The Art of Doing the Holidays Smaller (A Caregiver’s Reflection)

 

You may have no desire to do your best imitation of Martha Stewart—but that’s kind of the point. That's a good thing. 

The holidays come with expectations.
And the worst ones?
Not all of them come from other people.

They’re the ones we place on ourselves.

The ones that whisper,

Look at me. I’ve got the best decorations.
My cakes and pies are legendary.
I serve the most delicious meal.
My goodness, what a holiday to remember.

And just like that, it becomes tradition.

Did you notice the shift?

How quickly the season moves from meaning to performance?

Here’s the thing about caregiving:
the holidays don’t stop for us, and we don’t stop for the holidays.

The two just fold into each other—messy, imperfect—and somehow we’re still expected to stitch everything together into something that looks like joy.

This year, I woke up and realized something.

I don’t have the energy for the big version of Christmas.
The one with matching pajamas.
The good China.
The kind of elaborate meals that require three days of prep and a prayer.

I don’t have the bandwidth to pretend I’m not stretched thin.
And honestly? I don’t want to.

So I’m choosing a different version.
A gentler one.
A smaller holiday.

And smaller doesn’t mean less.

Smaller looks like lighting one candle instead of decorating a whole house.
It looks like soft music instead of a loud gathering.
It looks like making one dish—not five—and calling it enough.
It looks like choosing presence over performance.

Smaller looks like breathing room.

As caregivers, we feel time differently this time of year.

We carry memories of holidays past.
We notice the changes in the person we care for.
We hold gratitude and grief in the same hand.

Trying to force a big, happy holiday on top of all that feels almost… disrespectful to what’s real.

So today, I leaned into the holiday that actually fits my life.
Not the one I grew up with.
Not the one social media sells.
Not the one I used to create.

I sat with my loved one for a while.
No rush.
No checklist.

Just a slow moment where they smiled at something simple—and I realized:

This is what I want to remember.

Not the chaos.
Not the expectations.
Not the endless to-do lists.

Just this.
A quiet moment where life feels honest.

There is an art to doing the holidays smaller.

It’s the art of letting go.
The art of choosing what matters.
The art of giving yourself permission to rest inside a season that forgets rest even exists.

So if your holiday looks different this year—
quieter, slower, scaled down—know this:

You’re not doing it wrong.
You’re not falling short.
You’re creating a holiday that fits the real life you’re living.

And sometimes, the smaller holiday is the one that feels the most like peace.

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