Ep #33: The Stress (& Joy) of Thanksgiving
episode summary
Welcome to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast: Thanksgiving edition. 🦃
The holidays can be fun, but they can also add stress to our already stressful lives. Fear not - there are some simple and effective things you can do to lower the stress. From re-framing how you talk about your plans to getting really clear on what you actually want to do, you can feel more empowered and less exasperated.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Featured on the Show
Podcast Ep #24: The Five Whys
Podcast Ep # 30: The Invisible Workload of Women
For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.
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CHAPTERS:
6:25 - Thanksgiving Stressors: Food/Hosting
9:44 - What Do You Actually Want?
15:36 - Thanksgiving Stressor: Family Expectations
listen to the episode:
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Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. Hello, friends, I just finished up writing an article, slash email, slash blog post, whatever you want to call it, about using the phrases "I have to" when describing something that you're going to do, or "I choose to, or I want to, or even "I get to. I feel like saying I have to implies that we're under some kind of obligation to do something, where those other options, like to choose or to want or to get to, are more empowering ways to say things, because it gives us more decision in the way that we're talking about it. And I'm bringing this up now because, well, it's almost Thanksgiving and you get to choose how you want it to feel for you. I did a poll on Facebook and Instagram and asked what were the most stressful parts about Thanksgiving, and I got a ton of feedback and I'm going to share some of the trends, some of the things that people told me, and then I'm going to suggest some of the ways that each one of those could be less stressful. Before I jump in and give you all the details on that, I just wanted to say that I am very thankful to you for being a listener of this podcast, and to those of you who have written a review or just given a rating a five star rating or whatever rating you want to give I want you to give your honest one. It's very fun. I get an email every week with the top charts and where the podcast is falling for that week, and I'm happy to say that the podcast continues to gain more steam, get more listeners and it keeps going up in the ratings. Right now it's in the top 2.5%. Used to be in the top 3%, now it's in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally. So I want to thank you for doing that and ask you, if you love the podcast and you haven't done a review yet, to please do that. That would be amazing. Also, it's really fun and funny just to see the way that the charts go sometimes, like every once in a while, I'll just pop up in the top 100 in a country where English isn't even the first language, and I just wonder, how did that happen? Who found that podcast and why were people listening to it? Who knows? But we had a little stint there where it was popular in Brazil, and then last week it was number 40 in Tunisia. Who knew?≈g I'm happy for it. I love that podcasts can get information that we want to share all over the world quickly and easily. Anyway, thank you. I'm super grateful to everybody who listens and who passes it on to their friends. Okay, back to this Thanksgiving topic. So today is a Tuesday. When you're listening to this it's probably not a Tuesday, but I'm recording this on a Tuesday and my daughter's randomly off school today because there's some kind of election and they do the voting at their school, so she's off school today. I just went in the kitchen to heat up my lunch and I was talking to her while I was waiting and said "ey, what's your favorite part about Thanksgiving? She said I don't like Thanksgiving. I'm like oh really, why not? Is there a certain part you don't like or something that stresses you out? I'm doing a podcast about it. That's why I'm asking/" why are you doing a podcast? Well, because I have a podcast and I thought I'd just try to help people feel less stressed about it and then, silence. You guys, she's super impressed by me and my job. Just kidding. Teenagers, man, they'll keep you humble. If nothing else, I did get a warm cookie out of the deal cause she was baking cookies, so that was a score for me. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that my teenager is not impressed with this podcast topic. Hopefully you're more excited about it than she is. Okay. So I collected all these responses which I mentioned at the beginning and I put them into a spreadsheet and then categorized them, because I love spreadsheets and putting information into a spreadsheet is the first step to solving almost any problem. Just kidding, but I do love a good spreadsheet. Anyway, I got tons of feedback and here's what I found out. So the question that I posed was which part of Thanksgiving do you find most stressful? And there was a whole group of people who said I don't find it stressful at all. I love Thanksgiving. So I was curious about that. I dug into that and there seems to be three main reasons that people don't feel stressed about Thanksgiving. Number one, and I got a decent amount of these: I'm not stressed because we don't do Thanksgiving. My immediate family goes on a trip and we just get away from it all. Someone on Facebook said I don't even make my kids pack suitcases, we just pack in backpacks and we go to a warm destination and we're just there for three days. So there's not a lot of packing and it's so stress-free. I was thinking, yeah, that does sound pretty stress-free, that sounds awesome. The second group of people who loved Thanksgiving are people who host but have been hosting for years and have it down to a science. And then the third group of people, and I'm in this group, are not stressed out about Thanksgiving and love Thanksgiving because they go to their mom's house and their mom cooks everything. Yep, that's me. I have hosted Thanksgiving before but I'll tell you it's a lot less stressful when my mom hosts it because she does everything. I offer to bring stuff, we all offer to bring stuff, but she makes it all and she makes it over the course of like a week and it's delicious and amazing and we are all so grateful. So that will make it not stressful if you just basically have to show up. But if you're not in that situation, one of those three situations, you're probably feeling some kind of stress about Thanksgiving and I want to go through sort of the groupings of problems that I found and talk about some solutions that we could apply so that you can just enjoy your Thanksgiving more. I mean, it is usually a couple days off work. It is usually some good together time with family, so hopefully you can enjoy it a little bit more. So when I started looking at the problems, okay, there were a couple of them that just made me laugh. One was, "I'm afraid we'll run out of bourbon". I can totally help you with that. Just go to your InstaCart app right now and order a couple extra bottles and have it on hand right now. That way you'll just have them done, problem solved. There you go, you're welcome. Another one said I'm afraid the Lions won't cover the spread. I was really impressed that I know what this means. The Lions are a football team and the spread is a betting thing. So I can just tell you if you want to avoid that, just don't bet. There. Again. All done. You can just call me Dear Abby solving all those problems, but those are not obviously the real problems that we types of problems that we talk about on this show. So the problems that I'm going to talk about are in a couple categories. The first is cooking and the food. The second is hosting. So if you're hosting, there are certain stresses. The third is family expectations. A lot of mentions of guilt trips in that one. First, we're going to dive into the problems or stressors around cooking and food. Here are just a couple examples of the ones that I got: "So my husband and I are from two different parts of the country and we like two different kinds of recipes. I feel like Thanksgiving is a really specific holiday as far as the food goes. Everybody's family has their special things that they do, and when you go to someone else's house for Thanksgiving that you're not used to going to, it's always interesting to see what they serve. So I could see how that would be like a little iffy for a married couple. Then people worrying about that their food they prepare won't turn out perfectly, serving all the hot food on time. That always stresses me out, even if I'm just having a regular dinner. And then somebody else just said I don't like any of the food. I got a couple of those people saying I don't like turkey, I don't like the Thanksgiving food. So those are kind of some of the examples around cooking and food. So if you have this type of problem any of those ones I just mentioned the first thing I want you to do is ask why is this a problem for you? I didn't ask this question in my survey, but since I'm a human myself and I have hundreds of hours of coaching experience, I can make a solid guess that people are having these types of problems because they don't want to upset anyone or they're worried what other people will think of me if they don't lay out the perfect meal on time and hot. And I'm guessing also there are probably some chefs who would like to enjoy the fruits of their labor after they have spent like the entire day, probably week, cooking and have a hot meal that's delicious that they can just sit down to and enjoy. So in order to solve this, let's start by taking a look at what you want. Getting clear on what you want is a super helpful first step. Let's say, your number one desire is to have all the food hot on the table at the same time. Think about what would it take to deliver that. So when I hosted Thanksgiving for 30 plus people, that included for me a ton of prep for days in advance. I must have gotten it from my mom, but I mean I had written plans - I'm sure I had a spreadsheet - for when to bake what and how long it needed to heat up, because I made almost everything in advance. For you it might be asking people to bring things and giving them instructions on how to bring them. When I hosted Thanksgiving, I asked one person to bring rolls. That was like something I thought would be easy to ask someone and when she came they were the kind that had to be baked, which normally is no big deal. But I was like how long do they take to bake? What oven am I going to put them in? I have everything like perfectly accounted for. So when you ask someone to bring something, if you want it to be exactly how you want it to, be super specific. So can you bring it, can you bake it ahead of time at your house and bring it warm and bring it in the serving dish with a serving spoon, for example. That would probably really help you if you asked for exactly what you wanted, which I didn't do. I didn't know to specify. So get clear on what you want is the first step. Ask for help where you want it. I don't know about you when I host. I really don't love other people bringing things. You can call me a control freak if you want, but I like to make it all. I'm not going to host a dinner party if I can't make all of the things. I like doing that. So making that choice means I'm taking on all the work for the cooking. I don't 'have to' make the food. I 'choose to' make the food. So just get clear for you. Are you a person - like one of the people who said that they absolutely love Thanksgiving, makes the turkey and everyone else brings the sides. She's got it down to a science. It doesn't stress her out at all. So I think people are bringing stuff is great if that's what you want. Just get clear on what you want and then ask for help. So, now that you're clear on what you want and you're getting the help that you need, that just leaves the part of what if it doesn't work out perfectly and someone is disappointed. So let's think all the way through that. If this is you and you're worried that that turkey isn't going to turn out perfectly, who exactly are you worried about being disappointed? Let's say, for example, it's your father-in-law. If he's disappointed because the turkey is overcooked, what would happen? Okay, he probably just won't have the best meal of his life. Okay, and then what will happen, if he doesn't have the best meal of his life? He'll be disappointed. Okay, and then what? Maybe he'll think I'm a terrible cook and tell all of his golf buddies. Okay, and if it's true that he does that - which we don't know that he will, but if he does that - what happens next? Then I would feel embarrassed. Okay, and then if you feel embarrassed, what happens? I just feel embarrassed and I get over it. So really, the worst case scenario, if you take the time to worry it all the way through, is that you're trying to avoid a feeling. You're trying to avoid a feeling of embarrassment, but if you do have to feel embarrassed, you'll be okay, right? I mean, nobody loves to be embarrassed, but you'll be okay, you won't die or anything. So, just to summarize, when you're worried about what other people will think, just ask yourself, "hat do I really want? And then use those questions Sometimes I call them the five whys there's a whole podcast episode on that to try to get to the bottom of what you're really worried about and what the worst case scenario is that could happen. Okay, the next stressor that I want to address is around hosting. So I think this was a perfect description: "Hosting and everything that goes along with it the cleaning, the prep work, bringing things up from the basement that we only use once a year and roasting the bird. I can never remember what or how I did it the year before". So when I read that description it just screams the invisible workload of women, which I covered a couple of podcasts back. If you haven't listened to that one yet, you can go back and listen to that. But the reason why this hosting feels so heavy is because it's not just hosting people for dinner on Thanksgiving Day. You first have to anticipate and think about what do I need for Thanksgiving. Then you have to look at all the options. What do I need to drag out of the basement? How many people will we have? How will we seat them? Should we use the China? Should we use paper plates? What groceries do I need? Where are the recipes? Should I have people bring things and, if so, who should bring what? So that is that invisible workload of anticipating what is needed and then going through all of the options. Then you decide. So you say, okay, we're gonna use the China, we're gonna use three different tables, we are going to have people bring a side, et cetera. So you decide all those things. Then you're the one who has to communicate all those things to all those people. Make sure everybody's clear on what you need, get all the groceries, find the recipes, make the food and so then the last step is to do the dang thing, so to actually host Thanksgiving. So by the time it's time to do the dishes, you can imagine that you are mentally and physically exhausted by all of that. So if you are hosting, the first thing I want you to do is just acknowledge how much work it is. As you heard a couple of podcasts ago, women take on and are very good at anticipating what might be needed for the family in general, and Thanksgiving is no exception to that rule. So if you're stressed about hosting, you probably have been thinking about it for weeks and weeks at this point Just like the one we talked about before, where people were feeling stressed about cooking, et cetera, be specific about what you're asking for. So think about the parts that you can outsource. You probably can't pay someone to think about all the things that you need for Thanksgiving and what you need to get out of the basement. Probably that anticipation part is something you'll have to do. But you can outsource and ask people to bring things. You can pay someone to clean the house. My sister hosted Thanksgiving one year and she had somebody come and set up tables and we had those as part of our Thanksgiving, which was wonderful, and then they just came and took them back down. It was so nice. And also my grandma used to always tell us that you should pick up before company, but not clean. You should have someone come and clean after, so your house is clean after they leave. I love that advice. I think this particular one, thinking about hosting, is an interesting one too, because this is an area where many people commented that they don't have any stress because they have it down to a science, which really just means they have done it so many times they don't have to make all those decisions that I just mentioned. So, for example, they know exactly what they're gonna serve, they know who's gonna bring what, they know what time they're gonna eat. They know all those things that you have probably been thinking about if you're feeling stressed about it. Next up on our list of Thanksgiving stresses is family expectations. So these are demands or guilt trips from your family or your in-laws to visit them over Thanksgiving or to try to go to two different Thanksgivings on the same day or this could possibly be your own family of origin - you and your kids - trying to figure out when you can do it, if you have older kids or one of you works a non-traditional job where maybe you're working on Thanksgiving, trying to figure that out, living up to the expectation of what your kids should be doing, like if you have toddlers specifically, you never know what they're going to do - same with teenagers actually, and what other people are expecting of that. So family expectations. By now you know the first thing I'm going to say, which is figure out what you really want. So, for example, if you're feeling pressure from your family and the in-laws to be at both of their houses on Thanksgiving Day, what do you really want to do? And maybe you in this case includes you and your spouse, or you and your partner. So you know what you personally want to do, what's best for your family, and then, using the mantra it's okay to put myself or my family first, and then doing what you actually want to do. So maybe you choose one of the Thanksgivings to go to or you choose both, knowing that that's not your favorite option, but when you take the time to figure it out and actually choose it, you've removed the "have to" the have to go to two different Thanksgiving's and have gotten to. I'm choosing to go to two Thanksgiving. So even if it's not your favorite thing, it still feels so much better when you're empowered because you've actually made that decision. For those of you who have toddlers - or have had toddlers! My kids are 13 and 16 I can still remember how stressful it was having toddlers, especially sitting at my mom and dad's house. My mom always sets the most beautiful table with like an ironed dry clean- only tablecloth, lots of breakable dishes, china fancy glasses, whatever, and I'd be sweating bullets hoping that my kids wouldn't do something crazy. Of course they always did. But the one person wrote in and said, "living up to the expectations, that my toddlers are going to eat the food, sit at the table with people wear hot clothes". I laughed at that one. I swear my kids were like diaper only for 90% of the time when they were little and be awake for a meal that for some Reason has always served in the middle of nap time. So if we ask ourselves the question there, what do you really want to do? Then think about what you want. When my kids were little, what I wanted was to eat dinner during nap time, when my kids were actually sleeping, because I wanted to eat. My kids, neither one of them were great eaters, and so I knew that they weren't going to eat, and it was just going to be a pain for me, and so for me, the preferred method was just not having my kids at the table when they were little. My sister, our kids are about the same age, but my sister felt completely differently about it and she liked having her kids at the table, so for her, it was important to have them there and eating. So decide what you want. Use that mantra of it's okay to put myself or my family's needs first and make your decision from there. Okay, that's it. Friends. Hopefully some of that coaching that you have just gotten on this podcast will help you have a more peaceful, less stressful Thanksgiving. And just remember the key is getting clear on what you really want and making a decision from there. I hope you have a wonderful, grateful Thanksgiving with whoever you decide to celebrate with, or if you decide not to celebrate and pack up a backpack and go to the beach, I hope you enjoy that too. I'll see you next week. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier. com. See you next week.
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