Holidays
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
POLL: Holiday Stress
What stresses you out most about the holidays? I am doing research for an article I am writing and just wanted to kick around some ideas with you girls before I went and really hunted for sources.
The article is about things that stress 20- and 30-somethings out around the holidays and then 'shortcuts' on how to deal with them.
Anything you'd care to share?
Re: POLL: Holiday Stress
What stresses me out is having mulitple invitations, but I can only go to one event at a time.
Usually, that would be a good problem to have, but family members like to give guilt trips when I don't show up to their events.
Also, driving anywhere near a shopping mall gives me stress. I avoid it at all costs. I find new ways to get to work, and I order almost everything I can from the internet. The only shopping I do after Thanksgiving is grocery shopping.
I don't care for the pressure of "giving". I may be stingy but there are people out EVERYWHERE looking for money/charity events. I have already selected to give elsewhere- don't give me that look Santa. (again, hate shopping after Thanksgiving).
Finally, I don't like work parties. They make everyone feel awkward.
Izzy and Baby A ~ Adorable Punks
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle!
April 2011 CP @ 5 weeks
I might be weird, but thanksgiving dinner stresses me out. I usually end up having to go to more than one place(it's going to be 3 places this year I think) and since I don't eat turkey(amongst other things) people bug me about it and it stresses me out.
Also, when it gets close to christmas and the stores are to the point where there is barely any room to walk because there is so many people, SO and I can't go in there, all those people stress us out.
for me it is avoiding paper cuts while I open all my gifts.
I have to take a xanax on Christmas morning.
Is that your Christmas card in your sig?
I am reminded of that "12 days of Christmas That Are Such A Pain to Me" song. Hahaha "rigging up the lights".
In all seriousness, money is a huge stressor for us around the holidays. Especially this year. The only other thing I can think of is being so far away from family.
The driving and being invited to a lot of places doesn't bother me, just bothers me that I can't get to those places.
Trying to make both sides of our families happy and not killing ourselves with holiday travel.
Also, our families different approaches to gift giving.
travel
buying gifts that fit the person well
having the right outfit to wear to all the holiday parties/activities
No, it's just a scrap blog.
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle!
April 2011 CP @ 5 weeks
For us, it is my MIL. She refuses to see there are other people involved and she expects her family to always be at her house ALL DAY. One year we had dinner @ my sister's and she flipped out. She refuses to compromise on these holidays and it gets old. She is so passive aggressive, it drives me to drink.
She always has this stupid line "all I want is just my family with me for the holidays". Really? Yet if we come without gifts, we will never hear the end of it.
This is my mother exactly!
Travel - We live almost 9 hours from our hometown which is where our family and friends live still. Plus, we are traveling North, so snow storms are highly likely.Then after the long trip, everyone still expects us to drive from one end of town to the other to see everyone, but no on else makes the effort. Plus, our parents are in high competition for spending time with us since we see them 4 times a year max. So it's a stress trying to balance time and not hurt their feelings.
Gifts - I love to give, but I stress so much about finding the perfect thing. I have to stay in budget, I want it to be personal and meaningful, and it most still be useful for the person or why waste your time/money. I spend hours just thinking about gifts for people, let alone shopping. Also, receiving gifts stresses me. I'm not too picky esp when it comes to clothes, but my SIL always manages to buy me the most hideous things that are way too big for me. I feel so guilty returning them, but I would never wear them.
Holy crap! I thought my MIL was the only person who did this. Glad to know i am not alone. How do you deal with it? DH tries to talk to his mom but she is so freakin sensitive on this, it drives him to drink too.
This year, it'll be splitting time between families. My parents and H's grandmother live in the same time, and they both want our time on Christmas.
Gifts will be interesting, too...we should be able to swing gifts this year, but it'll still be a challenge.
1. gifts for people who are hard to shop for (but I am pretty much over that- if they aren't appreciative of my efforts then I cannot be bothered to make an effort).
2. Travel. It is really hard with a FT job and a toddler to get to family on holiday weekends. I know we could just choose to stay home but honestly we want to go see them, the travel just sucks.
oooh work parties! I forgot about those. I hate them. HATE them.
If you are going to have one, make it during the work day. Don't make me waste an evening and drag my poor spouse to an event he will be miserable at.
Families obligations. I have been trying to avoid holiday stress by going away (this year, thankfully we're going to Bali and Lombok for 8 blissful day on the beach without noisy family members).
I go by this as well. Defeats the purpose of the celebration when everyone's so uptight about it.
Even though I plan these parties (yes on a Saturday evening), I am starting to lean towards this. I prefer an afternoon buffet at work where I can stuff my face in front of co-worker.s
We get stressed about having every single spare moment taken by holiday parties and events. A lot of those are self-imposed - we go to a couple holiday concerts, the Nutcracker, host a holiday party, etc. But basically every weekend from December 1 - December 25 is scheduled. We deal with it by getting Christmas shopping and holiday cards done in November. We spend the weekend after Thanksgiving wrapping presents, addressing cards, and decorating. That leaves the whole month of December to attend parties and holiday events. People think I'm crazy for starting so early, but I'm the only one not running around crazy before Christmas.
I get stressed by having houseguests in town for SO long. Most years it's only 2 weeks, which is still a LONG time for houseguests. Last year BIL and SIL came for 3 weeks each...and overlapped only 2 of them, so it was a MONTH of guests. We couldn't take an entire week of work off, so they would sit around bored out of their minds all day while we were at work, then when we got home and wanted to take a nap, they were stir-crazy and had invited MIL over to hang out, and they wanted to stay up until midnight playing games and such...every night.
This year, we're telling them that isn't going to happen, and if they're bored, maybe they shouldn't come visit for so long when they know we'll only be taking off a week MAX.
Also, if we have any houseguests this year, we're ordering food in and prepping SIMPLE meals instead of me going all ballistic on meals like I normally do. I enjoy it, but not EVERY night for a month.