Don't Let Christmas Kill You

By Melissa AuClair

We know Christmas won't really kill us, but every year gets close. Constant activity, increasing demands, and an "always on" mentality added to the expectations of the holiday season makes the calmest of women feel like she's going a bit bonkers.

A few years ago, I had enough of the madness. I wanted to really celebrate Christmas and experience the wonder and joy of past years.  I didn't get a response from Mrs. Claus, but through trial and error, I discovered creative solutions that began to bring back the merry.  

Discover the simple practices to bring back the joy. We can't get rid of all the stress, but we can learn how to handle it and still experience the thrill of Christmas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melissa AuClair
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386999669

Melissa AuClair

There's a lot to love about the holidays, but the stress and too-much-to-do-busyness I can do without! After several years of trying to do it all, I jumped off the holiday craziness and initiated a re-do in my holiday practices. It's my goal to encourage you to say no to the unnecessary, say yes to the most important and reclaim the holiday season -from Thanksgiving to New Year's- as the most wonderful time of the year.  When it's not the holiday season, I help busy women experience more creativity and beauty-filled lives with art and lifestyle classes and workshops. Get inspired in your own journaling and painting, take a free mini-workshop, see the selection of classes and more at www.thecreativeseason.com.  You can also say hello to me on Instagram @melissa_auclair

Book preview

Introduction: How to Have a Christmas That Doesn’t Kill You

Turns out, Christmas can kill you.

Well, maybe not Christmas itself, but putting up the Christmas tree is a dangerous activity.

2007 was my first holiday season in my own place. As Christmas got nearer, I got more excited. I’d have my own Christmas parties. There would be nights out and shopping sprees and wrapping parties. There would be classic Christmas movie marathons. Christmas music would play nonstop. The sugar cookies would bake just like Grandma’s—chewy middles with golden-tinged edges.

But there was one thing that had to be done before baking cookies or watching The Polar Express: get the tree.

So, off I went to find the ideal Christmas tree. Never mind that I'd never bought a tree before or hauled one in the car or put one in the tree-holder-thing or anything of that nature. But really, how hard could it be?

After searching around at local tree lots, I found a cute tree that looked pretty near perfect with evenly spread out branches and a top that would hold the Christmas star almost evenly. I bought a tree-holder and dragged it and the tree to my little four-door-car. With some sweat and grunts, I managed to get the tree into the back seat.

Well, it was mostly in the back seat.

It fit with the back windows open and about two feet of tree sticking out the side. I sent up a prayer, hoping I wouldn’t get pulled over by the police for having a tree hanging out of the back-passenger window.

When I got back to my apartment, I sprang out of the car and then stopped, almost frozen in mid-step. My eyes went to my second-floor apartment. I was going to have to get the tree up the stairs. A panicked thought scampered across my mind, but I pushed it away. I was not letting anything get to me this Christmas. I’ve got this. I pushed a curl behind my left ear and swallowed. No big deal. How hard can it be to lug a five-foot tree up two flights of stairs?

Turns out, it’s hard. In fact, carrying a tree up multiple flights of stairs might actually be life-threatening.

It started out well enough. I took hold of the tree, one hand around the trunk and the other grasping the tree to my body as I began to climb the stairs. Getting the tree from the car to the stairs had already caused me to start sweating. Ascending the stairs brought more sweat and the beginning stages of loud, heavy  breathing.

I couldn't see the stairs because of the tree, so I was feeling my way up with my face practically in the tree. It was like a blind person climbing the stairs with a tree almost as big as them (it was a lot wider round than I am). It was not pretty.

About halfway up the stairs, my foot missed a step; I lost my balance and began to teeter. I started to lean back. Full-on panic took over. I’m going to die! Holding onto the tree with one arm, my right arm flailed toward where the railing was supposed to be (my face was still stuck in a thick branch of pine needles). After grappling, I found the railing and held tightly to it. By that time, I was shaking, breathing heavy, and ready to cry.

I remember standing there, desperately trying to regain my equilibrium and thinking, this is what boyfriends are for! After regaining my composure, I found my footing, turned to the side, and shuffled up the stairs one by one until I managed to get the tree into the apartment with only a handful of scratches.

If I had died, I suppose the obituary could have read, Planning for Christmas killed her.

I did survive the incident and lived to tell the story. That was 10 years ago. As I look back at my history of holidays, the feelings I had while trying to drag that Christmas tree up the stairs is a picture of what Christmas has been like many times since.

No, I haven’t almost fallen down the stairs with the tree, but I have nearly killed myself trying to do Christmas well.

Every year, I have an idea of what this holiday season will be like: the plans, the gifts, the parties, the events with friends and family, Christmas Eve services, volunteering, traveling out of town to visit family, and so on. But despite my aspirations, the season usually leaves me feeling like I did on that December day: trying to do too much (usually on my own), panicking, flailing, spending all the money in the bank account (and then some), navigating family and friend drama, and getting everything together just in the nick of time to avoid disaster!

I make it to the Big Day with a smile on my face and mostly intact gifts and plates of cookies in my arms. When I finally get home after celebrating with family and friends and driving near and far, I collapse in bed and wake up December 26th thinking, Next year, it will be different. I’ll be more prepared. I’ll do this. I’ll do that. On and on it goes in my mind as I rehearse the holiday season, wondering where the magic disappeared to.

To be perfectly frank, I usually expend so much time, energy, and effort on Christmas that the only thing I want to do on New Year’s is hibernate!

Perhaps, you can relate.

Statistics reveal a growing chasm between what we want the holiday season to be and the actual results.

90% of us stress about some aspect of the holidays, according to Prevention magazine and Consumer Reports.  

NBC reported a study by Think Finance that showed 45% of Americans would like to skip Christmas (Christmas with the Cranks, anyone?) because of the financial stress among other things.

MetLife released a study in 2015 stating that half of us feel increased stress just by having to go to the holiday party, while overall work place productivity decreases as much as 68% in December.

As someone who loves the holidays I can relate to the statistics. As I lunge into the holiday season with a hope and a prayer, I hope I’ll be able to get it all done and pray for the strength, sanity, and perseverance to make it through and perhaps, hopefully, maybe, even enjoy a bit of wonder. A 2015 Pew Research study states that why nine out of ten Americans celebrates the holidays, there is also a significant amount of stress, especially when it comes to finances. That’s how the holidays used to be for me: I loved them but felt a ton of pressure around a few key areas: finances, relationships and the darn schedule. I had a love-hate relationship with the weeks between November 1st and January 1st.

These days, the holidays are much different. It’s not that the circumstances got better (I still don’t have that boyfriend to help me carry that tree up the stairs!), but my approach changed. I changed. I don’t get it all done, but the most important things get done. The Very Important People in my life are cared for. There’s less drama and more merry in the areas that used to drive me crazy at Christmas: money, relationships, and schedule. And the small miracles that make the holiday season special have crept back in.

A Short Book for all the Women Who Love the Holidays and Feel Super-Stressed

What would make your holiday season special? What needs to happen for you to look back on this Christmas season and say to yourself, This was the best holiday season yet?

After a few Christmas catastrophes, I realized I needed a change. I had to look at what I was trying to do, what I could really do, and figure out what was most important. Change wasn’t easy, and it didn’t happen all at once. Not everyone was happy with the changes I made. More than once, I had to retool what I was doing and how I was doing it. One thing for sure, the changes I made opened the door to bring in the wonder and magic of the holiday season, from Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s.

In this book, I’ll share the crazy times from my own life, what I’ve learned, and practical ideas and inspiration to help you navigate the crazy time we refer to as the most wonderful time of the year. I'll include my stories—the good, the bad, the messy, and the really, awful. And believe me, I know quite a bit about being a Christmas hot mess, a Christmas-holic, and the happiest Christmas person you've seen.

It's not going to be easy, but changing the way you handle the biggest stressors of the season—finances, relationships, and schedule—will reduce the stress and angst of the season, and that will be worth the trouble. Making a few intentional changes could be just the thing to turn an entire season around from manic to merry.

Avoiding a holiday meltdown will take intentionality and some grit to persevere when it would just be easier to blow the budget, spend hours at the mall, flop on the couch, watch a marathon of Hallmark Christmas movies, and eat all the fudge—especially when things get hairy.

You don't need to be obsessed with Christmas as I've been (and still am) to get a lot out of this book. I wrote Christmas Can Kill You for:

The busy woman who used to love Christmas, but over the years the joy has faded, and the magic has blurred. You suspect you could get it back, but the effort to do so may kill you.

The woman who used to be in love with Christmas but is so overwhelmed with life that her only goal for December is to survive the season.

The woman who juggles jobs and family and feels overwhelmed by the season.

The professional women who wants to create a joyful season but wonders how she’ll do it like mom with the challenges of her current season of life.

It is possible to have a memorable, magical Christmas, but I was going about it all wrong. Turns out, wonder and joy don't necessarily mesh with efficient and working harder. You can't work your way into wonder. Go figure! I didn't come to this realization all at once. It was a process of learning small things, making some colossal mistakes, going through some heartbreak, and experiencing a lot of trial and error.

Getting overwhelmed and trying to do every single thing in the book defeats the point of the holiday season. Feel free to treat this book like a buffet line and pick out what seems reasonable for you to implement this year.

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