There’s so much pressure at this time of year.

Pressure to buy the perfect present. Pressure to have a beautifully decorated house. Pressure to plan and cook a humungous meal (that noone will thank you for). Pressure to take your kids to see Santa, a show, the christmas lights….and that’s only if you were organised enough to book the bloody tickets in August! Pressure to travel to see family or (better? worse?) have them to stay. And in some cases just pressure to heat the house and put food on the table.

Add to that the pressure to do it all in an environmentally friendly way and you might just implode.

Last night I went to see the Scummy Mummies Christmas show. If you haven’t seen their podcast you really should check it out. I was sceptical…i think I’d convinced myself that I was ‘perfect’…that I could do it all. And be eco too. I was pretty sure I was going to find it funny but irrelevant. But I can’t tell you how cathartic it was to find myself laughing with 200 other mums about the realities of saggy boobs, stretch marks, avoiding the school Christmas fair, never having sex, getting mad about your partner’s inability to look for his own keys, regifting unwanted Christmas presents, buying a frozen turkey from ‘Sainos’ instead of free-range from the butcher etc etc etc. Suddenly it felt alright not to be perfect. And I was reminded of my own motto, which I happily spout to my cloth nappy groups… ‘you’ve got to be kind to yourself’.

With eco anxiety an increasing phenomenon, more and more of us are feeling out of control and like we’re somehow failing. And we’re heaping even more pressure on ourselves to be perfect. So I just wanted to say…you got this. Do it your own way. Do what you can.

Sure, try to do things as well as you’re able…read a few blogs on what Christmas tree to get*, try to reduce the amount of stuff you buy this Christmas, make an effort to cut down on your plastic waste, eat less meat. Maybe even try a cloth nappy or two…? But if you put too much pressure on yourself to do it all, and do it perfectly, you’re guaranteed to crumble and end up doing none of it. Take things slowly and do what you can as and when you can. It’s a bit like running a marathon…you’ll gradually get more and more ‘eco-fit’ and be able to do more and more. But if you try to run the full 26 miles out of the gate you’ll pull a hamstring and never run again :)

Happy Christmas everyone…give yourself the gift of self-care this year!

*Here’s a great article. But to save you the effort of reading it…the long and the short of it is this: if your council runs a collection service after chrimbo which turns the trees into chippings, it’s definitely better to buy real, especially if you can source a UK grown (even better locally grown) tree.