Let’s Just Admit the Holidays are So Weird

On family obligations, antiquated tradition, and ‘magic’ via the patriarchy

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Welcome to the weird space of time between Christmas and New Years Day. If you’re working during this time, I salute you (and side-eye your employer unless you’re an essential worker). This Substack is brought to you as an extension of my Instagram stories a few days ago. I had posted about the weirdness of the holidays, and was flooded with DM’s that show I’m hardly alone in this sentiment. If you’re curious to see how that conversation unfolded, there’s a ‘Holidaze’ highlight on my Instagram that was the origin of this particular rabbit hole. If you’re feeling alone in your holiday-angst (however you choose to celebrate), this one is for you.

Like most people, the way my family celebrates Christmas was forever changed by Covid and a term I’d never heard of until the pandemic, social distancing. It was mostly okay; we adapted by ordering turkey dinner, and logging onto dreaded Zoom to see family rather than share a meal around the dinner table. Definitely felt a little apocalyptic at times, but I accepted it was a temporary measure that would pass. Pretty soon Covid would be over, and my family would go on celebrating as we always had. Except, like for so many others, that never happened.

Some background: My Persian family is not religious at all. We celebrate Christmas for the pure tradition and party of it all. Trees, festive lights, and a big communal extended family dinner, often on Christmas Eve, is typically how we celebrate. As is the case for many of you, Covid forever changed some of the relationships in my family. I firmly believe that the outcome for everyone would have turned out the same, but the pandemic served as a pressure cooker for already fractured relationships. If you were having issues, being trapped together for literally years was, not surprisingly, the breaking point. We had several divorces and separations, and a few family members I was particularly close with moved out of province or country. As someone deeply nostalgic, I quietly grieved that my loud, boisterous and fun family tradition would never look the same. My aunts who rotated hosting Christmas sold their homes, and although it dawned on me that I could and probably should host…. I was still the kid! Yes, I’m 42 years old, but in the dynamic of my family, I still felt like a kid, and shouldn’t the grown-ups be in charge!? I realize this sounds totally ridiculous and childish, and that’s because it is.

My husbands side is mostly devoutly Catholic, which we have opted out of with surprisingly little pushback. Pre-Covid, we would spend Christmas Day there (it felt fair, being Jesus’ birthday and all), feasting on a multi-course Italian dinner after someone said the blessing, of course. My eldest was 7 when Covid hit, which was the last time we celebrated this way (she’s now 11). Until then, we’d spend a quick Christmas morning at home opening gifts, then race over to the in-laws. It was nice, if not a little chaotic where I sometimes wished I could live out my sloth-like fantasy of a lazy Christmas at home. Once Covid restrictions lifted, my in-laws downsized to a condo, and could no longer host everyone comfortably. They also started alternating holidays to visit family in the US, which meant we were now left to our own devices. There was no longer unspoken rules for how the holiday season would unfold, and all bets were off.

The thing about tradition, is that you are rarely able to pinpoint when its ending. You can do things the same way for 15 years, and not even notice the last time passed a few years ago. I had convinced myself that once the Covid fog had lifted, we’d get back to business as usual. I often wondered when that shift would happen for us; when we’d go from spending the holidays with our families in ways that were familiar to us, to creating new traditions with our own little family. Well, we are firmly in the ‘creating our own new traditions’ territory, and I didn’t see it coming.

This past Christmas was the first we ever spent solo. We saw our families mid-December for an early celebration before everyone did their respective ‘things.’ Our thing was coming up to our place on the Sunshine Coast, which marked our second Christmas here. Last year, all our families came to visit which wasn’t possible this time for various reasons, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was somehow cheating. Like… are you telling me I could do whatever I want? I could stay completely inside on a stormy Christmas day on the coast, in pajamas, Bailey’s in my coffee, reading and puttering around and that was just fine!? There was no getting dressed, making an elaborate meal (we ordered turkey dinner from a local restaurant on Christmas Eve, and had a simple Christmas Day brunch), and mostly just did…nothing.

Absolutely diabolical

Breaking away from the societal expectation of being one big happy family for 24 hours felt wildly illegal. Is it even Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) if there aren’t awkward political and religious exchanges, knowing glances, and gossipy moments which you know will be analyzed in a sub-chat the following day!? It surprised me that when I polled my Instagram followers on who they spent the holidays with, the majority answered ‘immediate family’. While many people shared their joy over the season, a large chunk expressed the anxiety over meeting family obligations and fulfilling expectations they never agreed to (how long must we keep up this charade!?). In fact, the most content among you expressed simply doing whatever worked for you and your family, regardless of hurt feelings. Power move! It was clear that people were big in their feelings; from grief to despair to complete joy (or a little bit of everything!).

Oh, and the materialism of it all. We’ve been led to believe that if we question the cheery generosity of the season, we are grinchy. MORE IS MORE, OKAY! So many of you, me included, are over the gift giving of it all. And I love giving gifts! But like… it’s not your birthday, why do I need to get you something!? So, I stopped doing that. Gifts are now strictly reserved for kids, and my mom who has the misfortune of sharing a birthday with The Man himself. Through the lens of motherhood, I now truly appreciate how crushing it must have been spending your birthdays in service of others (sorry mom).

When I postured who Christmas traditions are for, most of you felt it was the young and the old. Moms (mostly), who wanted desperately to create that same holiday magic for their children that their moms had created for them, and the sandwich generation who were saddled with caring for their young kids and appeasing elderly parents. Well… that sounds fun. My mental load can’t handle creating ‘magic’ on top of all the other shit I have to do, so I opt for just a ‘nice Christmas’ as opposed to ‘magic,’ which we can thank the patriarchy for. We have a few (easy) traditions, like making dutch baby pancakes which are hella easy and also impressive, baking these blueberry Greek yogurt breakfast muffins, and lazy games of Connect 4 of which I am the reigning champ.

I’m also side-eyeing the new aesthetics of Christmas, courtesy of your favourite influencers. The colourful tacky warmth (and dare I say tinsel!) is swapped out for décor that is grid-worthy, and sticks to a neutral palette of mostly snow white and gold, punctuated by ornaments that each cost a small fortune (there’s a link for that!) Because on top of the invisible load of parenthood (let’s face it though, mostly motherhood), you’re hit over the head with not just creating magical memories for your kids, but doing so in a way that will photograph beautifully. And I know influencers didn’t start this, after all, Martha was the OG influencer. But that was Martha! We could all appreciate her as a tastemaker, and just concede that well, she’s just better than us. But when your feeds are flooded with images of people ‘just like you’ (how relatable!), and their bespoke pinecone tablescapes, that can create a different type of pressure.

Dear 14%: Stop it!!!

A reader suggested that perhaps the ‘magic’ those of us are lucky enough to have experienced as kids is mostly fueled by nostalgia. Indeed, my family is complicated at best, but I remember our Christmases together as being unusually (for us), wholesome. I’m relying mostly on memory here and overall vibes, because we couldn’t document everything to death back then. Most of us might have a few pictures of each big celebration (or video if you were rich!), and that’s it. We fill in the blanks with a combination of what we recall, what we’ve been told, and funny stories that change a little each time they’re shared, becoming part of our family lore. I’m curious how my own kids will look back at these memories, which they’ll be able to access in high-res. Our smartphones (and the presumed longevity of the magical cloud), serve as our own personal family archive. Oh, you want to look back on the 2025 holiday season? There’s an app for that! Will the heavy feelings of nostalgia change if it’s not tinted by our memories, real or exaggerated? Kids being able to literally access their entire childhood is SO WILD to me and doesn’t get talked about enough.

I’m realizing now, that we all get a certain number of variations of what the holidays look like depending on your season of life. We go on celebrating tradition in a certain way, until we just don’t anymore. Part of the sadness is in recognizing that there’s a finality to moments we don’t necessarily enjoy, but can appreciate are fleeting (kind of like parenthood!). So many people hit me up to say they wished they could just opt out and go on vacation somewhere warm, or create more boundaries so they can actually enjoy the day. Well… if this is workable for you, why not!? Sure, some people might be mad, but eventually, new traditions will always replace old ones. You don’t have to wait for a pandemic to make that happen.