The emails that launch the season
At 11am on a busy working day in early December, yet another email arrives from the school announcing yet another festive event to add to the already heaving calendar. Dutifully, I type dates and costume requirements into my phone while sitting through a Teams meeting, pretending to take notes and quietly wondering how on earth I’m meant to stay on top of it all. This is alongside full-time work, the laundry mountain and the everyday domestic debris of family life. We are told, annually, that this is the season of goodwill. But for many mothers, it starts to resemble an unpaid logistical internship: heavy on overtime, light on recognition, and with absolutely no chance of a permanent contract.
The school calendar of chaos
Take the school calendar. One child must attend a Christmas concert wearing “a Christmas jumper”, which of course is now two sizes too small. Then there’s the school Christmas fair, where you will spend a tenner on sweets and leave with ringing ears and, inexplicably, no access to wine. Hot on its heels comes the class Christmas party, demanding a prop that didn’t exist yesterday, and a packet of biscuits big enough to feed 30 children. Finally, the school Christmas walk – essentially a frosty trudge around the local area – for which waterproofs, boots and ten layers of forced enthusiasm are required before 9am.
And all this before you’ve even contemplated the teacher’s card and present.
Meanwhile, in nursery land…
In a cozy nursery school setting, a two-year-old girl, dressed as a snowflake, stands on stage during the nativity play. Her costume shimmers softly, adorned with delicate white and silver fabric that glimmers under the warm lights. With her cherubic face framed by a little halo of sparkling snowflakes, she looks angelic, embodying innocence and wonder. Her eyes, wide with curiosity, take in the scene around her as she shyly glances at the audience. She might not fully understand the play’s story, but her smile lights up the room, spreading warmth and joy. The purity of her presence adds a touch of magic to the moment, as if she’s the embodiment of winter’s beauty and childhood’s wonder, floating through the scene like a delicate flake in the air. The audience can’t help but smile, charmed by the sweet simplicity of this tiny snowflake, whose presence makes the play all the more special.
The nursery-aged sibling inhabits a parallel universe of compulsory merriment: a Christmas craft evening, a concert requiring an outfit in the one colour that child does not own, and a Christmas party complete with the obligatory Secret Santa present. “No more than £3,” the nursery insists, in a price bracket that suggests they’ve not been inside a real shop since 2001.
And if you happen to have a child with a December birthday too? Time to scream into a pillow and cry. It means yet another parent WhatsApp group, more emails about the venue, food arrangements, party bags and another day of spending.
December: the mental load in festive fancy dress
If the mental load is a year-round companion, December transforms it into a full-scale endurance test. Update the calendar. Remember the props. Buy the presents. Hide the presents. Remember where you’ve hidden the presents. Realise you’ve bought unevenly and panic-purchase more. Even the Elf on the Shelf, marketed as whimsical fun,
becomes a nightly creative brief, always inevitably remembered at 4am, you’re your mother’s guilt jolts you awake and you get up to move it into a new position.
The myth of seasonal serenity
Yet we’re still expected to glide through all this with seasonal serenity. Christmas may be sold as a collective celebration, but in reality, its success depends almost entirely on the unacknowledged labour of one person. And I have to say, she is very, very tired.
A festive rebellion worth considering
Perhaps this is the year for a quiet act of festive rebellion: a smaller Christmas centred on family time and using what we already have – no frantic prop-making, no spreadsheets masquerading as seasonal spirit, no new jumpers. Just being together, without rushed mornings or workplace emails intruding on the illusion of calm.
To the mothers who make it all happen
So, here’s to the invisible merry makers, the ones holding the season together with Sellotape, to-do lists and sheer willpower. May this finally be the Christmas in which you get ten uninterrupted minutes with a hot cup of tea in bed, while someone else (literally anyone else) deals with the organisation.
And perhaps, in finally acknowledging the invisible burdens that mothers carry all year round, we might start giving their patience, strength and resilience the recognition they deserve. After all, with the sheer motherload of Christmas resting on their shoulders, the only real festive miracle is that they haven’t gone on strike already!
Written by Corinna Gough