If you’re bracing yourself for Christmas, I get it

Every year, as soon as Halloween is out of the way, I notice things start to shift in our house. Anxiety creeps up before any of the “fun” has even begun. And it’s funny, because Christmas is actually liked here. There’s excitement. There’s genuine anticipation. There’s wanting to join in with the build up and the family time.

But the build up itself is the part that gets too much. The waiting. The unpredictability. The constant “what’s happening now?” The changes to routine. All the little things that don’t look like much from the outside but add up to one big pressure cooker.

Over the years we’ve learned to stop fighting it and just work with it. And honestly, once we let go of the idea that Christmas has to look a certain way, everything eased.

There have been years where gifts were opened early because the anxiety around waiting was just too high. We’ve completely ditched the “naughty and nice list”, because that message is honestly awful for any child who isn’t choosing their overwhelm. We simply say it doesn’t exist – parents made it up – and you can almost see the relief.

We don’t expect everyone to sit at the table.
We don’t expect everyone to eat the same food.
We don’t expect everyone to join in with games or stay up late or react in a certain way to visitors.

We just meet people where they are. And once we allowed ourselves to do that, things became calmer. Not perfect. Not tidy. But calmer.

And if any of this rings true for you, there are small things that have really helped us. Lowering demands wherever we can. Offering more choice and control. Keeping sensory stuff gentle. Spreading things out instead of trying to cram everything into one day. Protecting quiet spaces. Keeping familiar routines where possible. Having exit plans for gatherings. Basically designing Christmas around emotional safety rather than tradition.

But I think the part we don’t talk about enough is how hard this time of year is on parents. Because yes, the children feel the overwhelm first. But we’re the ones absorbing it. We’re the ones adapting everything on the fly. We’re the ones dealing with comments from people who don’t understand. We’re the ones trying to keep the peace while also trying to create some version of magic. And we’re doing all of that while running on very little emotional bandwidth ourselves.

So if you’re already feeling the weight of December creeping in, please know it’s not you. Christmas puts a magnifying glass over everything we’re already carrying. It isn’t that you can’t cope – it’s that this season is demand-heavy, sensory-heavy, expectation-heavy, and relentless in all the wrong places.

Let things be easier where they can be. Lower your own expectations too. Say no when you need to. Do things differently without apologising for it. Protect your own nervous system as much as you protect your child’s. You deserve small pockets of calm in all of this. Even a few minutes hiding in the bathroom just to breathe counts. Truly.

You’re not doing Christmas wrong. You’re not letting anyone down. You’re navigating something most people will never understand. And you’re doing far better than you think.