by Erika Matic, probably hiding in her room pretending to “check something”
There’s a very particular kind of panic that hits a woman during the holiday season. It’s not the financial panic (that’s year-round). Not the “is my child eating enough vegetables to grow bones?” panic (also year-round).
Not even the marital panic, which arrives whenever your husband says something like, “Do we need new candles for our Advent wreath?” as if new candles are an optional resource and not the ninth commandment of December.
No. Holiday panic is its own species. A rare, glitter-covered psychological event where you begin the morning as a calm, rational atheist who enjoys holidays for the ambience – and by noon you’ve lost your mind because the Advent wreath is ruined and your soul is apparently made of dried-out gingerbread.
Take this Sunday.
My husband was minding his own business. Existing. Breathing. Possibly thinking about lunch. Meanwhile, I was in full festive crisis mode because I realised – too late, at exactly the wrong moment – that women don’t experience holidays.
We produce them.
We are the unpaid, slightly frazzled manufacturing plant behind every sparkling moment.
We’re the ones who remember who likes which kind of chocolate.
We’re the ones who know which cousin is vegan this year.
We’re the ones who keep the entire month running like an emotionally unstable North Pole assembly line.
My husband?
He simply arrives.
He enjoys.
He laughs like a man who has never Googled “Can you reuse Advent candles without being judged?”
So naturally, I snapped at him.
He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t even say anything. The man was practically Switzerland – neutral, unaware, possibly a bit hungry. But because my brain was juggling 473 holiday-related tasks, I interpreted his very existence as an act of aggression.
He looked at me like, “What did I do?”
And I looked back like, “You didn’t do anything, that’s the problem.”
Because while I was mentally calculating whether we had enough wrapping paper, enough clean surfaces, enough joy, enough magic, enough everything – I forgot the one thing that actually matters.
The one thing you can’t buy, schedule, organise, or produce.
The moment.
This moment.
The moment where my daughter laughs at her new LEGO set.
The moment where my husband makes that soft little chuckle that only appears when he’s genuinely happy.
The moment where the cat purrs like a tiny engine of domestic peace.
But instead of enjoying it, I went full Christmas Goblin.
Women are expected to create holiday memories so wholesome they could be bottled and sold as scented candles. Meanwhile, men just show up like woodland creatures sniffing around for food and cheer.
And I know it’s absurd.
I know I’m unreasonable.
I know there is absolutely no universe in which a slightly messy living room is more important than my daughter’s face lighting up because she ate fritule for the first time in her life.
But my brain does not care.
My brain hears “December” and immediately starts sprinting through a mental forest carrying a thousand metaphorical ornaments like a deranged festive octopus.
And this is why I end up picking fights with a man who is just trying to live his life.
Because women don’t get to simply be part of the holiday season.
We are the stage crew, the event planners, the emotional engineers, and the quality control inspectors for everyone’s happiness.
I don’t blame tradition.
I don’t blame modern expectations.
I don’t even blame patriarchy directly (although, hi, familiar face).
I blame the invisible holiday job description all women receive at puberty:
Make it magical. Or else.
And the “or else” is never defined, but it feels catastrophic.
What if I forget someone’s gift?
What if the house isn’t clean enough?
What if my daughter doesn’t have a perfect childhood memory of December 14th for no particular reason?
What if my husband doesn’t feel festive enough?
What if someone runs out of cookies?
And yet – none of it matters.
I mean, sure, the presents are nice.
The meals are lovely.
The music is charming in a “please stop playing the same twelve songs before I lose consciousness” kind of way.
But none of it is the point.
The point is the moment.
The laughter.
The feeling of being together.
The totally mundane magic of three people and three cats existing in the same warm place.
And somehow, in my quest to make the holidays perfect, I almost missed the whole point.
I am so busy trying to create joy that I forget to feel it.
Which is why I had to stand in the kitchen, take a dramatic breath like I was performing for an invisible audience, and remind myself:
No one – literally no one – cares if the house is messy (ok, except for my mother).
No one cares if the gifts look like a raccoon wrapped them.
No one cares if there are two types of cookies instead of twelve.
The only person demanding perfection…
is me.
And quite frankly, I’m tired of her.
So this holiday season, I’m giving myself a gift: the radical, rebellious act of relaxing.
Let the dust settle.
Let the wrapping paper run out.
Let the cookies be slightly burnt or store-bought or emotionally confused.
Because my daughter’s childhood won’t be shaped by the number of sweets on the table.
My husband’s memories won’t be shaped by whether the Advent candles are brand new.
My cats are absolutely not evaluating my performance.
But they will remember the feeling of being together.
And I want to be part of that memory – not the ghostly holiday manager who lurks in the background, sweating over the fourth load of laundry.
This year, I want to sit.
I want to laugh.
I want to exist.
I want to look at my daughter’s face instead of my to-do list.
I want to hear my husband’s soft Sunday chuckle without mentally rearranging furniture behind it.
I want to feel the cats curled up beside us, purring like tiny reminders that warmth doesn’t require perfection – just presence.
Because one day, my daughter won’t remember which cookies were homemade and which were store-bought.
She won’t remember whether the Advent wreath had the “correct” candles.
She won’t remember if the house was spotless or if the gift bows matched.
But she will remember how it felt to be loved.
To be seen.
To be in a house where someone cared enough to try – even too hard sometimes.
And maybe years from now, when she unpacks her own holiday boxes in some home I haven’t seen yet, she’ll think of these Decembers. The chaotic ones. The loud ones. The ones where we were all a little tired and a little overwhelmed but together – always together.
And I hope she feels warmth blooming in her chest.
Not because everything was perfect, but because we were there.
And that’s the memory I don’t want to miss while I’m busy fixing candles.
So when I lose it again (and I will), I’ll breathe, lower my shoulders, unclench my jaw, and remind myself:
The magic isn’t in the decorations.
The magic is in us.
And we were enough all along
Erika Matic writes about domestic chaos, emotional clarity, and the annual December meltdown that somehow still counts as holiday spirit. She believes joy is not in perfection – but in presence.
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