go. Hot lemon water it is. It’s a conversation that’s built into my DNA at this point, seared there from years of “New Year, New You!” content, probably. I used to accept it as a flat confirmation that I had failed to improve over the course of the previous year. Quick! Hurry! Time to catch up! There’s so much work to do! If nothing else, I at least don’t feel that way anymore. I can see how far I have come and how hard I have worked and my value that stretches far beyond productivity or weight or tupperware.
Still, the holidays are tough. They bring a lot of shit to the surface for most of us. For me, it’s the regular end of year stuff. The Betterment Guru who won’t shut the fuck up. For you, maybe it’s grief or financial hardship or relationship struggles or maybe all of it. For many people, I think the holidays also feel like that: It’s all of it. It’s everything. It’s coming at you all at once. And despite it being this way every year, somehow, it snuck up you. Suddenly, we are met with a million insecurities and resentments and old wounds and commitments all bubbling to the surface, tied together with a bow. We are expected to smile and sing through it all. And yes, most of us have many, many things to be grateful for and appreciate this time of year. I certainly do. But I mean, really, is it any wonder that our brains try to distract us with 9-foot trees or extravagant gifts we can’t afford or itchy sequined holiday party dresses we will never wear again when there is so much messier stuff lingering just under the surface? Of course, they do.
If you’re reading this with your own expensive Christmas tree and garland and gifts and dress on the way and feeling a little pang of guilt creep in, asking yourself, “Did I really need that? Could I really afford that?” and the answers are no, I want to level-set with you. I think we are all having these moments during the holidays, and way more than anyone talks about. I think it’s part of what makes this time of year complicated. It’s tidings of comfort and joy, not lingering guilt and a splash of regret, right? But what I also want to tell you is that around here (as inspired by this framed tweet in Amy Este’s office), there is a moratorium on shame. We’re all doing our best.
In fact, I kind of assume that most of us fall into the weird middle territory with holiday spending, both nodding along to the “death to overconsumption!” essays and then shopping from a cleverly curated gift guide a moment later, thankful that someone did the groundwork to make your holiday season a little more simple. That middle ground is kind of just life, I’m realizing. Personally, as I navigate this holiday season, I am giving myself the win for thinking about the big picture a bit more often than I have in the past. I try to clock when I buy things with the deep, buried inkling that they will make me better or safer or more worthy of something. Ultimately, I buy it or I don’t. But I also notice the feeling, that need, I consider it, and then I move on. As I said, a moratorium on shame. I’m trying it. So far, it feels pretty good. Perhaps it’s not quite as sparkly as the 9-foot-tall Christmas tree wrapped in three additional strings of fairy lights, but it feels nice, too. It’s comforting in its own way. It cost me nothing. And when I think about if it makes me better, for once, I find the answer is yes.
In this week’s bonus content, I’m offering a different type of holiday guide — some habits, crafts, strategies, and recommendations that I think could be particularly helpful during this time of year. I wish I could tell you I have an incredible ‘what to buy for your dad’ gift guide, but honestly? That shit is hard. After all these years, I still have no idea. Does anyone? Is it the greatest mystery on earth? I would argue yes. Anyway, instead, I give you this:
Looking for a solo holiday craft? May I suggest an ‘everything’ scrapbook. See a little tour of mine!
My 3 most trusted self-soothing techniques.
5 totally immersive books for when you want to escape.
A few favorite tips and tricks for stress-free hosting.
Welcome to my everything scrapbook.
I think one of the most difficult aspects of being very online, or just living in the internet-soaked world we live in, is that it can be difficult to remember what’s actually important to us. And if you’re thinking, um, just because I love TikTok doesn’t mean I don’t value the important things (friends, family, health, happiness etc.) in life more, of course, yes. That isn’t what I mean.