The Ever-Hustling Holiday Elf Inside Me

My favourite Christmas movie is now Bad Moms Christmas (narrowly beating out Elf and my love/hate relationship with Love Actually). Why? Because it highlights the insane emotional labour and stress that usually (but not always) falls on the mother and provides the very enticing fantasy of noping out. Oh, the mall scene where they abandon the line ups and the children high on candy canes to go get drunk in the mall’s food court (gotta love America) and then steal a Christmas tree from Reebok…

Wait just a minute as I replay that glorious scene in my head….

And yet, it’s just that: a fantasy. Every year, I promise myself that I’m not getting on the consumerist bandwagon. I’m not going to spend insane amounts of money on gifts. I’m not going to stress out about making sure everyone has their favourite cookie on the plate. This year, I’ll give experiences. We will sit as a family and watch movies and play games. I will not spend a ton of time preparing for dinners and parties. 

I will nope out, damn it!

Sigh.

And yet, here I am, once again, buying too many gifts. Spending hours upon hours in the kitchen with endless butter and flour and sugar making and decorating cookies for EVERYBODY I HAVE EVER KNOWN AND CARED FOR IN MY LIFE. Staring at aisles upon aisle of products attempting to curate exceptional  stocking experiences. Scouring the online stores and writing lists for ideas for presents for all my loved ones.

Cookie making from a Christmas past…

Guys. I even have a Christmas Gantt chart on the fridge. To top it off, I volunteered to host Christmas dinner this year, something my mother always did. But she is getting older and her place is getting too small for our growing brood. It is time to step up.  

In a nutshell, I’m working myself up into my annual frenzy of having to buy/do/give so that everyone feels very loved and happy and I can then go curl up in a fetal position in the corner knowing that I have done my job.

Okay. Deep breaths. Time for a little Internal Family Systems (IFS) check-in of my protective parts. If you’re not familiar with IFS, here’s a very sketchy overview: IFS posits that we have different parts in us that play different roles in order to keep us alive, safe and protected. However, there is the core Self, Self-leader, that’s always there and available to us. The one we can go to when we need support, compassion, clarity. Unfortunately, many of our manager, firefighter and exiled parts do not know the Self is there and feel like they’re all alone in the job they are doing.

Clear as mud? Let me illustrate.

I have a part of me that feels like it’s responsible for everyone’s happiness and will go to great lengths to ensure the people around me feel loved and safe and special, even at the expense of my own health and well-being. I call this part of me my little hustler, because she’s always hustling for my worth—or , put a different way, she feels like she has to earn the space she takes up in the world. It can be exhausting.

Check-in:

• How about you? Do you have a similar protective part?

• If so, how do you feel towards it?

• If not, what other part of you takes over during the holidays? The perfectionist? The Avoider? The [fill in the blank]?

Transcript between Me (Self) and my Little Hustler

Me: Hello, my little hustler. I see you’ve donned your Christmas Elf hat. I wonder if we could have a conversation?

Hustler: [Nods]

Me: Yes? Cool. Thank you for your service, by the way. I see how hard you’re working.

Hustler: [Nods again with a little blush. But she’s nervous about time and looks at her watch]

Me: If you don’t mind me asking, what job do you think you have to do?

Hustler: [rolls her eyes]. Isn’t it obvious? To make everybody happy.

Me: What happens if you don’t make everybody happy?

Hustler: Duh- I’ll have failed

My little hustler doesn’t trust me very much. Her guard is up and she’s impatient with me. She thinks I’m asking stupid questions and wasting her time.

That’s okay, though. I’ve got her.

Me: What happens if you fail?

Hustler skips a beat. Has to think.

Hustler: They’ll find out that I have a piece missing in me that makes me impossible to  love.

Me: What happens when they find that out?

Hustler: They’ll  leave me.

Me: Sigh. Oh Hustler. That’s a big burden to carry. I love you and I would never abandon you. Not ever.

Hustler: [stares at me suspiciously]

Me: What if I helped carry Christmas? Would you be able to trust me enough to soften down a little, and let me take on the task of making sure we have a good Christmas, full of family and hugs and laughter?

Hustler: [shoulders stumped, looking exhausted]. Really? You won’t let us down? You’ll make sure everyone is happy?

Me: I can’t guarantee that, because I can’t control other people’s happiness. But I can promise you I’ll pay special attention to our loved ones this season and make sure they’re able to connect with us and that they know how important they are to us. Does that sound good? 

Hustler: [shuffling her feet]. I guess. But you’ll still buy gifts, right?

Me: Of course. But not too much because we have to honour our budget, ok?

Hustler: Ok. Does that mean I can go take a nap?

Me: Absolutely. I got this.

End of transcript

This script is an old one for me. I learned it long ago, when I was 8 and my dad died and my mom was so sad it felt like she had left us too. My child brain told me that I needed to make sure everyone was happy in order to be safe and loved. If I didn’t do that, I would literally die.

By the way, this was nobody’s fault. My mom did her best while dealing with intense grief— and she did a great job. But when we’re just trying to make sense of a world as children, we tend to develop strategies based on childish logic that we then carry on to adulthood.

This little hustler of mine is a little parentified child that sometimes feels she’s the only one capable of keeping me safe. I am in regular conversation with her, trying to build up enough trust so she can put down her adult duties and go play already. But she’s been doing this job for a good 42 years. It’s going to take some time.

Check-in:

• What parts of you get activated in the Holiday season? Do you have a hustler? Or a part that wants to flee? Take a minute to see which part is most present for you during this season.

• How do you feel towards this part? Are you angry at it? Frustrated? Or do you feel compassion?

• What role does this part play in your system? In other words, how does this part try to protect you, even if it may be doing some harm in the process?

• What does it need to help it soften up a bit?

The holiday season can be both magical and harrowing, with family and expectations, and our own parts trying so hard to live up to it all. Whatever your situation, take some time to get to know and care for all of your different parts that get activated during this season.

While you do that, I’ll just pop out to Canadian Tire for more Christmas lights— you really can’t have enough, right?

Just kidding. That was last week according to my Gantt chart…

My dog trying to tell me to chill out….