Joy is Not an Optional Parenting Skill
This year I am taking a Holiday Day of Rest.
After last year, I am not ok with parental burnout anymore and I’m taking a stand ✨ In December, even the weekends are full. All parents need and deserve a day of rest so we can feel the joy of the season in the ways WE love best.
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So let’s make it official - 12/21 #holidaydayofrest - are you with me?
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Maybe it fills you with joy to listen to Alvin and the Chipmunks each year - but for me, after the 100th time I’m done - and I am ready for the things that fill me with wonder and joy during the holiday season.
Watching Elf once is enough too. There are so many black and white movies I love, like the original Miracle on 34th Street or It’s a Wonderful Life - you have yours, you know the ones.
I need to hear Bing Crosby’s voice reverberate through my chest, go outside smell the cold air, or sit in the silence of a quiet snowy morning.
These are the things that I forget to enjoy while I am checking my list twice, making sure we have enough butter for gingerbread - and oh s^%t the dough has to sit in the fridge overnight!! Should we make muffins for the grandparents to eat? What type of pie will I buy this year, and when will Costco run out? Oh man, I totally forget that I need to remind the kids to make a present for Dad, Great Grandma, and on and on we go.
Yes, I love everything about the holidays but I miss being a kid. I miss being a part of the magic. An audience member enveloped by it - instead of the conductor keeping the music in time.
2020 was the last straw - I don’t think I am totally unwound from the burnout yet, and I know many of my friends are not. Well, it’s time to create the life I want to live, to make it what I want it to be even while my kids are still young. And so once a holiday season I am going to take time for my own Joy and I am calling it the Holiday Day of Rest - and it will be a day right in the thick of it all on 12.21 each year.
This day will be for me. Not to ignore my children and go to the spa, but to notice when I make the choice to put my Joy on hold. Whether I go to work or stay home with the kids I will pause and choose the things that fill ME with Joy - and if the kids don’t like it well they can go watch Elf for the 15th time. On 12/21 I’m not sitting down to watch with them one more time or make a holiday craft or ensure their Santa socks are clean.
On the 21st of December I will focus on what I am going to wear, and I am going to do and listen to and taste.
Maybe I will spend the whole day cutting out snowflakes because it’s what I have always wanted to do. Maybe I will spend an hour outside walking around the neighborhood checking out everyones wreaths, maybe I will go to my sister’s house and sit with her while we watch Miracle on 34th Street, maybe I will make ambrosia - my favorite childhood holiday treat, maybe I will go to church and sing psalms and carols even though my kids have never stepped a foot in a church.
There are so many things I no longer do because my kids never liked them or we found new holiday traditions that were great too. But when you let go of some of the things that always filled you with Joy a little of that Joy gets left out of your holiday - and I know I can feel it missing, can you?
How do you want to feel on Dec 26th when it’s “all over”?
I know if I make just a teensy space for my Joy in December that in addition to all childhood wonder that fills my home, my heart will get a little of it’s own too.
If you choose to take a #holidaydayofrest please use the hashtag on Instagram and I will repost to my Stories!