Overwhelmed During the Holidays

Do you ever feel overwhelmed during the holidays?

I know I do—and the week before Thanksgiving, I’m already feeling it.

The cupcakes

It started two days ago. I had volunteered to take dessert for my women’s group last night, and I’d promised chocolate cupcakes. More specifically, I’d said I would make devil’s food cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, all from scratch.

I baked them two days ago. I overfilled the cupcake liners, and most of the cupcakes overflowed and gave me cupcakes with large rims around the top. Yesterday I tried frosting them. Some of them were just fine—but most were a disaster, with pieces of cupcake falling off and cake crumbs being blended in with the frosting.

The cupcakes were so embarrassing that I bought two small chocolate cakes at the store to take instead. But then I realized how silly that was. Would anyone really care how the cupcakes looked? I knew that they would taste good. It was just the appearance that was horrible. (Yes, those are some of the actual cupcakes in the picture.)

I ended up taking the few acceptable-looking cupcakes and one of the cakes. No one touched the cake, so now I have two cakes and one dozen ugly cupcakes to deal with.

The unexpected early Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is opening day of deer hunting season. My sons will be going out, and I’ve been asked to watch my son’s dog for the day. He doesn’t require nearly as much attention as he did when he was an actual puppy, but he can’t be left alone in our house for very long. No problem. I had one thing on my calendar, and Big Guy had said that he would be able to watch the dog while I was out for that.

On Thanksgiving Day, we will be with extended family, and my daughter won’t be able to be with us. My kids decided last weekend that we need to have a Thanksgiving meal for just us—and that tomorrow will be perfect. My daughter and her boyfriend can be there, and my sons will be back from hunting.

I was able to shuffle my schedule to get rid of the thing on my calendar. I could push a couple small projects off until Sunday afternoon or Monday. As long as Big Guy could help out with the dog and do some carrying and extra grocery shopping as needed, I was pretty sure I could manage to feed my family an early Thanksgiving meal.

The to-do list

Big Guy is now sick with a manflu. He’s home from work today, camped out in the living room in front of the television. That makes it kind of hard to clean the living room as I’d planned. Since he’s out of commission for a couple days, I now need to figure out how to do all the things I need to do for our Thanksgiving meal, all while watching a dog and keeping him (the dog) away from the food.

Today’s list includes cleaning the kitchen, making a list of what I’m going to serve tomorrow, going to the grocery store, baking a couple pies, cleaning my office so someone can sleep on the futon, and some laundry. And driving my son to the store for last-minute hunting items. (He doesn’t have his driver’s license and has to rely on me for transportation.) And thawing the turkey that was frozen until yesterday. And taking care of Big Guy. And trying not to feel resentful that I’m having to do all the things all by myself. And somewhere in there I know I should spend some time with God.

I don’t want to do any of these things. What I really want to do is sit down with all those ugly chocolate cupcakes and have a pity party for myself and cancel everything on my calendar until 2019.

And it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet.

My heart already feels discouraged.

Encouragement

Why I am telling you all this?

All this holiday stress is what’s on my mind, and I wrote all of it out to help me sort through my feelings this morning while I drank my coffee and had a cupcake for breakfast. I didn’t intend to make it into a blog post.

But then I remembered that I hadn’t written a blog post for today yet. (I’d planned to write it yesterday before I ended up stressing out about cupcakes and going to the grocery store to buy two cakes). And I thought, Hey, I wonder if this could be my blog post? And so it is.

If I’m feeling this way before Thanksgiving, I know some of you are probably going to face some of these same feelings over the coming weeks.

We have so much we feel we have to do, whether we want to or not. We sometimes feel we have to do everything alone, without the help we want from our husbands or the help we want in the way we want it. We think we have to do things perfectly—and if we can’t, we overdo it trying to make up for it.

Can I just encourage us all—and I’m talking to myself here—to take a deep breath?

I’ve found these reminders helpful today.

Start with God

After I written a good portion of this post (when it was still just a rant that no one else would see), I realized that I hadn’t even prayed yet today. So I stopped writing and talked to God. The moment I did so, I began to feel less stressed. When I start with God, my perspective shifts from “what I have to do right now” to “how this affects my relationship with God for eternity.” Even if nothing goes right, I will still be okay. Because God. He is all that truly matters.

Put your marriage before your to-do list.

I was really bothered by my feelings of resentment toward Big Guy that he is sick right when I need him to help me. I made myself look away from my to-do list long enough to look at him. What does he need right now? What would help him feel better? What would help him feel loved?

He doesn’t feel good, and he could use some TLC. He was looking forward to having all the kids around, and he isn’t happy that he won’t be able to enjoy them as much as he wants to. Poor guy.

Ask for help.

I don’t have to do all the things all by myself. I knew I would need help and had assumed that my husband would provide it. But then I remembered that my daughter is an adult who is great in the kitchen. She will be a great help, and it will be a wonderful opportunity to catch up with her. I checked in with her, and she said she was already planning to arrive early enough tomorrow to give me a hand. And even though Big Guy isn’t feeling good, he is taking care of getting our son where he needs to go today.

Aim for joy, not for perfection.

I often have this vision in my head of how everything should look. When I focus on how everything is supposed to be, I miss out on so much of what there is to actually experience. I know right now that tomorrow will be chaotic. I’ll be trying to do lots of things at once in the kitchen while trying not to trip over the dog. But once the boys return from hunting, my emptying nest will be overflowing once again. All the pieces of my heart will be in one place. Oh, the joy! I don’t want to miss it.

It is well with my soul.

I’ve spent some time with God now. I’ve checked in on Big Guy to see how he’s doing. I asked for help. I am thinking of how full my heart will be tomorrow. And even though we discovered the truck has a flat tire (while I was writing this post, of course), I am doing far better than I was a few hours ago.

That overwhelmed feeling I had before I even got out of bed has been replaced by anticipation of tomorrow’s joy.

Plus, I just realized something else: I’ll have extra people to help eat the cupcakes and cakes.

Resources to help you

I shared this list with my email subscribers this week, and it’s worth sharing again here. These resources will help you prioritize peace, your marriage, and intimacy during the coming weeks.

First, check out my friend Gaye’s new e-book for the holidays, Peace.Love.Joy. (Use this affiliate link to help me earn a commission!)

Then check out these blog posts.

From The Forgiven Wife

• Bow-Dazzle! and 10 Other Ways to Keep Your Sex Life Alive During the Holidays
• Weathering the Holiday Storm
• Season of Joy or Season of Stress?

From Other Bloggers

• 10 Intimate Things to Enjoy for Christmas, Hot, Holy & Humorous
• 10 Ways to Stop Being a Scrooge in the Bedroom, Hot, Holy & Humorous
• 5 Ways to Take the Crazy Out of Christmas This Year, Calm.Healthy.Sexy.
• The Best Tips For Self Care During The Holidays, Unmasking the Mess
• Does Your Sex Drive Take a Dive in the Holiday Season? Hot, Holy & Humorous
• Downtime, The Generous Wife
• Holidays, Love Languages & Death, My Beloved Is Mine
• How to Have Fun with Your Husband and Enjoy Your Marriage this Christmas, Calm.Healthy.Sexy.
• Invite Your Spouse to Snuggle in Front of the Christmas Tree, Love Hope Adventure
• Is your marriage prepared to survive the holidays? Uncovering Intimacy
• Keep Making Love This Season, Hot, Holy & Humorous
• Standing for Your Marriage Through the Holidays? My Beloved Is Mine

Finally, here’s a Christmas short story for you to enjoy, from my friend J. Parker.

Image credit | Chris Taylor