Give Yourself the Gift of Me-Time

Advice for the overwhelmed this holiday season

Pssst: on Thursday, December 14th, I’m hosting another private discussion thread! Paid subscribers will get an email when the post goes up with a link to join in the conversation. (Or just to lurk. You do you!)

---

Give Yourself the Gift of Me-Time

Well, folks, since I already went hard on Christmas-as-naked-capitalism a couple weeks ago, today I thought Hey, why not come for holiday-parties-as-the-tenth-circle-of-Hell?

To that end: ‘tis certainly the season to eat, drink, and make merry in the company of family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and hordes of small children on a collective month-long sugar high. And, hey, sometimes a round of Bing Crosby karaoke and a bottomless bowl of boozy cranberry punch is exactly what you needed to decompress on a Tuesday night in December!

Just not, you know, every Tuesday night in December. And Wednesday. And all five weekends. (Yup, I counted: FIVE.)

Even for those who don’t personally observe the Nativity, between the office parties, school pageants, and your condo’s annual doorway decorating contest, Christmas finds a way. If you let it trample all over you like eight tiny reindeer, then sooner or later your cup of holiday cheer will runneth over, and getting the stain out of your shirt is gonna be a real pain in the jingle bells.

(Where “the stain” = total exhaustion and year-end depletion of both your social and financial capital. Not to mention tinsel in places you never knew existed.)

If this sounds suspiciously like your own personal Ghost of Christmas Future, take heed! For like Ebenezer Scrooge himself, you still have time to rewrite this story.