Pop’s POV: When Daddy Does It All – Finding Joy Amid the Holiday Hustle

As a millennial parent with constant competing priorities, being overwhelmed seems like it is the baseline. With the daily high volume of work inquiries, personal matters, and prioritizing quality time with those who matter most, combined with holiday preparation, certainly will have you feeling like you are five miles to empty. However, by being intentional with your time and strategically planning, you will be able to find some sense of balance and find yourself overwhelmed and thriving in no time!

Prevention is better than cure, so plan ahead of time! Create a roadmap of all your upcoming plans and delegate responsibilities where possible. Calendars are an extremely resourceful tool to detail significant dates for all of your commitments. The Apple Calendar app is amazing; it offers the ability to sync calendars with your spouse or other people essential to your plans to ensure everyone is aware of deadlines. The Apple Calendar prevents scheduling conflicts and eliminates any stress that would accompany it, like trying to be at two places at once or needing to cancel or reschedule. Remember, you and your partner are a team, so tackling holiday prep is a group effort—and if you’re lucky enough to have older kids, put them to work too! Running errands, preparing the house for guests, shopping for gifts, or even preparing meals for the family are a shared responsibility, and by spreading out the workload, it increases everyone’s capacity.

Root your expectations in reality! There’s no harm in dreaming or imagining scenarios in a perfect world, but when strategically planning, it is necessary to keep it real with yourself regarding your capacity. With realistic expectations, you reduce the pressure associated with overcommitment within your personal and professional life. Who wants to reminisce on the holiday season that they were extremely irritable and lashing out because they were worn thin? I can tell you for sure that I don’t! The Calm App has been my saving grace in practicing mindfulness via meditation and breathing exercises to reduce anxiety and to have an overall more serene state of mind when managing expectations in relation to reality. Making holidays memorable is what’s most important, and you want them to be memorable in a good way, not a bad one. Prioritize taking care of yourself and asking for assistance when it’s needed—believe me, there is no shame in getting help!

Despite all your responsibilities, be present and prioritize spending time with your family during the holidays. Though time may be limited, it is necessary that you set aside some uninterrupted time specifically for you and your children. Engage in their interests and even curate activities to do together to bond and create traditions. The TikTok app is perfect for finding holiday activities to do at home or locally. As challenging as it may be, we have to limit screen time for ourselves as parents to ensure our attention is being allocated to our little ones also. Work emails will always be there; social media will always be there—but this precious time with our little ones at their current developmental phase will not be.

Organization is essential to smooth holiday preparation and reducing the feeling of being overwhelmed, so it’s best to plan ahead. Set realistic expectations to alleviate the burden of overextending yourself. Make family time a priority and be present with your kids. There will always be something that has to be done—and whatever it is, can wait until later.