What Are Your Holiday Challenges as a Working Mom?
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What are your holiday challenges as a working mom, ladies? Do you find that because you have kids in the picture you feel more of a need to do seasonal decor (above and beyond a Christmas tree)?
Do you find that your diet is under attack because every kid-related event you go to has some sort of sweet treat? (Or a neighbor brings holiday cookies, or you just end up going to more holiday parties as a working mom than you did before having kids?)
If you have a kiddo who’s active with clubs and activities — or otherwise knows a lot of adults, either as caregivers, instructors, therapists (such as speech/OT/PT), or more — then is there more of a strain on you to come up with “thoughtful” holiday cards and teacher gifts?
(Is anyone else fielding a million questions from well-intentioned relatives regarding presents to get your kid that largely amount to research projects for you?) Are you also under stress at work with year-end goals and projects (or do you have a relatively quiet office)?
Do you have any year-end projects you foist on yourself or your family, such as organizing family photos from the past year enough for a family holiday card, a 2018 calendar, or more?
We played our game of “do, delegate, or nope” last year and rounded up some holiday delegating ideas — has anyone put those into play this year?
For my $.02: I’m still kind of “nope” on the Elf on the Shelf — he’s been hiding behind a chair for about a week now and my kids haven’t found him, so clearly I’m #winning.
I definitely feel more of an obligation to put up seasonal decor than I ever did before I had kids — I didn’t even bother with my own Christmas tree until J was 2!
I do try to force myself to go through all of the family photos for the past year to pull a holiday card (um, which I still haven’t even ordered yet) as well as several calendars for the next year (wall- and desk-sized). (I’m also going to try to force myself to do a photo album for 2017 while it’s fresh in my head… since I haven’t done one yet for 2015 or 2016. Well, we’ll see.)
I’m also going to try to start the review of our finances for the past year for our itemized deductions — but maybe that can wait until January.
I’ve been pondering trying to do a kid-related craft for the various adults the kids deal with (now that my second son, H, is in preschool it seems like there are a zillion people), but I may just do a small gift card and a family holiday card and call it a day.
Do tell, ladies: what are your biggest holiday challenges as a working mom?
Picture credit: Pixabay.
I had an interesting work challenge this week. My manager invited all his direct reports to a holiday lunch and didn’t include me. We are all basically the same level and all managers, though my function is a bit different. I am the only woman, they are all men. I never received an invite and when he was asked if I was coming he told everyone I had a conflict (they all knew I wasn’t invited beforehand). He also gave them each a gift and I didn’t get so much as a “Happy Holidays” greeting. I thought we had a good relationship, so I am a little shocked/disappointed. I do generally block my calendar for a 1/2 hour at noon to pump, but I am always willing to move my schedule around for meetings. Now I don’t know if I should confront the situation when we both return after the holidays or shrug it off.
I woke up on Christmas Eve morning in 2002 a realized we did not even have a tree up. Our daughter was 4 months old and I had started back to work FT maybe 4 weeks before 12/24. I promptly burst into tears. My husband dried my tears and hustled us all into the car to go get a tree which we decorated that day. On that day, my year long Christmas plan, that I call my “Joyless Year Long March Toward Christmas,” began. I follow it every year and every year I spend December smiling and going to Christmas parties. I am definitely a little more lax now that we are in the teen years with my schedule for everything, but all the things that are important to us get done. That being said, my nemesis is the Advent Calendar. I bought one that has a compartment for a small gift on each day. I intended to start a charming tradition that my daughter would remember forever. Didn’t happen. I have had all manner of other types of Advent Calendars and none of them have worked. The dog eats some of the pieces or they get lost. They are meant to sit on a mantel which we don’t have. They are filled with chocolate that has been waiting since the Coolidge Administration to be eaten. Just haven’t found one that works. Oh well! There is always next year.
My do, don’t, delegate would be:
DO: Cards. I hate paper, but I love Christmas cards. I use pics I have taken through out the year. We do not schedule a family photo shoot. I use coupon codes to save money, order them online, and have zero loyalty to any one company. I put the card together in November while I am watching TV, have my address list on a label template, and send them out the week after Thanksgiving.
DON’T: Outdoor decorations. I love looking at other people’s, but don’t fuss about putting up anything but a fun sign we bought at a craft market. One of my mom’s friends was mortified that we did not put up any decorations so she brought us a wreath for years. We hung it on the front door and wrote a thank you note, but still made no effort to put up any lights or other outdoor decor.
DELEGATE: Lots of things! Wrapping. When we had a PT nanny, I offered her extra hours to wrap our presents. Now I use a lot of gift bags. Baking. I bought baked goods for years and now I have a baking party where my daughter and her friends handle all of our baking needs. Gifts. My husband handles gifting for our daughter’s extracurricular activitiy leaders and coaches.
My biggest problem is the plethora of end of year school events that are on during the day. We had three occasions we were supposed to attend this week, all on seperate days, and we only have two kids! My husband and I usually divide and conquer, but it’s still a hassle to arrange time off work (even an hour) during the end of year rush. Luckily the kids are very understanding and save up their “mummy coming to daytime assembly / speech day / choir concert / Christmas picnic / carols / library opening / god knows what else” trips for the stuff that’s really important to them. I’m still super sad when I miss out though.
I love sorting things into these buckets! What a great concept.
Do– gingerbread house (use a kit, make the industrial strength royal icing so the darn thing actually holds together), advent calendar (I wrap our Christmas books and one appears every day), gifts for adults because DH’s siblings still exchange gifts and my parents have nobody who will get them anything other than each other and me. Visiting Santa– the town where we live has a great one, and they do really nice photos. Has become how I console myself for not having adorable professional photos taken in the fall for cards– we always get a nice family photo from Santa visit. I love the tree, my DH does lights on the house if he feels like it.
Delegate- hosting and travel. I flat out refuse to travel for Xmas. It happens at our house. Santa comes to our house. I am SO glad I made this rule from day 1. People are always welcome to come to us! Makes it easy to say no, because the policy isn’t about any one family member or trip– it’s just what we do.
Don’t– baking. We bought a roll of Pillsbury gingerbread dough, cut out some cookies, called it a day. Now I want to do it again because they were really good and became my de facto breakfast (not saying this is healthy, but I bet it’s about as bad as a starbucks pastry). Cards. I love receiving them, but the massive project of ordering, addressing, shipping? Nope nope nope. I always feel guilty about this, but when I think about doing it, I want to cry, so nope. That darn elf is not ever entering my home. Creepy AF.
“Do” — Christmas cards. Make food-related gifts for adult family and friends (this year, Pepper jelly with peppers from our garden, limoncello, and salts with herbs from our garden). Christmas tree and light decorating.
“Delegate”—Hosting—we go over to other people’s houses for all events. Traveling—my in-laws live in our city, and my parents come visit, so we don’t go anywhere. Baking—my mom brings and makes my favorite Christmas treats when she visits.
“Nope”—Elf on the Shelf (so far). Teacher gifts—our lovely daycare puts out envelopes for anonymous cash collections from the whole class. Visiting Santa and any of the dozens of paid Santa brunches, teas, train rides, etc. (To be fair, maybe when Kiddo is older).
The family travel drives me nuts. The holidays are usually the only time of the year when I might get more than 2-3 days off. And then I have to spend them driving either to my parents or my in-laws (depending on the year), and since they live close to each other (we are the ones far away) it then becomes a fight as to whether the other can sneak in a visit with my DD. It’s just too much and was way easier pre-kids when we had no qualms on not attending
Hard Nopes: Elf on the Shelf, opt-in cookie swaps and any cookie swap requiring heavy allergy considerations (eg. “Make only gluten free cookies”). I do 2 cookies well. If they can’t come, we don’t participate.
When my kids ask about the Elf, I tell them that we have an advent calendar with a bear that moves around it instead. Maybe Santa uses that to check on you. (They just move the bear each day to a new space, nothing crazy).
I do cards. Usually Shutterfly but after 2 years of having *no* photos of me, we do a photo shoot in october. The photographer’s package included cards. They have been sitting waiting to be addressed since Halloween.
We do a secret Santa with my mom’s side on Christmas Eve, because my grandma is 92 and she hosts and would be very sad if there were no gifts (my 3 kids are the only Littles in the entire extended family). I got my sister this year. DH got an older uncle; he is getting snacks and beer in a basket.
I do gifts for my parents and sons bevause they come to my house for Christmas and my kids are the only Little’s.
We make a few traditional foods from scratch which are a PItA but DH and I do a great job- if we didn’t do it, they’d be yucky. We don’t mind and have gotten the kids into it.
Letters to Santa/ yes. Photos with Santa-no.
Shortcuts: gingerbread houses with frosting and Graham crackers.
I love traditions, so I’m working hard on picking the traditions that matter the most to me and are easiest to execute without a lot of hassle. Like, it’s important to me to make my Christmas cookie dough from scratch, but I’m not going to go crazy with decorating them.
And, yes, the cards are killing me. We used the Walgreens service last year and it was not too overpriced but the quality wasn’t great. My husband and I can’t ever agree on what picture to use. This year I need to “let go” a little bit in this process.
Now that we have a kid, I’m strangely into all the activities. We watched White Christmas on my birthday last weekend, got a tree, will decorate it tonight (maybe), DH is building a fire pit to have a yule log, we’re listening to Christmas albums every night while we make dinner, my sweet wonderful photographer friend did a family photo shoot, and I ordered Christmas cards Monday using a paltry 30% off coupon (pro-tip: web s!tes like Sh3tterfly have amazing deals around Halloween and then again around Black Friday if you’re majorly organized and/or don’t do photo cards!)
Hard nopes: Elf on the Shelf (so creepy!), and buying presents for every adult in my life. Day care workers are getting cash. My family gets nothing! :P Grandmas get photo books because they were cheap, easy and they love photos. My poor brother informed me that his wife already bought us gifts, which means that now I have to buy them gifts, even though we are adults and buy ourselves everything that we want (we also make more money than they do). Any advice on how to get your SIL to stop buying gifts? I feel like being direct would hurt her feelings but maybe it’s worth it. Is that super scroogey? Also, what do get a young (21 y/o) mom who is a country girl? Jewelry? Put together a spa basket? She doesn’t drink (bless her) so my normal wine related gifts are a bust this time around.
We are non-observant Jews, so we have pretty much decided to say “nope” to just about everything except gift exchange. No decorations, no holiday cards. We don’t throw a holiday party but we do attend a few potlucks, so I’ll make food for that, but that’s it. I do actually like the holiday season, but it’s not important enough to us to spend our limited emotional energy on.
Re: Teacher gifts. One year the class mom asked everybody to contribute as many $10 gift cards as they felt comfortable, and she made a gift card wreath out of them for the teacher on behalf of the entire class. It was the best thing ever, because then everyone gave the same thing and I could just pick up a starbucks card when I was at the grocery store.
I feel pretty happy about our Christmas approach. We did our decorating in manageable chunks. Put the stockings up one evening after Thanksgiving. A few strings of outdoor lights, also right after Thanksgiving. Got the Christmas tree last weekend and the kids had fun decorating it. We skipped the outside lights last year and I missed them.
As mentioned above, I did the Costco cards this year. No letter. I couldn’t think of anything to say besides “Kid 1 started kindergarten and husband spent the year pondering a career change.” I always bring them to the office and address them while on a boring conference call.
I DO get super grumpy about present management, but my husband is actually a pretty good gift buyer so we’ve split the load well this year. Hooray. I tend to wrap presents while watching TV or a move so it’s not taking “me” time. I hit on the idea of Amazon gift cards for teachers with the kid’s picture on it a few years ago and that’s been my go-to ever since. Everyone likes Amazon, right, and they’ll remember who it’s from when they use it. Plus you can buy and print it out in < 5 min when you remember it's the last day before break and you need to give something to your kids' teachers at pickup. Ahem.
I don't bake so that's out. Usually the kids make gingerbread cookies at Grandma's house, which they all enjoy. I enjoy not having flour all over my kitchen. No Elf on the Shelf. Creepy + time consuming.
We don't have too many social events. We do always go to Disney on Ice in December and we added another holiday event at a local museum this year.
I feel like we've reached the level of appropriately festive but not overwhelming. It REALLY helps that my work tends to be quiet this time of year and my company is closed from Christmas to New Year's.
The hardest part is keeping track of everything and feeling short on time to do the things I actually care about, like baking. Work is actually slow right now, so being here feels even more torturous.
Finding teacher gifts stresses me out every year. I’m taking the path of least resistance and getting everyone gift cards to the coffee shop in our neighborhood, along with a nice card. I’ve seen all of them carrying cups from that particular shop, so I figure it’ll be OK, even if it’s not remotely creative.
I love decorating, but we scaled back this year and just put up the stuff we really love.
I also get a little grouchy about doing tons of research on gift ideas for the in-laws. Like Kat says, they mean well, but it’s a lot of work. I get stressed about gift giving in general — I tend to overthink everything, second-guess stuff I’ve already bought, etc. I try really hard but I don’t enjoy the process much and feel super guilty about that.
I go through cycles on holiday cards. I’m doing one this year, but no professional photo. I’m a decent enough photographer, so I took some kid photos in the backyard on a nice fall day, and that’s what we used. Last night I lit a Christmas candle and made hot cocoa to drink while I addressed cards. It was nice and made it feel like less of a chore.
I never start wrapping gifts as early as I want to. One of my friends wants to drink wine and wrap gifts together, which sounds like the best idea ever.
All the nopes- the creepy elf, christmas cards, adult sibling gifts
Things I like- making a fancy meal and/or baking, decorating the house. It’s annoying while doing it but the finished project is lovely – dickens village, outdoor decor, 6 trees. Now that my kid can help with a few of the trees, it goes a lot faster.
I refuse to send cards (Face book keeps everyone up to date) or play Elf on the Shelf. I pretty much enjoy everything else, like decorating and buying gifts.