Grinch be gone

I must confess, I have had a bad attitude toward the holiday season for years. I had become the Grinch.

I tried to fake it, but my complaining, big sighs, and eye-rolling have given away my ever-growing disdain for the Season. Through the years, my resistance and the resulting pain grew larger and larger.

This year, when our five-year old grandson arrived clutching his pen and toy catalogue, I felt that old resistance and dread rise inside of me. The Grinch was surfacing again. As I looked at his precious face, I knew something had to change.

The holiday season is not going to go away; I knew I had to be the one to change.

It was not always this way. I used to love the holiday season and all it entailed. I loved to craft, bake, shop, and decorate. I loved to volunteer and spread my joy out into the world.

Quite honestly, that past version of myself during the holidays, with all of her joy and vigour for the season, would have annoyed the curmudgeonly Grinch I had become.

As I contemplated my predicament and my bad attitude, I realized that I became the Grinch when I forget the spirit and intention of the holidays because I had turned the season into one big to-do list filled with expectation.

I am the Queen of To-Do lists. I even put things on my to-do list that I have already done, just to feel as though I’ve accomplished something.

As I aged, and my life became fuller, guided by my to-do list, I started to lose the meaning the season held for me. Everything about the holidays had become another task to cross off of my list.

My list became a list of self-induced expectation and felt like sacrifice.

I did not enjoy the holiday activities because I was waiting for each of them to be over, and to be on to the next thing I ‘had’ to do. The joy of my festive activity was lost, because I was already thinking about the next item on my to-do list.

No wonder I had come to dislike the holidays, I was suffering from As-soon-as Disease.

As-soon-as Disease is a plague that robs us of the joy of life when we live life like a to-do list, something to be accomplished. It is the result of not enjoying the present moment, putting off pleasure for some distant date that would arrive ‘as soon as’ everything is done.

What to do?  Life and the holidays are not one big to-do list.

I now remember why each item is on my list, and what it represents.

I now remember my values and intentions as I consider what is truly important to me at this time of the year.

I have gained clarity about expectations and intentions, and difference between the two.

According to Karson McGinley, expectations are a sneaky relative of intentions, and often lead to disappointment. Intentions are internal and rely on personal choice, whereas expectation demand something from external circumstance.

I’ve removed the burden of self-imposed expectations, shortened my to-do list, and remembered the importance of the intentions that motivate me to participate in life in the first place.

I’ve made a new decision about how I want to show up. When I go about the activities of the season, I take a breath and pause to remember the reason behind each activity.

I pause to remember that the attitude and the way I do what I do is what is most important. I’d rather eat turkey hotdogs in joy and happiness than a fancy dinner served from sacrifice and resentment.

It is working! Having made a new decision to imbue my festive activities with intention, meaning, and thoughts of those I love, I even noticed spring in my step as I shopped, actually enjoying the holiday music.

Returning to my values, ditching expectations, and remembering my personal intentions for the holidays has brought me back to the joy and meaning of the Season.

Just like the fabled Grinch, my heart has grown and the holiday curmudgeon has given way to a happier version of myself, one more in alignment with who I really am.   

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.