Member-only story

How did Christmas get so stressful?

This year, make the holidays simple, relaxing and fun. You know it makes sense!

Sheryl Garratt
The Creative Companion
3 min readDec 17, 2024

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Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Tis the season to be jolly.

Yet in the shops this week, I saw no smiles, no laughter. Just faces etched with stress and women especially moving as if the weight of the world is upon them.

“What else?” one exhausted-looking woman screamed into her phone in the toy aisle of a supermarket. “Say it NOW or it will have to be Hogwarts!”

Every time I switch on the TV, it seems there’s a show guilting me into some new, labour-intensive preparation activity.

Hand-made Christmas decorations. Hand-made gifts. All wrapped up like artworks and festooned with ribbons and bows. (Hand-made, of course.) And I hope you’ve knitted your own kitsch jumper, because a shop-bought one is plain lazy.

Then there’s the food.

So much food. And so much cooking, shopping, eating. We’re supposed to make everything from scratch: cakes, puddings, appetisers, amuse bouches, and a lunch that seems to get bigger and more complicated by the year.

Apparently, we even have to make our own bespoke biscuits and treats to leave out for Santa and the reindeer.

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Sheryl Garratt
Sheryl Garratt

Written by Sheryl Garratt

Writer; editor; coach, supporting creatives to step up and do their best work — and get paid for it! Find me at www.thecreativelife.net

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