Managing holiday stress

Do you start out with sugar plum visions and wind up wishing you'd flown south? Here are some tips for lowering stress during the festive season

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Tess Kalinowski

If Santa were recruiting elves, he could do worse than Monica McDonald.

The mother of three girls, 5, 8 and 9, knows all about making lists and checking them at least twice.

McDonald cheerfully shopped for more than 50 gifts last holiday season, including family, friends and teachers.

Every year she joins in making more than 300 perogies for the family's traditional Polish Christmas Eve celebration. She also helps her 78-year-old mother host a Christmas party for 100 friends.

McDonald should be the poster girl for holiday stress. But she loves the season. Amid all the hustle and obligation she makes time for the special moments that make the work worthwhile.

That, in a nutshell, is the key to fighting the stress that typically ensues from too much shopping, too much baking and too much overall obligation. Parents are particularly vulnerable as they try to make magic memories for their children, while attending to work and other obligations.

This year, a struggling economy inevitably will add another layer of anxiety to the holidays as parents, worried about their jobs and retirement funds, tussle with the impulse to buy their children things they simply can't afford.

Even those who haven't lost their jobs, are likely to be more nervous about over-spending this year, says U of T sociology professor Scott Schiemen, who studies the impact of economic hardship on wellbeing.

"It's not only unemployment, it's the prospect of economic downturn and that's the bigger thing. Even if you're employed the suggestion there's a lot of instability in the market just provides anxiety about the future," he said.

He suggests the best way to enjoy the holidays is to find those moments of celebration.

"I think a lot of people are shifting their attention to the quality of the relationship. Anecdotally, a lot more people seem to be taking a step back," said Schiemen.

It's something even a seasoned celebrant like McDonald finds time to do.

One afternoon in December she picks up her girls from school and they head to a store where each will choose on special tree ornament.

"When they grow up they can take their ornaments and start their own tree," she says.

And one Saturday they'll all get their hands and the kitchen messy making holiday cookies.

"If we don't pass something down, if we don't instill joy in them what are you giving them?" says McDonald.

But in many cases, what parents give their kids are expensive toys, according to parenting coach and family therapist Jennifer Kolari. Some of that is because today's kids are raised in a climate of fear about what could harm them outside their own homes. They no longer know how to entertain themselves.

"The toys are crazy," she says. "If your kid comes home and says I'm the only one without an iPod it's probably true."

That makes it all the more difficult to lower expectations in families where parents are unaccustomed to saying 'no.'

"What I see in my line of work is that the more you give kids the less happy they are. The stuff that kids get for Christmas is so expensive. What's interesting is the kind of things kids have. Eight or 9-year-olds with Blackberries. Who needs a Blackberry when you're 9. It is the phone of choice for kids who are 13. This is not just affluent families. Families who are struggling are buying these."

Even if indulgence is entrenched in your home, this holiday might be an opportunity to start turning that around by explaining that money is tight. Don't frighten children by telling them you're going to lose the house or be poor. But talk to them about the difference between want and need, suggests Kolari.

Expect too that they will be disappointed, she said. Acknowledge their feelings but recognize that not giving in to unreasonable requests is in the best interest of your children.

"Kids grow up now without the emotional hardware to deal with not having what they want," she said. "Young adults are falling apart. We've raised an entire generation of kids who don't have the emotional muscle to handle disappointment."

But children don't miss what they've never had says Monique Fabregas, the founder of Greenmom, a web-based movement aimed at helping parents reduce the environmental toxins in their kids' lives and communities. She has been saying no to cheap plastic toys, candy and shiny wrapping paper since her daughter Talia was born five years ago. But for every no there's a yes that comes in the form of time and attention.

And the little girl shows no signs of feeling deprived when she can't eat the icing on birthday cakes (Fabregas doesn't want her consuming food colouring). The same goes for Christmas. Talia doesn't get piles of gifts but the toys she has, such as her baby dolls, are expensive, durable and educational.

"We've instilled in her that everybody's different and people do things in different ways. She will see different kinds of practices," said the mother of three, who also has twin boys about 10 weeks old.

"We've made it a point to shift the focus. We celebrate Christmas. We bake a cake for Jesus. Every year (Talia) makes a gift for Jesus. Our holidays are not centred around shopping. We bake. If my husband's home we make pancakes, stuff we can't do when we're on the go. We call people. We have a tree, but we don't have presents under the tree. We decorate with stuff my daughter makes and storebought ones she chooses," said Fabregas.

But, she concedes, it's not always easy to swim against the seasonal tide. Although many of her closest friends have similarly "green" lifestyles, others, including family members, sometimes need a gentle education.

Last year, Fabregas and her husband gave everyone on their list stainless steel refillable water bottles. Talia made a gift card for each one.

"It's made personal by the fact that we don't want you drinking from plastic bottles -- you're family and maybe you haven't had a chance to go out and get your own," she said.

Youth and parenting coach Rob Stringer, says stressed out families need to have a heart-to-heart about what they envision from the holiday. He compares it to planning a car trip.

"Someone might say I need to de-stress. Someone else might say I want to go toboganning. Then everyone knows where everyone else is coming from," says the Grade 4 Hamilton teacher and father of two.

He's also in favour of reality checks.

"As nice as it is to set the bar high, sometimes it's not a bad idea to think low," says Stringer and re-adjusting expectations is part of that.

"In an age appropriate way there's nothing wrong with saying, 'We've been going overboard. Maybe this year why don't we talk about one gift.'"

For more on managing holiday stress, read parentcentral.ca editor Brandie Weikle's blog. 

Peruse the rest of our  holiday guide here.