Suffering From Festive Overwhelm Already

I for one am cracker jacked knackered with festive overwhelm and it’s only the first week of December!

I have a diary scribbled with notes such as ‘buy oat milk’, ‘need foil’, a Google calendar synced with the school, my husband and work that makes my brain hurt and tiny bits of paper all over the flat reminding me of what to do, where to go, what needs organising and more. Anyone create lists of lists of lists?

Most of these lists naturally revolve around my kids and the recent slew include. Here are some riveting excepts:

Buy oranges for the Christingle service (which was wonderful btw and featured Christmas cracker jokes to make your dad joke loving dad proud by the Reverend no less, church members on the guitar and plasma widescreens placed in the church screening song lyrics so we could all singalong)…

Buy gold tinsel after going wild in Paperchase on multicoloured strands due to misreading the slip Alexander brought home due to doing 17849695475475 ga-ballion other things on #987 to-do-list.

Wash and iron a black tee and joggers for the nativity.

Locate Christmas jumpers.

Order Christmas school dinners.

Find the correct change (£3.50 per child) for the Christmas fair so the kids can buy Christmas presents for us.

Buy small Christmas cards so the kids can write them for their friends.

And there’s no to little choice as to whether we actually do these things above. There’s no opt-out/ unsubscribe because we’re overwhelmed.

We have to do it all.

We have to tick everything off those lists so our kids aren’t the only ones without GOLD TINSEL etc etc. We have to keep writing and meeting those to-do’s so we don’t feel like s*** parents, however hard it is to do all of the above on top of absolutely everything else we’re required to do generally and it’s exhausting.

My kids have better social lives than I do. Their diaries are busier than my own.

Guess what I’d like from Santa this year please? A flipping PA for my kids. Too much to ask?

The mental load weighs down on we parents day-to-day as it is but this is break-neck heavy at this time of year. I’ve spent the day feeling completely shattered from making deadlines before mum-mode of trudging through rain to drop the kids are school/ pick them back,  remember snacks, buy tinsel, arrange an emergency doctor’s appointment for Oliver who was crying with throat pain on collection and will be off school tomorrow as advised by the doctor which meant cancelling his school dinner and writing an email about his absence all before washing, cooking, cleaning, making another deadline and trying to be a good mum, daughter, friend and wife.

I’m exhausted just writing that and I was exhausted before I started.

I’m tired and the season to be merry has barely begun…Not sure if you can tell *cough but I certainly don’t feel merry right now. Do you?

Let’s just hope I’ve bought the right blooming tinsel when I take it into school tomorrow.

And breathe.

I love Christmas, I really, really do, I just wish there wasn’t so much festive life admin and pressure on parents, around it.

Do the kids really need to be doing, wearing and eating so much at this time of year?

Where have the lower maintenance Christmases of our childhood gone?

I’m overwhelmed. Are you?