Why the Holidays Feel Hard (& How to Actually Enjoy Them)

You see the posts. The matching family pajamas. The beautifully decorated trees and perfectly lit menorahs. The smiling faces at holiday parties. Everyone else seems to be having the time of their lives.

And you're just... trying to get through it.

Maybe this year is different. Maybe your child just left for college and the house feels too quiet. Maybe you're navigating your first holiday season after a divorce. Maybe you moved to a new city and everything feels unfamiliar. Maybe you lost someone, and their absence is everywhere.

Or maybe nothing dramatic happened—you're just exhausted. Life is busy. Work is demanding. The kids have activities. And now you're supposed to add holiday magic on top of everything else?

Here's what I want you to know: if the holidays feel hard this year, you're not doing it wrong. You're not broken. You're not the only one struggling while everyone else glides through December with ease.

The truth is, a lot of people are struggling. They're just not posting about it.

Why Do the Holidays Feel So Hard?

The holidays come with enormous emotional weight. There's the pressure to create meaningful experiences—for yourself, for your kids, for your family. There's the expectation that you'll feel joyful, grateful, and connected.

But feelings don't follow a calendar. You can't schedule joy for December 25th or peace for the eight nights of Hanukkah. And when your actual feelings don't match what you think you're supposed to feel, it can make everything harder.

Add to that:

Life transitions that change everything. The holidays have a way of highlighting what's different. An empty chair at the table. A new custody schedule. A house that doesn't feel like home yet. A relationship that ended. These changes don't pause for the holidays—they're often amplified by them.

Grief that doesn't take a break. If you've lost someone, the holidays can feel like salt in a wound. Everyone talks about family and togetherness, and you're acutely aware of who's missing. And grief doesn't follow neat stages—it shows up when it shows up, often at the most inconvenient times.

The pressure to make everything perfect. Somewhere along the way, we absorbed the message that the holidays should be magical. That the gifts should be meaningful, the food should be delicious, and the memories should be Instagram-worthy. This kind of perfectionism is exhausting—and it steals the joy from the very moments we're trying to create.

Comparison with everyone else's highlight reel. Social media shows us curated perfection. We see the decorated cookies, not the burnt batch that got thrown away. We see the family photo, not the argument that happened right before. Comparing your real life to someone else's carefully edited version is a recipe for feeling inadequate.

When This Year Is Different: Navigating the Holidays After a Major Life Change

Some years, the holidays are hard because this year is fundamentally different from last year.

Your child went to college. The house is quieter. The traditions feel different. You're proud of them, and you miss them, and you're not quite sure what the holidays look like now. That mix of emotions is completely normal—and it doesn't mean you're not handling it well.

You're going through—or recently went through—a divorce. The logistics alone are overwhelming: who has the kids when, how to handle gifts, what traditions to keep. And underneath the logistics is real grief—for the family you thought you'd have, for the life you'd planned. This is one of the hardest life transitions to navigate, and the holidays make it more visible.

You moved. New house, new city, new everything. The holidays remind you of all the things that are unfamiliar now—and all the things you left behind. It takes time to build new traditions and find your footing.

Someone you love died. Their absence is everywhere during the holidays. In the recipes they used to make. In the seat they used to sit in. In the traditions that feel hollow without them. Grief during the holidays is intense, and there's no right way to do it.

Your career changed. A new job, a job loss, a major shift in your work life—these things affect your identity, your stress level, and your capacity to show up for the holidays the way you might have in the past.

If any of this sounds familiar, please hear me: it's okay to feel however you feel. You don't have to pretend to be joyful. You don't have to perform holiday cheer for anyone. And you certainly don't have to do the holidays the way you've always done them.

Why Does Everyone Else Seem to Have It Together?

They don't. I promise.

What you're seeing on social media is a highlight reel. The perfect family photo took seventeen tries. The beautifully wrapped gifts were wrapped at midnight after a stressful day. The couple posting about their holiday party had an argument in the car on the way there.

Everyone is dealing with something. Some people are better at hiding it. Some people cope by curating an image of perfection. But behind closed doors, most families are navigating stress, tension, and exhaustion—just like you.

If you find yourself scrolling and feeling worse about your own life, that's important information. It might be time to take a break from social media—or at least notice how it's affecting you.

Here's a thought experiment: What if you only posted the hard parts of your holidays? The burnt food. The meltdown your kid had. The moment you lost your patience. The tears you cried missing someone who's gone.

You probably wouldn't post those things. Neither does anyone else. Remember that when you're comparing your full, messy reality to someone else's curated image.

What Can Actually Help?

I'm not going to tell you to "just be grateful" or "focus on what matters." You already know what matters. That's not the problem.

Here are some things that might actually help:

Lower the bar. Seriously. What would happen if you did less? If the cookies were store-bought? If you skipped one event? If the gifts weren't perfect? If the decorations were "good enough"? The people who love you aren't grading your performance. And the ones who are? Their opinion doesn't deserve that much real estate in your head.

Use grounding techniques when you feel overwhelmed. When your mind is racing or your chest feels tight, grounding can help bring you back to the present moment. One of the simplest is the 5-4-3-2-1 technique: notice 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. We have a whole post on grounding techniques if you want more options. These are tools our therapists teach clients every day—and they really work.

Try progressive muscle relaxation before bed. If you're lying awake at night with your mind spinning about everything you need to do—or everything that's hard right now—your body is probably holding that tension too. Progressive muscle relaxation involves slowly tensing and then releasing each muscle group, which signals your nervous system that it's safe to relax. It's one of the most effective techniques we know for helping people fall asleep when stress is high. I recommend practicing it every night for a couple of weeks—the effects compound over time.

Protect your energy like it's a limited resource—because it is. You don't have to go to every event. You don't have to say yes to every request. You can leave early. You can decline invitations. You can prioritize the things that actually matter to you and let the rest go. This isn't selfish. It's sustainable.

Build in recovery time. Don't schedule something the morning after a big event. Give yourself margin. The holidays aren't a sprint—they're a marathon that spans from Thanksgiving through New Year's. Pace yourself.

Name what you're grieving. Sometimes the hardest part is that no one's talking about the elephant in the room. The empty chair. The way things used to be. The person who's missing. It can actually help to acknowledge it out loud: "This is hard without Dad here" or "This is our first Christmas since the divorce and it's weird." Naming it doesn't make it worse—it makes it real, and real things can be dealt with.

Question the 'shoulds.' Where did you learn that the holidays should look a certain way? Is that actually what you want, or is it what you think you're supposed to want? You're allowed to create holidays that work for your actual life—not the life you think you should have.

Put down your phone. If scrolling makes you feel worse, stop scrolling. You don't need to see how everyone else is celebrating. You don't need to document your own celebration for anyone. Be where you are, with the people you're with.

If You Have Kids: They Pick Up on More Than You Think

Kids are incredibly attuned to their parents' stress. If you're running around frantic trying to make everything perfect, they feel that. If you're grieving or struggling, they sense it—even if you don't talk about it.

That doesn't mean you have to hide your feelings. It means you can model something healthier: "I'm feeling a little sad because I miss Grandma. It's okay to feel sad sometimes." Or: "I'm feeling stressed today. I'm going to take some deep breaths."

Your kids don't need a perfect holiday. They need a present parent. Sometimes the best gift you can give them is your calm presence—not another activity, not another tradition, just you.

And if your kids are struggling with the holidays too—whether it's anxiety about family gatherings, big emotions during a transition, or meltdowns from being overstimulated—know that this is normal. We have a lot of resources for parents navigating what triggers anxiety in children and how to help when things get hard.

Looking Ahead: What About New Year's?

If you're already dreading New Year's Eve—the pressure to have plans, to reflect on the year, to set resolutions—you're not alone.

New Year's comes with its own set of expectations. The year-in-review posts. The "new year, new you" pressure. The feeling that you should have accomplished more, or that next year you'll finally get it together.

Here's a different idea: What if you entered the new year with compassion instead of pressure? What if, instead of a list of things to fix about yourself, you acknowledged how hard this year was and how much strength it took to get through it?

You don't need a dramatic reinvention. You just need to keep going, one day at a time.

It's Okay to Need Help

If the holidays are revealing something deeper—if the stress isn't just seasonal, if the sadness isn't lifting, if you're realizing you've been holding it all together for too long—that's worth paying attention to.

Sometimes the holidays are the moment when we finally acknowledge that we need more support. That's not a failure. That's wisdom.

At Aspire Counseling, we work with people who are navigating exactly these kinds of struggles—life transitions, grief, anxiety, perfectionism, feeling overwhelmed by everything you're carrying. We offer therapy at our Lee's Summit and Columbia offices, as well as online therapy throughout Missouri.

You don't have to white-knuckle your way through another holiday season. There are people who can help—and tools that actually work.

Wishing you a holiday season with more peace than pressure, more presence than perfection, and more compassion for yourself than you're probably used to giving.

Call: 573-328-2288

About the Author

Jessica Oliver, LCSW, is the founder and Clinical Director of Aspire Counseling, with offices in Lee's Summit and Columbia, Missouri. She founded the practice in 2017 and has personally navigated major life transitions while building a business and raising a family. She understands that the holidays can be both beautiful and hard—sometimes at the same time—and believes everyone deserves support that meets them where they actually are.