Christmas is a ton of work. Never mind the money involved, all of the logistics, planning, communication, travel, cooking — and on and on and on and on — very quickly starts to feel like a full-time job.
Or at least it does to many women because the work of Christmas merry-making seems to fall entirely on their shoulders — and many of them feel the men in their lives have no concept whatsoever of how taxing it really is.
A mom warned husbands about the ‘mental load of holiday magic’ that women bear during Christmas.
Men’s jokes about how much money women spend are as old and tired as the hills, and they’ve become something of a holiday tradition, especially as online shopping has come to mean a daily bombardment of boxes on our doorsteps every day from November to December. But suffice to say, a lot of moms aren’t laughing along.
Paige Turnera working mom of four who creates content about the challenges of modern motherhoodrecently delved into this topic in a video on social media. She boiled it down to one simple question for men who express mystification at how much stuff their wives are buying: “Did you shop for anyone on the list?”
Now, I’m a man and a gay one at that, so this is pretty much entirely out of my purview (thank God). But I will say this: If you asked this question of any, and I do mean any, of the women in my life about their husbands or partners, their answer would immediately be “LOL, no.” The duty of making Christmas happen falls entirely on their own shoulders.
The responses to Paige’s video, of course, were of the same ilk. “My husband just said disappointed ‘wait, you didn’t do Christmas cards this year…,” one woman commented, “and I said ‘neither did you!’ I’m also nine months pregnant with a 15-month-old on my hip.” If that doesn’t say it all, what else could?
Women feel totally overwhelmed by the Christmas workload and the way it goes unnoticed by many men.
It seems utterly absurd that this would be such a mystery to so many men. Buying presents, putting on all those get-togethers, sending out all of those cards — where do they think that comes from? Santa’s workshop is just a fun story, gents. It isn’t real!
But every year, I end up being the shoulder to cry on for the women in my life who end up at their wit’s end with the effort their husbands put into creating holiday magic for their kids, which basically amounts to nothing at all.
“Historically women have been responsible for the hosting, they’re cooking and they’re cleaning, they’re prepping, they’re decorating, they’re making the holidays magical,” Paige said. “They’re coming up with fun little traditions for the kids; they’re shopping and wrapping and putting things under the tree.”
The list of “duties” is dizzying and overwhelming. I can barely manage the stress myself, and I live alone. I have watched in awestruck horror at the amount of work the women in my life are forced into doing for their families every holiday season. It seems untenable.
And I do use the word “forced” purposefully — discussions about this topic always end with someone saying, “Then just stop doing it!” which is absurd.
Would YOU want to be the one to tell the kids that Christmas isn’t happening this year because mom is too tired and dad is too oblivious to even know where the wrapping paper is stored? Or, as Paige put it, “the second women choose not to do it, someone has something to say.”
These dynamics also set a terrible example for kids, especially boys.
The thing about the complete imbalance in the mental load of holiday magic is that it’s not just unfair. It’s completely insidious. “Children are sponges,” as the saying goes, and they soak up these dynamics readily.
“What do you think that does to us,” Laura Danger, a mom, educator, and content creatorasked in response to a viral TikTok video about the unequal Christmas workload.
The video showed a woman frantically wrapping gazillions of presents for the family while her husband relaxed in front of the TV, and it left Danger posing an unsettling question. “When you go your whole life seeing the man who is supposed to love your mother not see her? What does that teach you about love?”
It reminds me of a story a friend told me about a time her mother-in-law was watching her kids while she worked overnight, and their dad was out of town on business. When the mother-in-law couldn’t find a part of one kid’s school uniform, she went to text their dad, but the kid reflexively said, “Oh, he won’t know; just call mom.”
For a little kid to instinctively know their dad won’t have any idea about such a basic thing is pretty bracing. And to be clear, this husband is a wonderful father in lots of other ways. But Danger is right: What this teaches a kid about what is and is not acceptable for dads versus moms is troubling, to say the least.
Christmas is just a far more dramatic example of this fundamental disconnect that has all too many tentacles. It’s still culturally shocking to us when we see a husband and father who, like, even tries to do a good job, let alone succeeds at being a competent, equal partner. That is incredibly messed up.
Many women also say that when they confront their partners about this, it falls on deaf or, more often, defensive ears. Personally, my theory is that this is fueled by guilt and shame on the part of men who know they should be doing more, but whatever the motive, the solution is to do the opposite.
As Paige put it in her video, “If your partner comes to you and says they’re exhausted from the work required to make the holidays magical, instead of dismissing them … get involved in making the holidays magical. Because this stuff is important.” Yep, and there’s a lot more than mere “holiday magic” at stake.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
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