287: The Cost of Being the Holiday Magician

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life starting now. Lead yourself, the rest will follow.

Hi there, leading ladies, and welcome to today’s episode.

I am gonna share a little bit of my humanness with you. Actually, a lot of bit of my humanness. I recently had a complete meltdown about the holidays, and I’m gonna share with you the moment that I snapped in the funniest, truest way. It’s funny now. It wasn’t funny in the moment.

And I’m having so many conversations with women. Mind you, it’s only December 2nd as I’m recording this podcast, and I’ve already had so many conversations with high-achieving women about how they’re feeling around the holidays.

The Night I Snapped Over a Christmas Tree

Okay, so let me set the scene for you. We’re coming off Thanksgiving, and we immediately go right into the weekend, and I’m pulling boxes down from the attic. I’m getting my house decorated for Christmas. I went to a holiday party on a Monday night over an hour away from my home. My husband was supposed to go with me, and he said he was catching up on some work, but he was going to pick up the Christmas tree and have it set up for me when I got home.

Now, we are a real Christmas tree family, a live Christmas tree family. I guess it’s not live. A fresh-cut Christmas tree family. So we have to go to a tree lot every year to get our tree, and our living room has very, very high ceilings, and we have always had a very tall tree. A smaller tree looks a little funny in our living room. And mind you, I get that this is a very first-world problem, and there are so many other problems that are bigger than this.

But for the last 20-plus years, 24 years that I have had Christmas in this home, we have a very specific tree size that we put in our living room. So even before I got home, I’m driving home. I have an hour drive home from this holiday party, and I’m starting to think of all of the things.

I’m like, “Okay, I got that box down from the attic. Now I need to decorate the tree, and I need to look in my baking pantry and make sure that I have all the ingredients, because I have first cookie day coming up on Saturday.” And I’m going through my checklist. I am just lists upon lists upon lists in my head.

And I get home, and I walk into the house, and my husband had gotten a small Christmas tree, and it was several feet shorter than any Christmas tree we’ve ever had in our living room for the past 24 years. And I look at the tree, and I don’t think my ornaments are gonna fit on this tree. We have so many ornaments from the 24 years of collecting ornaments and raising kids and doing all the things.

And I look at the tree, and I go, “Wow, that’s a lot smaller than we’ve ever had.” And he says, “Yeah, well, I didn’t really like any of the larger trees, and I didn’t feel like going to a different tree lot, so this is what we got.” I don’t know what came over me, but I lost it. I lost it. At 44 years old, I am not expecting lots of gifts under the tree for me.

I am a mom. Christmas isn’t about the gifts and things like that for me. But one of my most simple, purest joys is sitting in my living room in the dark with the only light being the twinkly lights from the Christmas tree, having coffee with my dog and just admiring the tree. That is probably top five of my purest joys in life. That’s all I ask for for Christmas is the tree, and I just lost it.

And mind you, I just spent an hour with all the lists running through my head of how I was going to make all the magic of the holidays, and I came home and was just, I don’t know. And I’m standing there and I say, “Wow, the holidays are not magical. I am magical. I am the person that brings the magic to the holidays.”

And I’m not saying that from a place of, I’m not looking for applause or… I don’t even know. If I didn’t make the list, plan the meals, coordinate the gifts, create the moments, and hold the emotional temperature of my whole family, I believe that the magic would evaporate real quick. Gingerbread men don’t bake themselves.

I fully recognize that I was having what I would consider an irrational temper tantrum. I didn’t yell at my husband. I get it. He went and he got the tree. It was kind of drizzling. He was probably just like, “This tree is good enough.” This was good enough, and in his mind, and in all sanity, the tree is good enough.

But why do high-achieving women feel, and I know I’m not the only one because I’ve had several conversations today about this, why is good enough not good enough for the high-achieving woman? This isn’t holiday stress. It’s emotional labor in a sparkly outfit.

Breaking Down the Invisible Load

Okay, so let’s break down the invisible load. We are the memory makers. Traditions don’t just appear. We create them. So we carry the emotional vision of how we believe the holidays should feel, okay?

We are the anticipators. We predict needs before anyone else even feels them. So when there are gaps in planning, in gifts, in food, in logistics, we fill them automatically.

We are the emotional thermostats. We’re managing everyone’s moods. We’re smoothing edges. We’re keeping peace while also creating joy and also curating connection.

And we are wired for excellence. High-achieving women don’t know how to do a bare minimum or good enough holiday. I fully own that. I’m not saying that this is sane or logical, but I know I’m not alone. I know I’m not crazy because I’ve had so many conversations with women today. Our excellence becomes expectation, and then it becomes obligation.

So let’s break down the myth of holiday magic. Society pretends that holiday magic is effortless, like it just floats in on a fluffy snowflake. But the truth is someone is behind the scenes making that magic happen. And guess what? It’s usually women. It’s usually the high-achieving woman. In my life, it’s me. It’s women like you, listeners, leaders, entrepreneurs, planners, the doers. But magic is not mystical. Magic is work with a ribbon on it.

The Cost of Being the Holiday Magician

What’s the cost of being the holiday magician? Okay, so I wanna go a little deeper here with you, and this is by no means meant to guilt trip anyone. And my husband is amazing. My husband is an amazing, amazing husband and father. I’m not going to minimize how much he does. The fact that he went out in the drizzling weather after working a full day, getting the tree by himself. Do I wish that he would’ve gone to a different tree lot and tried to find a tree the size that we usually get?

Absolutely. But I get it, you know? I’m not even going to pretend to compare what his mental load is to my mental load. But for the sake of this podcast and talking about the high-achieving woman, yeah, it was disappointing. I was disappointed.

Burnout is often disguised as cheer. We are smiling through the exhaustion. I smiled. I swallowed my disappointment and I said, “Well, the tree has a nice shape. It’s tree-shaped, I guess. I don’t know.” Wanting to cry over one more trip to the grocery store. I literally looked at the tree this morning and thought, “Well, how do I get motivated about this tree?”

And I don’t think it’s about the tree. I don’t think it’s about the tree. I think it’s about what the tree represented, and that that was my one thing. That was mine, was just the beautiful tree in the living room and my quiet moments where I got to enjoy the magic of the holiday. And I don’t know. I guess it just stuck, you know?

And I think another cost of being the holiday magician is that sometimes our joy is unseen or unappreciated when other people enjoy the magic, but they don’t realize the toll that it takes on the person who creates it. And don’t get me wrong, as my kids grew up, I have had so many beautiful Christmas memories and Christmas mornings. My kids are adults now, and I look back and I think about all the times that I saw the magic reflected in their eyes.

I didn’t expect thank yous or for them to acknowledge that I had created that when they were little. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t moments when you feel like you’re doing all of that work, and it is unseen, and it is unappreciated. For other people, the magic is just there. It’s just there. They’re not realizing that it really took someone’s effort to create that.

We are at risk of losing our own holiday joy, being so busy creating the experience that we don’t get to feel it. And I think I’m especially feeling that now as, again, my kids are older. They’re both adult kids, young adult kids, very young adults. My son just turned 18.

But the magic is different, you know? You don’t get the toddler faces that are lit up. Christmas has changed. The holidays have changed. And so those things that used to bring me a lot of joy, I’m having to look for those joyful moments in other places. So trying really hard to continue traditions or continue things that used to be so joyful, it’s getting harder and harder to feel it.

AD

This episode is sponsored by the Severn Leadership Group. Inspired and courageous leaders forever change our world. Do you want to create a better world through your leadership? My name is Julie Campbell, president and CEO of the Severn Leadership Group. We support and develop courageous leaders and their teams through a foundation of virtuous behaviors. Our programs enable leaders to embrace their purpose, strengthen their character, and empower their teams to produce superior results. Come discover how your courageous leadership will inspire powerful change in your organization, community, and world. Find out more at severnleadership.org. That’s S-E-V-E-R-N leadership.org.

The Resentment Spiral

The resentment spiral. Why am I the only one who sees all the work that goes into creating the holiday magic? Why? Why am I the only one carrying this? I actually thought to myself, “I wonder what would happen if I just didn’t decorate the tree, if I didn’t run around town looking for just the perfect holiday wrapping paper to fit whatever theme I chose this year.”

And some of this is self-imposed. My family does not care what the wrapping paper looks like. They do not care about the dishes that I set out or how the napkins are folded. However, there’s a difference between not caring and also not realizing that it is all of those tiny details that kind of bring that wow factor to it, that magic to it.

And so if I’m not doing it for them, I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it for me, but I’m doing it for me because I love to see the expressions and the joy that my loved ones feel from it. So it’s like this never-ending spiral of, I want you to feel how much effort I’m putting into it.

But I also don’t want to be invisible. What would their Christmas feel like if I didn’t do those things? What would their holidays feel like if I didn’t care about those details? And that’s where, again, the excellence becomes the expectation and then becomes the obligation. It’s just this cycle.

From Magician to Architect

Okay, so how do we shift? How do we move from the magician to the architect? Okay, so yes, you are magical. You are magical. You are the person that puts the magic in the holidays, but you don’t have to perform magic. You can design it. Architects, they set boundaries, they delegate, they communicate expectations, they choose what matters, and they release the rest.

This is how empowered leaders do holidays. Mind you, I’m learning this lesson, too. I’m in such a huge transition of motherhood again, going from young kids to now older kids. They’re doing their own thing. Maybe some traditions don’t fit our life anymore. So I’m not sharing this because I’m the expert in this. I’m sharing this because I’m actually going through it myself.

Again, as the holiday architect, we are setting boundaries, we’re delegating, we’re communicating our expectations, we’re choosing what matters, we’re releasing the rest. Back to this whole tree thing. I could have told my husband, “Hey, if you can’t find a tree tonight that is the same size as all the trees we’ve had for the last 24 years, then just pause, and we will go together and we will visit some other tree lots or whatever.”

I could have just not cared about the size of the tree. I could have been logical about it and said, “Oh, well, that’s what he found. That’s what was available right then. The size of the tree does not matter.” Sounds so silly, you know? But why? Why was I so hyper-fixated on that instead of really recognizing what matters?

And what matters is that I have a healthy, loving, thriving family that’s gonna be able to spend the holidays together, right? But our emotions don’t think like that when we’re in that high-achieving excellence kind of obsession that we get into. And so you can be human and feel those feelings, but then come back to it and say, “Okay, but I’m gonna put things in perspective,” right?

Bringing Ease Into the Season

Okay, so how do we bring more ease into the season without lowering the standards? We have to be grounded. We have to be direct with our loved ones, especially when things are changing or when communication might be disconnected.

We need to be compassionate with ourselves. Yes, we can be disappointed. Yes, I’m absolutely disappointed in the size of this tree. I have every right to feel that way. So much is changing in my life, and that tree really meant a lot to me. For whatever reason, that meant a lot to me. So I’m gonna be compassionate with myself and not say, “Gosh, AliceAnne, you’re such a horrible person. Get your priorities straight.” I’m gonna be kind to myself.

So let’s talk about how we identify our non-negotiable magic. If you’re in a place where you can write, or if you wanna save this podcast and come back to it and use it for later to go through this, let’s make some lists. The first one is, like I said, identify your non-negotiable magic.

What are the two or three traditions you actually care about? What’s really important to you? Is it that your whole family goes to Christmas Eve mass together? Is it a special advent calendar that your family uses? Is it Christmas caroling together? I’m thinking of Christmas with the Kranks and that spiral, the ham.

If you’ve seen the movie, the mom is running to every grocery store to get this candied ham or something. That was a non-negotiable for her, and in this part in the movie, everything is going wrong, and I think the ham ends up getting run over. But for whatever reason, that was her non-negotiable, that ham, and I think in the movie, Santa brings it or something. I don’t know.

But what are the two or three traditions you actually care about? Once I was able to step away from the disappointment of not having a tree that looks like all of our other trees… Did I mention for the last 24 years? Just making sure that I put that in there. No, but once I was able to step away from that, what are the traditions I actually care about?

Well, I care that my kids wake up in their home, you know? That they are here, and they wake up in their childhood bedrooms. They’re not married. Obviously, they’re young adults. So I wanna hold onto that tradition right now. I care about us going to Christmas mass together. I care about just being together and really talking about the reason for the season.

It’s not about the trees or the presents or the perfectly curated cocoa. Those things are just the smaller things that add flair to, like I said, the reason for the season.

Communicate before you get resentful. Tell your family or team, “Here’s what I’m responsible for, here’s what I need help with, and here’s what I’m not gonna do this year.”

So it would be petty of me if I said, “You know what? I don’t like this tree, and I’m not gonna decorate it, so you all are on your own.” That would be really crummy, and that would create confusion and a lot of resentment and hurt. So I’m not gonna behave that way. But communication is always the root of any conflict resolution or any disappointment.

And so it’s important to communicate before you feel hurt or resentful. You wanna share how you’re feeling, and that was a conversation that I had with my husband. I wish that he would’ve waited and said, “You know what? I don’t think she’s gonna be happy with this size of tree, and this is really the only thing that she really focuses on for the holiday for herself.”

But I wish I would’ve said that. I wish I would’ve talked to him about that before, whereas maybe his expectation was, “I need to get a tree tonight, ‘cause she said get a tree tonight.”

Magical Without Being a Martyr

Simplify with intention. Not everything has to be handmade, curated, or custom. We can be magical without being martyrs, and that’s gonna be my mantra probably for the next few days while I cool off and try to regroup here, that there can still be magic without me being a martyr.

I don’t have to feel burnt out. I don’t have to choose to feel that way. I can have an adult conversation with my family, and I can let them know how I’m feeling and ask for help. I don’t have to hold it all together and be angry or resentful or in a victim mentality, in a woe-is-me mentality. That is a choice, and I recognize that in my tantrum I did dip into that, but I don’t have to stay there.

We need to let people in. As high-achieving women, we often feel like help is lowering the standard, and that’s just not true. Help is expanding our capacity. And so when we say, “This is important to me, and I need your help,” you’re actually, like I said, expanding that capacity and inviting someone to participate in that magic and possibly create even more beautiful memories.

So give yourself permission to enjoy the season, not just facilitate it. I have a loving call-in to every woman who’s listening. You are the magic, and you deserve to feel as loved, held, and delighted as everyone you care for. Holiday magic is not your responsibility. It’s your contribution, and contributions are shared. Okay? Contributions are shared. And you don’t have to earn rest, joy, or wonder.

So let me revisit the line that I started with. The holidays aren’t magical. I am magical. Yes, and this year I’m choosing to use my magic in ways that feel good to me. So I’m gonna encourage you, the listeners, to pick one thing that you’re releasing and one thing that you’re keeping with you this holiday season.

You create incredible experiences for others all year long, and this season, make sure you are included in the magic you create.

Until next time, take the lead.

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of the Leading Lady podcast. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at www.leadinglady-coaching.com. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow the show so you don’t miss any future episodes. And while you’re there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. This will allow me to be able to help other high-achieving women find inspiration, connection, and develop strategies to live and lead with purpose and intention. See you here next week.