Are You Also Totally Overwhelmed & It’s Not Even December Yet?!

It’s four in the afternoon, and I am frantically sifting through school emails to jot down all the holiday happenings on my wall calendar before I forget. Mariah Carey is blasting in the background as I wipe my kid’s snotty nose for the thousandth time, and although I am cheerful, I am overwhelmed. Because with Thanksgiving striking early and a house full of kids, I have been decking my halls and rockin’ around my Christmas tree for what feels like an eternity already, and it’s not even December yet.

Did the holiday cheer start especially early this year? I swear Target was lining the aisles with garland before my kids said, “Trick or Treat!” And this comes from a Christmas freak — I live for all of it! But God, it’s a lot.

Honestly, I blame social media for a lot of this. It’s so easy to see what the most overboard people are doing, plus they’re one-upping each other all over Instagram. The trees go up early, and the decorations are plentiful. I have one friend whose Elf arrived on Thanksgiving night. I mean, doesn’t he know the rules?! I don’t have enough spots in my tiny home for him to move if we extend this charade over an entire month. And many houses in my neighborhood are beautifully decorated and lit for the holidays. I haven’t even started to nag my husband about that yet. Hell, I’m still yelling at him to get rid of the pumpkins on the front stoop!

The stretch between Thanksgiving and the start of December packs in too many to-dos — and I’m ready to wave the white flag. And somehow, making Thanksgiving earlier didn’t lessen the impact but heightened it.

First, there was the shopping. I hadn’t finished my last bit of turkey before the Black Friday reminder emails started flooding in. By the time I had Black Friday’d, Small Business Saturday’d, and then Cyber Monday’d, I needed of a major mental vacation. And a cash infusion.

Oh, and I’m not sleeping because my family of six has been passing around the same cough for the past three and a half weeks. #tistheseason

Whenever I turn around, something else pops up: the school conferences (there has to be a better time of year to schedule these than right in the middle of this mayhem), toy drives, holiday concerts, and random requests for holiday fun.

One of my middle children has a kid in his class who went to the “ice castles” — a fun holiday event a couple states over — and now my kid wants to add that to his list of pre-Christmas events. My older son is hellbent on a night of family shopping, and my littles want to host a cousin cookie-decorating party, a gingerbread-house-making party, a Christmas movie night, and go caroling. Just attempting to fill a calendar that might satisfy their holiday requests requires patience, creativity, and a healthy amount of CBD gummies.

So, while I adore Christmas and all that it brings, I’m a little worried about sustaining all this yuletide cheer for another month when I feel so knee-deep in everything already. But of course, like any good little mama-elf, I will do it. Don’t blame me if I’m asleep at 4 pm on Christmas Day. It’s gonna be a long season of joy.

Samm is an ex-lawyer and mom of four who swears a lot. Find her on Instagram @sammbdavidson.