Category Archives: Dealing with Christmas stress

Merry COVID Christmas

I created this blog for several reasons, one of them was to develop my writing style.  To accomplish this I committed to a few  rules, including to be wholly honest and transparent.  I felt that this stipulation was necessary to give validation to what I was writing. Unfortunately, I have been only partially successful in meeting this goal.

I am honest when I write about my past, my fears, my ideas, my successes, my failures, and just about anything related to me.  However, I have been conscious to not write about situations that those close to me may find awkward.  I made this modification early on when I wrote something about a family member and was told, “You embarrassed me.”  That event brought back memories of Erma Bombeck, a newspaper columnist from my youth who wrote a hilarious column that often featured the antics of her children.  Decades later I found out that her writings caused her kids untold grief as they hated having their exaggerated dirty laundry aired to their neighbors, teachers, and peers.

I am able to see both the good and bad in people and situations, but my nature is to focus on the positive.  Some have accused me of being too Pollyanna-ish, but this is just who I am. I had a concern that my more positive view of this holiday season could be upsetting to some readers who felt punished during this time. I don’t want to be the guy who is rubbing joy into someone else’s face. Should I not write about Christmas because it might be a “trigger” for someone?  Editors note:  I really am starting to hate the word trigger, and its overuse… but here I am using it myself.

I know Christmas was difficult for many, as most normal get-togethers had to be shelved.  The same can be said for my family as we had to forgo a variety of celebrations on both sides. Despite these losses, I enjoyed Christmas a lot. 

In many ways I am privileged.  I’m retired and have a retirement income, most of my kids were home for the holiday, and I am generally healthy.  I’m sure these factors impacted my Christmas experience. Could being truthful hurt some of my readers who have less?  

After weighing all points I decided to write about my Christmas.  Why?  Because I understand that the way that we think about a situation has a direct impact on how we experience that situation. This is an important rule that is worth writing about.

One theme that I have repeated in my blog posts is that events and situations are neither good nor bad, they just “are.”  As you read this some of you are thinking of exceptions, and are likely muttering something like, “How can you say that the coronavirus is neither good nor bad?  Millions have become sick and hundreds of thousands are dead!”  You would be correct in your assertion that this virus has inflicted terrible consequences on our world.  However, its total effect won’t be known for decades. Believe it or not, some positive may result from this plague. It is possible that the lessons that we have learned from this pandemic will save us from an even more deadly one in the future.  -Sadly, there will be more pandemics.

Back to Christmas.  

Here are some of the things that I chose to view as negative:

I missed not seeing my close family, friends, and relatives.  

Here are some things that I chose to view as positive:

I didn’t have to travel long distances in terrible weather conditions.  I have had to make many white knuckle drives during whiteouts and blizzards to attend past Christmas get-togethers.

How did I redesign Christmas for 2020?

There are many unrealistic expectations around Christmas.  Is it any surprise that so many are stressed before Christmas and disappointed afterwards?  My goal was to extract what my family found significant and to focus on those events.  I used a broad strokes approach instead of trying to micromanage everyone’s individual experience. 

There are general themes that we focus on at Christmas time.

The reason for the season-

As Christians we use December 25th as a day to honor the birth of Jesus.  

Decorating- 

We don’t have a showplace Christmas house.  In fact, our decorations are a  bit on the soft side.  We decorate our living room and family room.  In recent years I have backed away from doing a lot of outside decorations-I hate taking the stuff down in the bitter cold. 

The most significant holiday artifact is our Christmas tree.  It is an old artificial one, that seems to lose more “needles” than real trees do.  However, we love putting on the tree’s decorations as they all have significance to us.  Many ornaments were given as gifts, while others were made by our kids in preschool and grade school.  Each placement feels like a little visit with an old friend.

We all decorated our tree, which was filled with memories from the past.

Food-

Food is a major part of any celebration.  We usually have our main meal on Christmas Eve.  This year I was chief cook and decided to make a beef tenderloin, tossed salad, glazed carrots, scalloped potatoes, and freshly baked yeast rolls.  Julie acted as my assistant, easing my responsibility. I was  terrified that I would ruin the tenderloin, as its overall cost was akin to a small mortgage payment.  Thankfully the meal turned out great.

Our Christmas Eve dinner table was simply set with some very old and much loved Fiestaware.
I was in charge of making Christmas Eve dinner. Happily, it turned out well.

Traditionally Julie makes a brunch on Christmas Day which always includes an egg casserole dish which we refer to as “egg dish.”  It is a combination of eggs, bread, ham, and cheese that is prepared the night before to allow everything to meld together. When baked on Christmas morning it turns into a combination of a souffle and a casserole.  It is a holiday must-have in Kunaland.  

Julie made our Christmas Day brunch. Here she is dusting some Monkey Bread. You can see the “egg dish” far left.

You may be wondering what we had for Christmas Day dinner. Frozen pizza!  It is great to make special meals, but none of us wanted to spend the entire holiday cooking.

Desserts-

Another Christmas tradition.  William decided to make Grace a favorite dessert and Grace decided to do the same for William.  It was their gift to each other.  Personally, I love the idea of a gift of service. Both William and Grace shared their dessert gifts with the rest of the family.  A sweet holiday for all. 

William making Grace some ice cream cone cupcakes, a favorite memory from childhood.
Grace making William a fresh strawberry pound cake, a recent favorite of his.

Gifts-

For decades Julie and I have tried to deemphasize gift giving, but we have been only partially successful.  We have come to realize that it is an important part of the holiday, and we now focus on finding things that have meaning rather than things that are just expensive.  For instance, the kids know of my love of camping and gave me items like a book on the National Parks.  I gave Julie a variety of things, but I also fixed a long-broken lamp that she loves.  For us, it is less about the thing and more about the idea behind the thing.  With that said, it is a wonderful feeling when someone is thinking about you. Kindness does not have a monetary value.

Grace gets a cat T-shirt. We love cats.
The kids know that I love camping. Here I have some camping lounge pants!
My Godchild, Jenny had this special “camping style” mask made for me!
Will wanted some flags for his dorm room. Here he is getting in-touch with his inner Slovak.
We had a power outage that lasted several hours on Christmas morning. Julie was disappointed as we couldn’t listen to music. However, I had a wireless bluetooth speaker in Violet the campervan. The speaker plus some Spotify beamed from my phone did the trick!
Julie got a card game that she played as a child. It was a happy memory.

Together time- 

We enjoy spending time with each other.  Most of our Christmas time together was centered around meals, watching the end of a TV series on a DVD (which was also overdue from the library), and gift opening.  

Alone time- 

One of the advantages (for introverts like us) was having more alone time this year.  There is not much more to say about this as each of us like doing our own thing.

Extended relationships time- 

We had a long ZOOM call with Julie’s family on Christmas, and I made sure to contact people during the holiday season via the phone, ZOOM, Facetime, email, Facebook, and texting.  As the pandemic has lurched on socializing options, like a group ZOOM call, seem more natural. 

We had a long ZOOM call to Julie’s side of the family.

If I summarize what we did for Christmas, it wasn’t much.  We remembered why we were celebrating the day, put up simple decorations, had a few nice meals, opened some gifts, and connected with people who were important to us.  So why was the holiday special?  Because we choose to make it so.  Importantly, we focused on what we had instead of what we didn’t have. 

I would also like to emphasize that I wasn’t trying to artificially replicate our usual Christmas.  Instead, I took important elements from past Christmases and created a new celebration.  I did this to avoid the agony of comparison. I didn’t want us to dwell on why we didn’t have X, Y, or Z.  Instead, I wanted us to focus on what we did have. 

I understand that some of you may be more fortunate than me, and some of you may be less fortunate.  However, it is possible for all of us to approach important events in our lives with what we have, or what we can create, rather than what we don’t have or what we are giving up.

When I was working I would often hear tales of miserable Christmas holidays.  Some would vacation, but their friends went to more exotic places.  Others gave fabulous gifts, but they then had to deal with debt.  Still others tried to orchestrate a “Norman Rockwell”  Christmas and were upset when things weren’t as perfect as what they imagined. People can be disappointed during the best of times when they choose to focus on what’s missing. It is up to us to make our lives the best that they can be.

Christmas 2020 will only happen once in a lifetime, I refuse to throw this day away in the hopes of a better 2021.  Each day is precious, never to be repeated.

Christmas Past, Christmas Present

Christmas Past, Christmas Present

I savored the trinity of holidays when I was a kid. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. This triple threat commenced with the relatively unimportant Halloween, then moved to the more significant Thanksgiving, and culminated in the ultimate holiday, Christmas. 

I have both good and bad Christmas memories. Still, my overall reminiscence of the season was one of excitement and joy. I enjoyed school, but the idea of getting two weeks off from it at the height of winter was exhilarating. However, it seemed that the week that preceded winter break expanded to infinity, moving ever slower as each day inched towards the holiday weekend. 

The first few days off of school were magical, and all possibilities appeared to be within my grasp. I could stay up, I could sleep in, I didn’t have homework to weigh me down, and school seemed like a lightyear away. 

Christmas Eve celebration took place at my grandparent’s walk-up flat on Chicago’s West Side. I didn’t like going there as it smelled strongly of garlic and BenGay. Worse, everyone spoke in Slovak, a language that I could neither speak nor understand. However, Christmas Eve was different, as all of my cousins were in attendance. The family was packed into the tiny place as we laughed and celebrated. My grandmother was an excellent ethnic cook, and we dined on her Christmas cabbage soup, which was accompanied by homemade rye bread, kolacky, and yeast coffee cakes filled with sweet poppy seed or fruit fillings. The kids would be relegated to a makeshift table in one of the bedrooms that was adorned with mismatched plates and bowls. Before we started our meal, a thin host like wafer would be passed among us. Each of us would break off a piece, which we dripped in honey and ate. I’m unsure of the significance of this wafer, which was called Oplatki. I thought it had something to do with Holy Communion, but that is just my conjecture.

Sometime after 11 PM, we would put on our coats and go to Assumption BVM Catholic Church for Midnight Mass. This was an ethnic church, and so the service was in Slovak. The place would be filled with parishioners, and once again, my nose would be assaulted by the smell of garlic, this time punctuated by the pungent odor of mothballs used to prevent insect destruction of  the congregations’ wool dress coats. It was not uncommon for one of my siblings to start to laugh, and like a wave, their mirth would spread to the rest of us. Each child desperately trying to stifle their sacrilegious giggles. Of course, that was impossible, and the more we tried, the more we laughed. Although we were met with angry glares, I remember those incidents with full satisfaction.

After services, we returned to my grandparents’ house for another meal. Our Christmas Eve dinner was meat-free, but our 1 AM meal was not. I don’t recall everything that we ate during that meal. Still, perogies and a delicious Slovak sausage called Droby stand out in my memory. My grandmother would bake the latter with bacon until both the bacon and sausage casings were crisp and delicious. Stuffed to our limit, we would then pile into our respective cars and return home. Christmas Eve was a day where a young kid could stay up ridiculously late without being scolded by a parent. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas Day were the only times that we ate in our dining room, and they were also the only days that we used our good china. Our china consisted of thin white porcelain dishes that had a silver ring around their edges, and an outer margin decorated with pink roses. I thought it was very fancy. Typically, we would eat our meals at our old Formica kitchen table using worn melamine dishes, so eating in the dining room was very special.

My mother would make a massive feast for Christmas Day. We would start off with a small glass of tomato juice and some canned fruit salad and then move onto the main course, a full Thanksgiving-style meal plus dumplings, pork roast, and Polish sausage with sauerkraut. There would be more kolache and yeast coffee cakes. Also, there could be a pie, cookies, nut cups, date bars, and other delectables.  

My two maiden aunts always celebrated Christmas dinner with us. So we weren’t allowed to open presents until dinner was over. This could be agony for me as all of my friends opened gifts either on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. 

Despite having a pile of presents under the tree, the actual number of gifts per person was small and mostly unremarkable. Usually, the best gifts went to my parents’ Godchildren as my folks didn’t want to seem cheap to the other relatives. I often bought my gifts from the Spencer Catalog, a mail-order house where you could get fabulous items for $1 to 3 dollars. Most of the gifts that I received were functional and not very inspired. However, there were a few standout years that I remember.

I started to listen to the radio when I was in early grade school. I would tune our old Aiwa kitchen radio carefully to pick up far off cities as their amplitude modulated signals ebbed and flowed with the shifting ionosphere. Discovering these hidden signals was seminal in broadening my overall view of the world around me, and I wanted a radio for my very own. Christmas was approaching, and I remember telling my mother of this fervent wish.

That year, my mother decided to wrap presents early, and to prevent package prodding, she used a “secret code” to identify whose gifts were whose. This didn’t stop me from investigating the wrapped packages, and I found one rectangular box that was just the right size and weight for a little tabletop radio. I could hardly wait for Christmas.

Christmas arrived that I was given my present to open, it was THE box! I started to carefully rip the wrapping paper, which revealed the word “Westinghouse.” Holy cow, I was really going to get a radio! I now tore off the rest of the paper and literally started to shriek, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I really wanted this, thank you!” My mother had a puzzled look on her face, and took the box from me. “This is for your brother.” She had read the wrong code, and I got the wrong gift. True story. Later, as a teenager and adult, I collected radios of all sorts, eventually owning dozens of them… I’m sure this is only a coincidence.

When I was in 6th grade, my oldest sister Carol married. That Christmas, she gave me a little wrapped box for my gift. It was so light that I thought it was empty. I opened the box to find a note, that note led me to another note, which led me to another note. Eventually, I found myself outside of the house, marching down the street to my sister and her husband’s car. The trunk of the sedan was partially open, and sticking out of it was a huge rectangular box. The box had a little piece of a scrap of paper taped to it that said, “For Michael.” I was utterly bewildered. I started to rip a corner off the box only to find metal parts inside. I tore the box further, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Carol and Bob had bought me a bicycle. My current bike from my parents was a cast-off from one of my cousins. It was so old and worn that I couldn’t even turn the crank arm, and so it sat in the garage unused. Now, I had a brand new, bright red bike! It also had a battery-operated headlight and a package rack on its back fender. I had never received such a generous gift, and I was utterly overwhelmed. My eyes filled with tears as I tried to pull it out the trunk of the car, but my young body didn’t have enough strength. I looked up to find Bob and Carol standing next to me, and with one pull, Bob lifted the box and carried it inside of the house. I rode that bike for many years and even wore out multiple sets of tires on my travels. That Christmas was the best Christmas ever. 

My early Christmases all followed the same prescribed formula. All of my family would gather, and the same rituals were followed every year. There was stability and predictability during the holiday during those times. The routine felt good.

On Christmas Eve, we attended the 5 PM service at Community Christian Church and then immediately headed to our final Christmas party at my nephew Tommy’s house. Since I get up at 4 AM to walk, I was ready to leave the party once the clock chimed nine.

Julie and I both agreed that we would have a low key Christmas Day this year. After attending a variety of pre-Christmas get-togethers, our introverted selves needed some time to recharge. Our two remaining kids were in agreement with scaled-down Christmas plans, and we all relished the idea of staying in our PJs as long as we wanted to on Christmas Day. For many years our family has been somewhat fractured on Christmas, as my oldest daughter was typically unable to travel and celebrate with us. However, this year things would be even worse. My second oldest was now in the Peace Corps and serving in Africa. Not only would we not see her, but we weren’t even sure if we would hear from her due to connectivity uncertainties. 

On Christmas Day, I kept my early walk tradition, but the rest of the family took their time to rise from bed. Julie was the first one up. She poked her head into my study to wish me a “Merry Christmas” and then headed into the kitchen. Soon I heard the whir of our coffee grinder and then the electronic beeps of the oven as Julie programmed it for 350F. She had assembled an overnight egg dish the day before, and she was getting ready to bake it for our Christmas brunch. 

She brought me a cup of coffee, and we chatted for a moment before she returned to the kitchen. Slowly Grace and Will emerged from their respective bedrooms. It was time to open presents. We had texted Kathryn, our Peace Corps daughter, and she said she would try to call us on Christmas morning. That is if she could set a good enough internet connection. As we started to open our gifts, Julie’s iPhone rang. It was Kathryn calling on WhatsApp. She had a good enough wifi connection for a video call! She was able to stay online until we completed our openings as we chatted with her and showed her our presents. It almost seemed like she was with us.

That evening we changed things up by going to our first ever Christmas Day movie. We all enjoyed, “Knives Out,” a who-done-it mystery. Then after a day of rest, we traveled to see our oldest child, Anne. She had an appointment in Normal, IL, and we decided to meet her and our grandkids at a restaurant there. We ate, talked, and laughed as we opened presents and took pictures. Another non-traditional meeting for us, but it was great none-the-less. 

I write this on New Year’s Eve. Our non-traditional Christmas celebrations are behind us, as we face not only a new year, but also a new decade.

I did enjoy the routine and traditions of Christmas past. However, it was not possible for my family and me to have a classic Christmas in 2019. What were my options? I could have demanded that all of my kids be present, but that would have been ridiculous. I could have sulked and felt sorry for myself, but that would only make the situation worse. I choose option three, to not only accept the change but to make the most out of it. By being flexible, I was able to have contact with all of my kids during the holiday. I had an enjoyable Christmas Day punctuated by a first, a Christmas Day movie. It was all excellent. 

It is easy to get locked into a rigid holiday tradition, which can serve as a point of disappointment or conflict if the exact requirements of that expectations are not met. However, such stiffness serves no purpose. I choose to be grateful for what I have instead of being resentful for what I don’t. 

Happy holidays,

Mike

Here is the audio link to this podcast: http://psychiatricsecrets.libsyn.com/christmas-past-christmas-present?fbclid=IwAR2PR7F3Jxb_oXIP0bJm7GbaV_tbWLIGcZiXGC2F5K-Qts96CWUAMHisdhM

Thoughts On Christmas Presents

The questions start in November and continue well into December. “What do you want for Christmas?” A query posed to my kids, to my wife, and to me.

When I was a child, this was an easy question to answer. I had very little and had many wants. Unfortunately, family finances were limited growing up, and receiving my desired gift was in no way a certainty.

We opened presents after dinner on Christmas day. This time was chosen so we could include my two maiden aunts, who ate Christmas dinner with us. Most of my friends opened their gifts on Christmas Eve, or Christmas morning, and waiting until 7 PM on Christmas Day seemed like a cruel eternity. This delay also heightened my anticipation for what I could possibly receive.

One Christmas I asked for a radio. That year my mother decided to wrap presents early, and she used a “secret” code to identify the gift recipients in an effort to prevent prying eyes. Unfortunately, she forgot the system by Christmas and had to use other, less than perfect, identifying skills.

She handed me my present and I took it with great anticipation. The size of the box was right, the weight of the box was within specs. I was very excited. I opened my present and burst into a, ”Thank you, thank you,” cry. Under the wrappers was a box that contained a Motorola AM table radio. I wanted something a little more sophisticated, but I was overjoyed getting this approximation. I looked at my mom and saw a disturbed look on her face. “Michael, that radio is not for you. It is for your brother, Tom.” I handed it over to him. There was no radio for me that Christmas.

During my post-divorce/pre-remarried period it was common for me to get little or nothing at Christmas. Yes, there were those times when I was dating someone, and we would exchange gifts, but there were other times when I was “single” and alone. I no longer had the desperate wants of childhood, but I still felt sorry for myself.

I have been re-married for many years, and with this union, I am assured to receive Christmas presents. Early in our relationship, we would shower each other with extravagant gifts. When we had kids we scaled back on our gifts, putting more effort into their presents. Over time, we also scaled back on those gifts.

Gone are the days when Christmas morning meant getting a pair of desperately needed shoes, or a new winter coat. We buy things as required year round. If my kid’s phone goes down I don’t expect them to wait 6 months to get a new one.

Every year my wife and I talk about scaling back further on our purchases, and we have had some success in that endeavor. Yet, we still can buy each other gifts that are forgotten as soon as, “Thank you,” leaves our lips.

This is possibly the point in the post where you may think that I’m going to say that in a moral cleansing effort I have decided to donate all of my gift money to charity. I am sorry to disappoint you, but that is not the case.

We do give to charities, and we also participate in a gift mart where we buy gifts for kids less fortunate than ours, but we still plan on buying gifts for our kids and each other.

After many years of not having anything to open on Christmas day, I want a present or two. It symbolizes to me that someone cares enough about me to make an effort to do something for me. In fact, we encourage our kids to give gifts, not only to their friends and siblings but also to us. It is vital for them to learn that their lives should be more about what they can do for others, rather than what stuff that they can get for themselves.

Through the years I have received many cherished gifts from my children. A red marble from William sits on the desk in my study, a piece of homemade pottery from Kathryn adorns my Rockford office, and a decorated flower pot from Grace serves as my pen and pencil holder at the Ware Center.

Back to the question that I posed in the first paragraph of this post. Since we have few wants, it can be challenging to find a gift that is meaningful to its intended recipient. It has also been vital for us to acknowledge that we are individuals, and we need to be respectful of each other’s desires.

A few years back my wife felt that as a family we should give each other experiences instead of gifts. That sounds great, but the kids and I wanted things to open on Christmas. A favorite gift for me is the gift of time. In other words, taking over one of my household chores for one or two cycles. This kind of gift would be meaningless to my kids, but they, in turn, would appreciate homemade cookies made by one of their siblings. What I’m saying is that it is important to include everyone’s feelings when making a global decision about holiday gift giving. You may think that donating the family’s gift money to charity and spending Christmas Day dishing out food at a local shelter is a fantastic idea. However, your spouse and kids may feel differently. Consideration in everything.

I do feel that gift giving has gotten out-of-control in many families. It makes no sense to go into debt to buy things that you absolutely don’t need. At the same time gift giving is a national tradition during the holiday season. The secret to success is a balanced approach and a doable budget. This balance/budget idea should be extended beyond our immediate families. I have talked to many a patient who was sick with financial worry after buying expensive gifts for relatives because “It was expected.” A frank discussion at Thanksgiving can preserve both your mental health and credit rating. Most extended families are grateful to move from debt spending to a simpler and cheaper option, such as a grab bag or white elephant gift exchange.

As I have already said, few people remember the gifts that they receive a month after getting them. However, most will remember time spent together. Having a happy and low-stress holiday returns the true spirit of that day. Imagine opening up your January credit card statement with relief, instead of dread.

So what did I asked for Christmas this year? I requested a good wool blanket for my campervan’s bed. A quality blanket is something that I would not likely purchase on my own, but once owned I would gratefully use it for years to come. It is lovely to be remembered at Christmas, and it is terrific to be toasty warm when camping on a frigid morning.

A snowy winter.

Christmas tree near downtown.

Christmas lights downtown.