This morning, my daughter informed me that this is her least favorite time of year because the only thing to look forward to after Halloween is Thanksgiving and that’s “forever away.” I chuckled. For a kid, the holiday season does seem far off. For grown ups tasked with managing the next 8 weeks (of days off from school, meal planning, gift buying, charitable giving, travel, family dynamics, fill in the blank), the approaching holiday season can feel daunting at best.

This isn’t going to be one of those self-help, well-meaning, “do less, enjoy more” kind of blog posts. There are many of those, and I hope they’re helpful to you. This is more about when it’s hard to do less and enjoy more. This is about the anxiety that the holidays can bring up and the rush that these last two months can feel like. This is about how to make it through with a little of the joy that is demanded of us, if a lot of joy feels like a bridge too far.

I would love to say that I’m good at slowing down and reflecting during this season but that would be a lie. It is not my natural state to slow down; in fact, I want to fill every minute with JOY and MEMORIES and GRATITUDE. Most of us feel that way as the season ramps up, I think. There is a pressure mixed with the joy: to be happy, to do good, to see everyone. The approaching season feels like it wants us to end the year in utter exhaustion.

And maybe we will, despite our best efforts. But we can also choose to not get swallowed whole by stress and grief and anxiety. We can choose to view the shortening days and longer evenings as times to be still and quiet, alone or with others. We can be the light for each other in the simplest ways: shared meals, shared memories, shared time. We can view the holidays as a season to enjoy and reflect, rather than one to slog through with a plastered-on smile. For some of us, that might mean saying no more; for others it might be about saying yes, to invitations and yes, to “good” stress.

However you approach the march through the end of the year, I hope you can remember that it is only a season. It may be harder or easier than last year’s; it may be slower or longer than next year’s. However it happens or feels to you, it is temporary. I hope you find the joy in that; it’s what I’ll be trying to do.