Family, Holidays and Boilermakers

“Fish & visitors stink in 3 days.” –Benjamin Franklin

With the major holiday season now over, we all have a little more time to reflect on what it was that just happened. Sitting in a room filled with already broken toys, a 8 foot tall dead Christmas tree and burned out yankee candles, it occurred to me once again that the holidays cause more stress than what they are worth.

This year I had made a whole-hearted effort to drink less than the previous years, and the plan was going along just fine… until the thought of family coming over pushed me back to a regimen of eggnogs and beer - holiday boilermakers, if you will.

Normally dealing with family is stressful enough, but add in the extraordinary cooking of traditional meals, the decorations all being in the perfect spot, the house smelling of northern pine (rather than burnt cookies), it’s difficult to cope. Many family members you only see once a year during the holidays, so you have to figure out what it was you did of importance over the past 12 months so you can sound like you’ve got things all figured out.

Unfortunately this year, when it came time to talk about all the great things I did since I saw the family last, all I could think of was “do we have enough eggnog left to get me through the night?” Truth is, I know I did a few great things over the past year, but because I drank a little too much the family probably thought I was a flake again and slightly aloof.

Stress and holidays… It has finally hit me what happened this season – I allowed circumstances beyond my control get the better of me again.

We can’t make everyone enjoy the decorations we have up, or like the food we serve; in fact we can’t even force them to have civilized conversation with each other. Why year after year after year should this be so stressful? You can’t control other people (especially adults) whatsoever – but we can control ourselves, and in doing so keep from feeling bad about breaking a promise to yourself… and making another new year’s resolution to "cool it" on the alcohol.

I think I’ll go pack up the decorations now with little reminder notes that say “it’s my house and if they don’t like how I do things, then they don’t have to come over… PS: stay away from holiday boilermakers – they think you’re a flake.”