The Mom Olympics

Round One: Mark Your Calendars

Anxiety skyrockets in the run-up to the Mom Olympics because we are haunted by a vague sense that there is too much to do, and too many moving parts outside of our control. When I was a new mom I thought this pre-holiday feeling of dread was an aberration—an indication that I had overcommitted myself. In fact, this feeling is not a sign from the universe that we have misstepped. It is a natural result of our capacity to envision a greater number of good things than we could ever possibly deliver to our families. Each year we observe countless wonderful traditions, yet we cannot possibly do them all. For some women, this provokes a deep sadness.

The endless parade of potential treasures we can store up for ourselves in the short time we have our children at home causes some women to despair, some to overwork, some to reject the objective goodness of various traditions, and some to shut down completely. Negative reactions to overwhelm vary by personality, but the result is the same: a failure to keep the true purpose of the holiday season, which is to witness and mark the great year-end feasts with gratitude and joy. 

I think the answer to overwhelm is to accept that we will always struggle with this feeling. Resistance is present whenever we write, whenever we create anything, whenever we attempt any kind of artistry. Establishing family culture and traditions is one of the most creative things we can possibly do. I think it likely that the fate of creative people is to look at everyone else’s art, and all the potential things that could be done, and buck and kick unhappily against the limitations of our habits, our bodies, and time.

And yet.

There is great wisdom in the ability to discern the goodness in things, regardless of our capacity to hold them. So while we must struggle and hiss against our various limitations, building family culture requires us to overcome that feeling and lose ourselves in the production of various signs of beauty and goodness in food, decor, gifts, music, and fellowship so we can effectively signify the meaning of the year-end feasts to our young children. Everything we do in the Mom Olympics, each task we take upon ourselves to mark these feasts is a visible sign to our children that we are no longer in ordinary time: we are in a special season of rare delights.

All the Married Ladies

Step one of handling Halloween to Epiphany like a boss is to set and promulgate a realistic schedule. The key to taking this first step with confidence is to put yourself in the right frame of mind when it comes to good things and your ability to hold them. The holiday calendar is just one of many areas of life that require curation: we must rank, prioritize, weed out, and cull.

If overwhelm and decision fatigue are the primary drivers of holiday anxiety for mothers, the pressure of coordinating multiple events with extended family on both sides comes in a close second. For those of us who have small children or infants, the expectation that we shuttle our littles to and fro to be presented immaculately to family all over the country is enough to flatten us with dread. 

I have another post coming that will focus specifically on family expectations and social anxiety, both of which make family gatherings very difficult this time of year. So let’s table that topic for now and focus on the broader task of setting a reasonable, detailed calendar for yourself. In general, the organizing principle for this exercise is to acknowledge and write down the commitments and dates you have no control over, so that you can plan the activities and obligations you do control more effectively.

This year, the women in my family got our annual party dates and calendar jockeying cat fight over with early. As soon as the dates we cannot control were set (violin and choral concert, first and last Sundays of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, last day of school, first day of next semester, etc.) we got together to claim dates for our various parties and traditions (the matriarchal annunciation), and to get everything written down and ratified (the promulgation). What the moms hath promulgated re: the holiday schedule, let no man dare question.

The matriarchal annunciation of preferred dates can get a little dicey. Every extended family has its strong female personalities and its passive personalities; in most families, the stronger personalities simply declare what will happen this year and every year thereafter, and expect everyone to fall in line. If everyone else is happy with this arrangement, then no harm, no foul. 

However. 

It really is too much to ask all the women in our lives to simply stay the same age, keep in the same phase of life, never have children who grow up, and never desire to run their own holiday or throw their own parties. As lovely as it would be to stop the passing of time and preserve our family traditions in amber such that we can do the same schedule every year with tyrannical, yet robotic flair . . . things change. 

Setting the calendar is the time to ask the women in your extended family if things have changed, if anyone is thinking last year didn’t go so well, and if anyone would like to do things a little differently. Extra consideration and gentleness should be allotted to older women who have thrown a million and one flawless holidays but who are starting to slow down and tire easily, and new moms with growing children who may have been perfectly happy to drive to someone else’s house when they were first married but who might feel differently as the kids get older. As painful as it is, the gracious thing to do is to simply ask older ladies or younger moms if they’d like to do something different this year. 

As my extended family has changed over time, new moms have claimed things like Christmas brunch or New Year’s Day breakfast to host. It’s not the main event, but it’s a major ancillary meal that is easier to pull of and more fun than repeating the same stage and setting as the night before. My mom has moved from cooking the entire feast to cooking the essential elements of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, with everyone else providing various dishes. My sister and her husband host a cocktail party on Christmas Eve, right after Mass. If you live near lots of family, you can use the divide and conquer method to great effect and the result is fantastic because each little event takes on the character of the person throwing it.

Wrap Obligations In Tradition

Once the calendar is done, sit yourself down and assess: are there some really heavy weekends? If so, don’t plan to also set up your Christmas tree or bake cookies that weekend. Are you hosting anything this year? Consider scheduling a cleaning lady a day or two ahead of time, and plan to have the house organized and furniture moved around a week early. 

At this point, it helps to sit and think through the 2-3 most time-consuming traditions you would like to pull off, and work backwards from your deadlines to give yourself a starting point. 

The projects I know I have to start as early as possible are: forcing indoor bulbs like amaryllis and paper whites (in fact my “Christmas bulbs” often end up blooming on Valentine’s Day); sewing or asking my mom to sew my daughter’s Christmas dress or a new baby’s stocking; and of course the ultimate time-suck where holiday efficiency dreams go to die: writing out and actually sending Christmas cards. 

You know yourself; you know what is required to get out of procrastination mode and into action. Plan in some motivation for yourself. For me, paradoxically, the solution to getting myself out of procrastination mode is to double-schedule. Sometimes I will plan a low-effort girls’ night a week before I throw a big house party, just because I know it will remove the possibility of procrastination and force me to actually clear surfaces and organize nonsense a week before. 

Does your family watch certain movies every year? Plan ahead to have your Christmas cards in envelopes and ready to address while you watch. Will your kids need new outfits for certain events, and will you need something new to wear? Use Thanksgiving weekend or a couple of November weekends to prioritize buying clothes online or in person, and shipping gifts to family and friends far away.

The key to the Mom Olympics is to combine obligations with tradition, and enlist friends or family members to help with your holiday work load. Many of my family’s treasured holiday traditions are actually treasured holiday preparations. My mom hosts Christmas cookie baking parties with her grandkids some time before Christmas, and we younger moms use this kid-free time to finish wrapping presents. She also hosts all the young grandkids for a few hours on Holy Saturday to dye Easter eggs, and the young moms use that time to finish up baskets, etc. On Thanksgiving Day, all the men take the kids and meet up at the local high school to play football all morning, so the moms can get the big feast ready. Each of these traditions are cherished by the kids, and seen as essential components of celebrating the season.

The Notes Make the Mom

My greatest Olympian hack is to write down what works and what didn’t this season so I can revisit and improve things next year. It took me about a decade of married life before I realized I needed to write down detailed notes for every major holiday, just to avoid running into the same problems or forgetting the same detail over and over. I also write really good commentary to my future self, and am annually surprised at how funny I was at 3am on Christmas Eve 2018.

I keep records of various guest lists for parties, recipes, cooking times and cooking fails, and gift ideas. I also write down when I finished wrapping things, when I got the Christmas cards mailed, and what my general thoughts were Christmas Eve. I love reviewing these notes, mostly because it’s the closest I get to any kind of faithful diary keeping, and also because I honestly forget so many things that felt, at the time, unforgettable. I don’t have any fancy system for this; I just use Apple’s Notes app.

For the last handful of years, I’ve written in my notes that if I am going to have a Christmas party, it needs to either be at the very beginning of December, or Epiphany after all the fuss is over. For years my husband and I threw a big party on Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent. We had a lovely tradition of giving thanks for our ranch and farmhouse that we bought and had blessed by our parish priest on Gaudete Sunday of 2017. However, four of my children, my sister and her husband, many of our friends, and I are in a Christmas violin orchestra and choir concert every year at around the third Sunday of Advent. I cannot control the date of this event, we rehearse for weeks ahead of time, my children all need concert attire and extra trips to rehearsals the weeks leading up to it, and usually everyone is run down and suffering from some sort of seasonal virus when the concert is upon us. Not an ideal time to throw a party.

The things we can’t control, we schedule around. This year I am throwing a big Deck the Halls daytime party for all our friends the first weekend of December. We will gather greenery and make advent wreaths and Christmas decorations. Although it is the same weekend as Thanksgiving, I have found that inviting friends over early in the season means I will clean and organize my house early, put out the bare tree, garlands, and wreaths early, and start December ahead of the game.

Young Families, Just Starting Out

If you are a young mom with a new family, your main task is to simply show up looking halfway decent to various festivities. Have somebody take of picture of you guys all dressed up. Maybe stuff some cards into envelops and hand them out to family members in person so you don’t have to address and mail them ahead of time. 

As you approach the holiday season, sit down with your husband and have a conversation about what a reasonable holiday visit and events schedule looks like for your young family. You are in charge of both your family culture and setting the long-term trajectory of your holiday memories. Have the confidence to just state simply what you think would be most enjoyable, and leave unsaid the various beefs and justifiable complaints you could voice about family members who make things difficult. 

You needn’t complain about his family or yours. You can simply state what you would really like to do, what your kids are capable of, and frame the holiday discussion in terms of what would be most enjoyable and memorable for your little family. His mother and female relatives will have their expectations; believe me when I tell you that the best possible way to handle other people’s expectations is to decide what level of participation would be reasonable for you, and then convey to everyone how excited you are do to that.

If you are pregnant or postpartum, acknowledge that this season of life comes with definite limitations. Limiting your expectations for yourself and your young children does not mean limiting holiday participation forever. It also doesn’t mean that other moms in the prime of moming are overachievers or type A girls. They are just in a different phase. Practice developing discernment—the ability to rank good things and prioritize them—and build your treasury of family traditions slowly. When my first three kids were really young we went to my mom’s house Christmas morning. We didn’t throw a big Christmas party, and I don’t think I sent out cards until my oldest was 9 or 10. My inability to do those things when my kids were young was not in any way predictive of what I am capable of doing now that my oldest is 17 and my youngest is 6. You’re not “someone who doesn’t send cards.” You’re probably just a pregnant or breastfeeding mom with little kids.

The traditions I chose to prioritize early on were sewing dresses for my daughter at Christmas, establishing a lovely St. Nicholas Feast Day tradition, making stockings for each of the kids and my nieces and nephews the year they were born, forcing paper whites and amaryllis bulbs and hanging twinkle lights in the windows so I didn’t despair of winter blues, and participating in the community Christmas orchestra and violin concert. Now, I don’t seem to be having babies anymore, and my daughter sews her own Christmas dress every year (!) Which leaves me free to throw parties, send cards, and design the holiday flowers for our church.

At some point, the balance of people and competence might swing so that it no longer makes sense to pack up all the kids and do Christmas away from your home. I am a firm believer that children should get to have Christmas morning in their own house. But honestly, when the kids are 3 and 1 the experience can fall a bit flat. You have the precious quiet of Christmas morning, but you don’t have the warmth of all the people and activity to make the experience seem unlike every other day of the year. 

Above all, younger moms just starting out in the Mom Olympics should guard against despair and grumpiness. Despite all the chaos and outside expectations, this is when you will build the character of your home and your family traditions. It is really difficult for young families to imagine a time when their children will be capable of lengthy social engagements, of helping out instead of sabotaging holiday preparations. If you commit to owning these holiday months and giving it your best, carefully discerning effort, your kids will learn over the years to take ownership of the holidays as well. Soon they will look to throw the feasts and keep the holy days.

Each of my older kids has seized upon one of the family Thanksgiving recipes and insists on making it themselves. They keep the calendar in their heads and it is often my oldest son who reminds me when it is time to put all the heavy winter drapes up in the living room and hang the twinkle lights. They take on extra jobs in October and November and save up to buy everyone in the family little gifts. 

What the Mom Olympics actually yields is a culture wherein the older family members work to make holidays magical for the younger ones. As your kids depart middle childhood, there will be roles ready for them to step into to start creating the production with you. They will make the transition from cherished—if a bit spoiled—child, to helpful young adult with relative ease if they sense that the family needs their creativity and labor to make it all work. Stick to it, press onward, and soon all these little people who benefit from the magic you make will be your co-conspirators. It comes sooner than you can possibly imagine; but you will be comfortably in the land of peak mom competence by then.