DONNIE JOHNSTON: Holiday Stress? I Try Hard to Avoid It ...
... now, what should I buy for Christmas. Ugh!
By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
I don’t like holidays, and the Christmas season is my least favorite time of the year.
I know that sounds strange, but it is true. I like life to proceed on an even keel and Christmas gets everything out of whack.
There are too many expectations. You have to buy the perfect gift. You have to be happy because it is Christmas. You have to put up Christmas lights because everyone else is doing it.
Everyone works and worries for weeks only to have all that stress end with 10 minutes of ripping off lovely wrapping paper and finding a gift that you really don’t need and will probably never use.
The movie Christmas Vacation is a pretty close depiction of what the holiday season means for men. We can never live up to the expectations set forth for us by women.
For men, the holiday season is a religious time, and we pray a lot. “Please, Lord, just let me get through this mess!!” It is the common plea of the American male, especially those who are married.
But then Christmas is merely a reflection of our culture. All year long we invite stress; our lifestyle just stands out more during the holiday season.
I have always tried to make my life as simple as possible, which gets harder and harder to do in today’s complicated world. Still, I give it my best shot.
I don’t make my daily schedule too complex. I never have, even when I was raising my children. I long ago learned that if you try to do too many things in one day you usually wind up doing them all in a halfway manner, while driving yourself crazy.
I leave early for appointments. First of all, I don’t like to be late. Second, I understand that things happen and delays occur. That’s just life. Waze may tell you the trip will take 26 minutes, but that technological marvel doesn’t take into consideration car trouble of a fender-bender that hasn’t happened yet.
Cutting it close can lead to speeding tickets and cause you to take chances that cause wrecks. Leaving 10 or 15 minutes early can literally sometimes be the difference between life or death.
As Tug McGraw once put it, “in 10 million years the Earth will likely be a frozen snowball flying through space.” What difference will being five minutes late mean then? It is all relative.
I always try to keep at least half a tank of gas in my car. I know that I can get caught in traffic and maybe sit for minutes or even hours. Again, things like that just happen and you should be prepared for it. Having plenty of gas in your tank relieves stress.
Don’t buy things you can’t afford! This is especially true at Christmas. Too many people overspend on the holidays only to be financially unprepared when the bills come due in January.
I know it has been said a thousand times, but debt is usually the leading cause of stress. Credit cards make it so easy to buy things we don’t need, but eventually you must pay the piper. Still, parents feel obligated to buy every toy – no matter how expensive – that their child wants (demands), even if they can’t afford it.
Remember, credit card companies are bad Santas. Unlike the Jolly Old Elf from the North Pole, they charge 20 percent (or more) interest that can eat your wallet alive.
I do other stuff to prevent stress. If I need a bottle of A-1 Sauce (or some other non-perishable item) at the store, I buy two. That way I always have a spare and I seldom run out and have to rush to the store at the last minute.
Think ahead. Prepare. Don’t expect life to be perfect. Anticipate what could happen and prepare for it. Preparation saves a lot of stress.
And never assume. Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. Assumption almost always leads to stressful situations.
Just a few tips from a country philosopher.
And as I write this I am worrying about what to buy for Christmas.
I don’t like the holidays. Bah! Humbug!
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”