Summary

The author, Kathryn Dillon, advocates for a calm and reflective approach to the holiday season, emphasizing the joy of giving and the importance of savoring each moment rather than succumbing to the frantic pace of holiday preparations.

Abstract

Kathryn Dillon shares her personal struggle with the stress of wrapping Christmas presents and the last-minute rush that often accompanies holiday preparations. She describes her new strategy of wrapping gifts early and mindfully, taking the time to think about the recipients and the joy each gift will bring. Dillon reflects on the broader issue of the holiday season becoming overly frantic, with people racing through tasks without pausing to appreciate the meaning behind them. She suggests that whether one's connection to the season is religious, spiritual, or centered around family and friends, the essence of the holidays can easily be lost in the hustle and bustle. Dillon, who enjoys cooking as her love language, also applies her strategy of spreading out tasks to baking, finding that even challenging recipes become more manageable when approached leisurely. She encourages readers to join her in changing their approach to the holidays, to slow down, enjoy the process, and truly appreciate the company of loved ones.

Opinions

The author dislikes wrapping presents and usually does so hastily, resulting in poorly wrapped gifts.
She believes that the act of giving should not be marred by the wrapping process and has started wrapping gifts earlier to make it more enjoyable.
Dillon points out that the holiday season has become too frantic, with people losing sight of the reasons behind their actions.
She emphasizes the importance of connecting with the spiritual or familial significance of the season rather than getting caught up in materialism and expectations.
The author finds more joy in cooking for her loved ones but has learned to spread out the baking to avoid it becoming a chore.
Dillon suggests that by slowing down and being present in each moment, individuals can reclaim the calm and wonder of the holiday season.
She encourages a shift in perspective to focus on the true spirit of the holidays, which is about peace, joy, and togetherness, not stress and haste.

Have Yourself a Calm Little Christmas

Who decided it had to be frantic?

Here it is, my dirty little secret.

I despise wrapping Christmas presents, and my packages usually show it — torn paper, bulging corners, uneven edges and hastily-scrawled gift tags. I truly think I had more wrapping game at seven than I do at 47.

The main problem? Wrapping is always an after-thought, a last-minute task. The buying of the gifts is the main event, and then there’s minimal time remaining to get them under the tree.

It seems rather pitiful, honestly, that the spirit of giving is marred by an utter loathing of the wrapping process.

This year, I’m trying a new tactic. This year, I started early. I’ve been wrapping a few presents at a time, not really enough to ever become annoying, even for me.

As I wrap, I’m picturing the recipient of each gift, hoping it will bring them joy, and imagining myself bearing witness to that joy. I smile to myself as I see my husband’s face when he realizes I surreptitiously wrote down the obscure DVD trilogy he mentioned in passing a few months ago. I picture my mom’s eyes widening as she opens her gifts, which will be a total surprise.

This season has become frantic, and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember. We race through every aspect of it — slapping some decorations up (whatever happened to the childlike wonder of seeing the Christmas lights for the first time this season?), flitting from party to gathering to family’s houses without a moment to pause and contemplate and reflect and feel.

We rush and run and checklist ourselves through the holidays, rarely pausing to think about why we’re doing it all, to begin with.

Perhaps our connection to this time of year is religious or spiritual in nature. Perhaps we cherish the celebrations with family and friends. Whether we’re geared more toward quiet contemplation or exuberant revelry, there’s a reason for our season and it’s too easy for it to become lost amongst the materialism, the expectations, the must-dos, until we suddenly come up for air and wonder why “the most wonderful time of the year” makes us feel so darn awful.

Wrapping presents can be a nice break from the flurry of cookie-baking, though I have significantly more patience in the kitchen than I do when I’m trying to make sure there are no bits of cat fur stuck to the cellophane tape.

Since food’s my love language, I’d just as soon spend all my pre-holiday time cooking and getting ready to feed those I love. But as my eighth batch of cookies looms, and of course it’s the fussy cranberry tea cookies I’ve been putting off because they’re a pain in the kiester but my husband loves them, wrapping a few more gifts isn’t looking so bad after all.

But I’ve spread out the cookie-baking too. Normally I hustle through the batches as quickly as possible, eager to be on to the next task. And this year I realized I was dreading that process. The cranberry tea cookies are far less daunting when I’m baking them on a leisurely Saturday afternoon than when I’m deep into such a flurry of multi-tasking that I barely recognize what I’m doing.

We claim to love this time of year. We look forward to it for months, some of us to such an extent that we listen to Christmas music in August. And yet once it actually arrives, we hardly take the time to enjoy it.

This year, let’s make a change. Let’s stop and think about what we’re doing. Let’s take a breath, inhale the scent of those delicious cookies just about to come out of the oven. Let’s enjoy wrapping the gifts because we didn’t save it until Christmas Eve. Let’s take the time to appreciate each other’s company.

Let’s allow each moment to stand on its own rather than pass us by as we’re already contemplating the next event.

Silent Night, the carol says. Not “rush around like crazy people and forget why we’re doing this in the first place” night.

All is calm. When did we last feel that way, this time of year?

It’s not too late to start.

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Kathryn Dillon is a 40-something Cleveland Heights, Ohio-based author, rekindling her passion for writing after a 20-year hiatus. She resides with her husband and their three very spoiled cats in a ridiculously large 1910-built home that they are slowly attempting to renovate. She is a product manager by day and holds an MBA from Roosevelt University and a BS in Magazine Journalism from Ohio University. She believes life should be lived to the fullest, and particularly loves baseball games, craft beer, rock concerts, art museums, and the symphony, not necessarily in that order.