HAPPYISH HOLIDAYS: Our Top 3 Hacks for Hard Holidays
November 24, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Well, on this Thanksgiving, the we can do hard things team, me, sister Abby, Allison, Dynna, Lauren, we are grateful for you. We’re grateful for this pod squad that we get to do this life together. We just can’t believe this situation we found ourselves in with this podcast. We love it so damn much.
Abby Wambach:
And if you’re doing a Turkey trot,
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Abby Wambach:
Good job.
Glennon Doyle:
Who does a Turkey trot?
Abby Wambach:
Good job. Like, keep going. You only have a few more miles.
Glennon Doyle:
Um, so this, this Thanksgiving we are presenting to you an episode we loved from last year, and it’s about how to have a happyish holiday. Okay. It’s just some happyish holiday hacks. We’ve got a few important ones. The first one is, is it’s your f-ing holiday. The second one is eat, drink, and breathe. And the third one is be unsurprised. These are very important things for you to remember today. So do not continue on this wonderful but often very difficult day, without listening to this episode to get you centered. Don’t forget, life isn’t about being happy. It’s not about feeling happy, it’s about feeling everything. And there’s nothing like the holidays to make us feel everything.
Amanda Doyle:
Everything.
Glennon Doyle:
We love you. We are grateful for you. Happyish Thanksgiving. Enjoy.
Glennon Doyle:
The holidays are officially upon us.
Abby Wambach:
Ba-ba-ba.
Glennon Doyle:
Right after Halloween I sent Chase this meme. He’s Gen, what is he, Gen Z?
Abby Wambach:
Gen Z.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I’m a mom so we speak in memes to each other.
Abby Wambach:
You speak in Gen Z and millennial.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, memes.
Abby Wambach:
Memes.
Glennon Doyle:
I sent him one that said now that Halloween’s over, we can go into this really scary holidays where we have to go see our families.
Abby Wambach:
The truly scary holidays. Yes, you’re right.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Every year, we as a human species, we just … we’re like the Ted Lasso thing, we have memories of a goldfish. Every holiday we go into it thinking, “This will be the Folgers commercial holiday. This will be the one where my family gets their shit together, everyone is grateful, and kind, and warm, and cozy.” Then every year, we are shocked and stunned when actually we remember that the holidays aren’t for making us feel happy, they just make us feel everything deeper. So if things are good in our family, then we feel good. But if we’ve had loss, or we have breakage, or we have whatever, then we just feel all of those things more. We are here, sister, Abby, and I, are here to help you through hard holidays.
Abby Wambach:
I actually just think that this is our little get together before our own holidays experiences.
Glennon Doyle:
What they don’t know is the pod squad is here to help us
Abby Wambach:
That’s exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
[inaudible 00:04:05] holiday.Amanda Doyle:
Exactly right. I think it’s a great thing to talk about because it … I feel like part of the pressure of the holidays is not talking about it being hard. It like the phenomenon is if our family can’t be happy on this day of all days, then when can we ever be happy? It’s actually the flip of that feels more true, it’s like it’s actually harder to be happy when everything is in such a high pressure moment like that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
I feel totally the same way. I look back at the times in my life that are the best as a child, and I watched my mom stress so much preparing and perfecting every little bit to make sure everybody’s experience was as she wanted it to be.
Glennon Doyle:
As she wanted it to be, that’s what we do.
Abby Wambach:
All the food and every little bit, and every tradition was remembered and acted upon. And so, just a couple of years ago, I remember feeling like, “Oh, this is what … I’m supposed to look like my mom. I’m supposed to be stressed.” A couple years ago, I was just like, “You know what, I don’t want to be that way. I want to actually enjoy this.” I think it made me delegate a little responsibility over the holidays of like, sister, when you come and visit, maybe you guys can make a meal one night, and we’re going to try new things this year. But at the end of the day, it’s like this expectation of the holiday.
Glennon Doyle:
Expectation is what screws … it’s that thing we say over and over again, the thing that screws us up is the picture in our head of how it’s supposed to be. We were visiting our oldest at college recently and one of the professors said, “Stop saying to your kids these are going to be the best four years of your life.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
God, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Because, first of all, they’re actually really tough years. They’re exciting, but also really tough. So when you say that to them and they have a hard time, they feel like they’re failing. Also, who the hell wants to hear that the four years of your life are going to be done by the time you’re 24? Just stop saying that shit, and you know what, that’s the pressure we have on the holiday.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It should just be like it’s the most time of the year.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, exactly.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so good.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s the most of everything. It’s the most sounds, it’s the most people.
Abby Wambach:
Colors.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s the most obligations, it’s the most …
Abby Wambach:
Lights.
Amanda Doyle:
Expectations. It’s just most.
Glennon Doyle:
Since it’s the most advertised to us, this vibe we’re supposed to have. We are chasing this vibe that we feel responsible, mostly parents, mostly moms, I’ll say, to create. Do you remember last year, Tish was sitting in the freaking living room, everything’s decorated, all the things, the fake fires on the TV, the fake candles. I’m not actually going to bake cookies, but I have the cookie candles, smells like things are baking. Everything’s going, and she’s like, “I just don’t feel like it’s Christmas.”
Abby Wambach:
Because it was a weird Christmas because it was COVID, remember?
Glennon Doyle:
Right, but I just feel like it’s that feeling of I’m in … what is it, I’m in Kyoto missing Kyoto? It’s that feeling where you’re in the moment and you’re still yearning for this thing, because the thing you’re yearning for is not real, it’s created by the TV.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Right? So, really what the holidays are is just a day or whatever where it’s the most, where it brings up the most feelings. What we know is that we can do hard things like get through the holiday days but it’s-
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know, I’ll let you know.
Glennon Doyle:
Actually that’s a good point.
Abby Wambach:
I will let you know.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, so how about this? We can do hard things to like talk about the holidays for the next hour.
Abby Wambach:
We can talk about the hard holidays.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, we’ll take that. Let’s start with-
Abby Wambach:
Also, just before we start, I just want to say this, just got to clear my conscience. I told Chase go have the time of your life, that was the last thing I said to him before he left for college. And so now I just needed to tell you that, that I messed up.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, so when he comes home, you just say, “What I meant was go have a time.”
Abby Wambach:
Go have a time.
Glennon Doyle:
Of your life.
Amanda Doyle:
The time of your life, go have a time of your life. You can always be having the time of your life if you’re in that time of your life. It’s saying specifically these finite four years are the best you got, so don’t fuck it up.
Abby Wambach:
Okay, so I didn’t have a bad parenting moment?
Amanda Doyle:
No, you just-
Abby Wambach:
Mediocre, I could have been better.
Glennon Doyle:
Then it’s like all the kids who don’t go to college, and actually for me, college was one of the worst times of my life. I think you did great.
Abby Wambach:
Okay, well you could move on. I’ve cleared my conscience and we’re good now. Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, sister, start us off because the next right thing, as we know, is always looking at the dragon in the snow globe, always telling the truth first. Let’s start there.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, okay. Since we’re talking today about the hard truth of our lives, and families, and holidays, it makes sense to start with the truth about this holiday specifically. This holiday purports to mark friendship among indigenous people and pilgrims. But the truth is that the first settlers and the U.S. government’s forced removals, theft of land, biological warfare with smallpox and massacres actually was genocide. The population of indigenous people went from 15 million before Columbus’s arrival to fewer than 238, 000 over the course of 400 years. It’s just good to say that right out loud so we’re not perpetuating a myth.
Amanda Doyle:
Also, I feel like over the holidays, it has so much to do with home and ritual. So it’s important to tell the truth about the places we call home, including acknowledging that we live on the ancestral stolen land of indigenous people. I live on the land of the Piscataway, and you live on the land of the Tongva. Can I have like two minutes to tell you about this land-
Abby Wambach:
Please, I would love that.
Amanda Doyle:
… since you’re new to that area. You’re living on indigenous land that was known for thousands of years as the Tongvanah, and that means the world. It’s the land of the Tongva, Tongva means people of the earth because of their belief that humans were not the peak of creation, but just part of a web that stemmed from Mother Earth. They lived in constant relation and reciprocity with that land that you’re on for thousands of years in a hundred different villages right around where you are. Until Spanish settlers arrived and they stole their land and enslaved them in the missions that they set up there, they were forced to abandon their rituals and decimated by European diseases.
Amanda Doyle:
Then the U.S took control over California. At that point, they were denied their basic rights and their children were taken from them and forced into Indian boarding schools. They were not formally acknowledged by the California government until 1994, and they’ve never been recognized by the Federal government, or been granted land. So, they have no place to live, or gather, or bury their ancestors. But there are still 2,500 Tongva people in the region and they are resilient and they do a lot around you to reserve their artifacts, and heritage, and resurrect their language.
Glennon Doyle:
To everybody listening, we can do hard things like talk to our kids about the land that they’re living on. You can do this, you can learn about the land where you live at native … Wait, what is that, @native-land.ca. It’s CA but everybody can learn there, not just people from California?
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, native-land.ca. Go there with your kiddos and talk about the truth about this country.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, let’s go on to our holiday hacks. Besides telling the truth, we have more. On this list of holiday hacks, you will not find things such as how to get your cooking done, or your shopping done. Those are not the hacks of which I understand. Go to a different podcast or source to learn how to do adulting things, here we talk less about adulting and more about humaning. Our hacks are about how to get through the humaning part of the holidays. Right. Okay. And
Amanda Doyle:
And are by definition not hacks, because aren’t hacks super easy things to do?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I actually don’t think there’s hacks here.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I think that the words people might have gotten this wrong.
Amanda Doyle:
You mean we?
Glennon Doyle:
We read hacks on a meme and we were like, “Good, let’s get some of those.”
Abby Wambach:
That sounds fun.
Glennon Doyle:
[inaudible 00:14:02] good, I love the show called Hacks.Amanda Doyle:
All God’s children get hacks.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, so here’s your unhack, here’s your first unhack. What we’re calling the first hack is, number one, it’s your effing holiday. That’s our hack.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m subtitling it, normalize not doing shit you hate over the holidays.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Okay, that is exactly right. Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
It might seem like an obvious one, but I’m telling you every single one of my friends, all three of them …
Abby Wambach:
You know what, you keep making fun of yourself, but guess who’s getting friends?
Glennon Doyle:
I know I am, I’m working on it. I’m so excited. So, for all five of my friends.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, it’s not three, it’s five.
Glennon Doyle:
When they talk about the holidays, they talk about why they hate it. Then they list the reason they hate it is because they tell me all the things they have to do that they hate. So I keep thinking, what if … would we hate the holidays less if we stop doing the things we hate on the holidays?
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
How would we untame our holidays in that way? Do you have any ideas or stories for us, Sister Bear.
Abby Wambach:
I do. I have ideas.
Glennon Doyle:
Abby Bear, go for it.
Abby Wambach:
No sister, go. Mine have everything to do with cooking, so sister go, I want to hear yours.
Amanda Doyle:
Mine have nothing to do with cooking. Well, it’s completely true, 45% of Americans say that they would prefer just to skip the winter holidays.
Glennon Doyle:
Bless them.
Amanda Doyle:
That is almost half of all the people.
Abby Wambach:
That’s a lot.
Amanda Doyle:
Just prefer just bump January, that’s so sad and I don’t think it’s because we … I think people love parts of the holidays, I just think that we love parts that don’t make up a large part of the pie chart that we spend our holiday time on.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
I was in the post office a couple weeks ago and I met a new friend, I don’t know her name. We were talking about the holidays coming up, this is what I surmised in the 10-minute conversation with her. She grew up with a very complicated holiday situation, so she desperately wants to be by herself on the holidays doing something different. She wants to take a trip or something.
Glennon Doyle:
I love her already.
Amanda Doyle:
I love her too. But her sister can’t bear the thought of her being by herself on the holidays, because her sister can’t imagine being alone on the holidays.
Glennon Doyle:
I love her too.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. So, my post office friend is going to lie to her sister and say she’s spending the holidays with her best friend, so that her sister won’t save her from the holidays she wants and force her to have the holiday her sister wants for her. This is crazy, and I don’t tell my post office friend this because I’m very proud of her for just trying to get what she needs.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, that’s a good lie.
Amanda Doyle:
But I think just why can’t folks decide what feels like a holiday to them, since it actually is their holiday too?
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s hard, I think, because people just feel like this is the way it’s always been done, or everyone holds so tightly to this vision of what they think it should be. But I was thinking back and I remember the first time I broke with our family traditions. This is odd because in our family growing up, the biggest holiday of the year was New Year’s Eve. Because we have a billion teen cousins in Ohio and it was the one time of the year where the whole family got together. We would drive all the way up, everybody would meet there, all the cousins, and the aunts and uncles and all the people, and we had all kinds of traditions and rituals and ridiculousness.
Amanda Doyle:
I never missed one all through college, all through law school. Then right after I got divorced, I just didn’t feel like it. It’s not that I didn’t feel like it, it’s I felt like doing something different. I wanted to do something that just actually felt like a relief. I think it’s the idea of we act like we don’t need a holiday, but I needed to go do something that filled me up. I think we just think holiday insert all of these obligations, as opposed to holiday is actually for the filling of me.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
… and of my people. It was awkward it was kind of record scratch, I’m not coming this year, and instead I went to Costa Rica with a friend. Also packed like six pairs of high heels because I did not read the itinerary, but we were in the rainforest. Legit did and it was … yes. But missing that holiday tradition, I think about it a lot because it’s now one of my most precious memories, and I think it’s because I was so close to not doing it. I just remember watching the sky above me on Osa Peninsula when the new year rang in and all of the paper lanterns going up.
Amanda Doyle:
I remember feeling so full of wonder and newness, and feeling like, oh, I can feel wonder and newness. That was a new feeling to me again. Also Karlos with a K, because that memory has only about 95% to do-
Glennon Doyle:
I remember Karlos with a K.
Amanda Doyle:
And his dog named Danger. Yes, [crosstalk 00:20:23]. Karlos with a K and a dog named Danger.
Abby Wambach:
I know where this is going.
Glennon Doyle:
Red flags. Red flags.
Amanda Doyle:
No, green. Green flag, happy new year.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister is painting those red flag green all the time. Go ahead.
Amanda Doyle:
But the point is, is that I feel like just if we viewed all of the things that we do every year as options and experiments. You should be experimenting to see if what you’re choosing to do with your time and your family’s time is working for you and your family to fill yourself up. Does it actually feel correct? Can I make an aside about that, I feel like it’s very … It just reminded me of that year after the divorce.
Amanda Doyle:
If anyone is listening to this and is going through a transition of life, any kind of breakup, or divorce, or you lost you’re job. Anything that your family culture will deem big, just please, please for the love of God, use this fleeting moment of freedom. Because it’s like you’re playing Mario brothers and you just like hit the superstar, you have this rare moment of temporary invincibility where no one can say shit to you.
Glennon Doyle:
Use it. Chose it.
Amanda Doyle:
Do something you want for the holidays, and you’ll get away with it and you’ll be very happy.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, go ahead and surprise yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I think that’s that magic you felt. Also, you chose yourself, and that is a magic … that’s a revolution. You were feeling revolution when you were looking at that, because breaking free from tradition. Tradition is what keeps us … It’s an important thing. This is an and, both situation.
Abby Wambach:
Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
But tradition really keeps us caged.
Abby Wambach:
In certain ways. Absolutely.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like what they call tradition peer pressure from dead people, it’s like, seriously, we can think it through. It’s like choosing the letter of the law over the spirit of the law, what if the tradition each holiday is what do I and my family need this year to feel free and held, and fueled, and loved, and relaxed and whatever. What if that’s the tradition? Then you move parts, because families or people are not static. What created something beautiful 20 years ago might very well not be what this particular person and particular family need in this moment this year. When we use that, it’s using an old blueprint for what our family needs right now.
Abby Wambach:
I totally agree. I think for you listener out there who might be also experiencing some sort of transition or divorce, my choice during my divorce went very differently than sister’s. I just want to put that out there that some people might not have the ability to go to Costa Rica or have a life changing experience like you did. I just sat in a hotel room by myself during the holiday of Thanksgiving one year, and honestly it was the saddest experience.
Abby Wambach:
Looking back, maybe I could have done something a little bit more productive. I think what sister you’re saying is there is a choice you have, and you get to choose yourself. This moment might not last, because guess what? I met you and our family six months later, and here I am having totally different family holidays.
Glennon Doyle:
I think you probably knew what you needed in that moment though. Because sometimes I think when we go through something that brutal, it’s like we’re … You know how crabs, they molt and they have to … they lose their hard shell and they’re soft shell crabs for a while. When they’re molting, when they’re transforming because they’ve grown, it’s a growth pattern. They have to hide because they’re so vulnerable because they don’t have a hard shell.
Abby Wambach:
That was totally me.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. They instinctively know that they’re more vulnerable, and sometimes when we step back into family patterns, we know. You probably knew in your soul that this person was going to say this, and that person was going to ask that question. You were not at your strongest and you were in a moment where you were a soft shell crab. And so, you needed to do the equivalent of burrowing under a coral reef or whatever crabs do.
Abby Wambach:
This makes me feel really sad for soft shell crabs that get eaten all of a sudden.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel proud of them because they know what they need.
Abby Wambach:
No, I know, but the ones that get eaten.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, those are the ones who went back to their families for the holidays.
Abby Wambach:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
They didn’t listen to their instinct which said, hide, hide. They bowed to the tradition of crab effing families forever. Their mother called and said, what the hell do you mean little crab you’re not coming back for the holidays? Instead of standing strong, those crabs went. Now look what happened, they’re dead. Crab cakes.
Amanda Doyle:
Crab cakes.
Glennon Doyle:
Don’t be a crab cake this holiday.
Abby Wambach:
Soft shell crab cakes.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s such a good point because it’s not just … it’s what works for you year-to-year. People who are going through grief, something that may have filled you up for the past 10 years in this moment might not. You have to be able to honor your traditions and honor your needs. If honoring your needs makes you not be able to honor your traditions, you need to just go with that.
Glennon Doyle:
Amen, choose that.
Amanda Doyle:
And just practice.
Glennon Doyle:
Sometimes it’s just an extra minute, it’s like, wait, before this all starts, it’s all starting. Sit down and take a minute and be like, “Wait, what do I want from these holidays?” What do you want? What do you want? It’s not just like, “What does my family want from me, what does everyone want from me? I’m just going to go and do it.” But an intentional moment of like, “What do I need from these holidays?”
Abby Wambach:
I remember trying to weed through some of the traditions that we’ve had, and sit down with your kids too if you have them. Tish, won’t let us get rid of anyone of the tradition.
Glennon Doyle:
She’s a tradition hoarder.
Abby Wambach:
She is. Anything every year, if it’s new that we’ve done it, it is now officially a tradition in our family and we will continue doing this year over year.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s why we have to be so careful starting things with her.
Abby Wambach:
I know, it’s really-
Glennon Doyle:
But I also want to suggest that there are small things like yes … Because so many people are going, “I can’t not go to see my family.” I get that, there’s that, but there are small things you can do. For us, I remember having this … My parents are with us every Christmas and they are gift people, so they spend all year creating these beautiful gifts. And so, what would happen is that on Christmas morning there would be this time where they were presenting their gifts. It was so important to them that it would end up stressing everyone out because it needed to be this very big presentation.
Glennon Doyle:
But we kept doing it every year, every year we kept doing it until we figured out, okay, we’re not going to … That’s a beautiful tradition, we’re not going to throw it away, but what if we give mom and dad Christmas Eve? What if Christmas Eve is when they do their presents? Because that’s a calmer time, the kids don’t have other gifts around so they’re not distracted, and then Christmas morning is the free for all. I just feel like if there’s moments in the holidays that are creating misery or stress, sometimes it’s creativity and not just throwing the thing out.
Amanda Doyle:
Right. Just because it’s working for everyone else doesn’t mean that it’s working for you, and all those little micro changes. I have a friend, her parents were divorced, and basically she was time clocked on you go … Christmas morning for here. That’s got to be for two hours and 15 minutes, and then you got to make sure you get in the car at this time and go here for two hours and 15 minutes. Her thing is my immediate family gets the first three hours, no one is allowed in our house with your extra agendas. Then after that, there is no agenda. Because her core trauma around Christmas was, oh, it has to do with equitable splitting up of all the minutes. And so, it’s just knowing your self enough to know what actually is going to feel like I can breathe well.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
Also, not for nothing, the just deciding on quantity. 70% of people, their primary feeling during the holidays is stress over not having enough time, and stress over not having enough money. But we get to choose how we allocate our time and we get to choose how we allocate our dollars. It’s a trap to go in without intentions, but if you’re just practicing that’s not going to work for us this year. Here’s the four things we love to do over the holidays, and that’s what we’re doing. Also, here’s how much money we’re going to spend and we’re not going to spend more than that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, it’s like the energetic difference of like, “I just, I don’t have enough time to make everyone happy, and like, “Argh, I don’t have enough time to make everyone happy, so I’m not going to try anymore.”
Amanda Doyle:
Not a problem-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s not a problem, just a fact.
Amanda Doyle:
You literally don’t have time to make people happy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Our kids are not allowed, they have their little Christmas lists and they’re locked by Thanksgiving. Nobody’s allowed to add another thing to their Christmas list after Thanksgiving, it’s coming up so they’re, obviously, frantically finishing.
Abby Wambach:
They’re shrags right now, they’re like [inaudible 00:30:43].
Glennon Doyle:
We’re not spending a moment of our freaking rest of our weeks, what do you want? It’s so ugly and weird.
Amanda Doyle:
My kids always two days before decide that, in fact, the one big gift that they’d been asking for for six months is in fact not the thing they want, which I’ve already wrapped.
Glennon Doyle:
Of course. Because the advertising is so-
Amanda Doyle:
The YouTube told them.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, and it’s never been more intense than in December. So if they mentally know there’s nothing else, like that’s it, then it’s a resistance to all of that. For us, then we’re not worrying about it, it’s like, I don’t know, that’s just a little thing.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s a smart idea, it’s helped us.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that’s a hashtag hack. Is that a hashtag hack? Did I [inaudible 00:31:28]?
Amanda Doyle:
It is.
Glennon Doyle:
Hack, lists due by Thanksgiving. But now I’m trying to hack it out and I don’t know how hacks work, but I’m really excited that might be a hack.
Amanda Doyle:
I think it is.
Glennon Doyle:
Great. It’s your effing holiday was number one. Number two, and I don’t have a whole lot to say about this because I haven’t nailed this one at all, but I just want to talk about it. It’s the fact that the holidays for people who have food and body issues. What I can say is, for me, the holidays are a shit show of all of the food stuff coming up. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. It’s like that there is so much food wrapped around in the holiday stuff, but it’s also because when we go back into tradition or to family, or to anything that drives us toward the old, that brings up all of the patterns that led us to eating disorders anyway.
Glennon Doyle:
I just think there’s an awareness that we have where people with eating stuff are soft shell craps during the holidays. We don’t have our hard shell and we’re maybe sent out of our structure, whatever. Knowing that, I try to eat big meals. I try to eat a big breakfast, eat a big lunch, and eat a big dinner. I think what we do sometimes is, is when we’re worried about food, we’re like, okay, I’m going to … it’s Thanksgiving or whatever, and I’m going to have a huge dinner. So I have to starve my myself, I have to not eat, and then I’ll be okay to eat dinner.
Abby Wambach:
That ritual that everybody on the planet does, it’s so fucked up.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s weird for us. It doesn’t help us because it brings back the scarcity feelings. What I’ll say is, for me, it’s important to feed myself, feed myself, feed myself, feed myself again. I deserve to eat every day of the holidays even if I had a big meal the night before. It’s just a time to let yourself be juicy and human.
Abby Wambach:
Juicy. Nice.
Glennon Doyle:
And trust your appetite. I actually do this every day of my life so it’s maybe not a holiday hack, it’s just a human hack. Is that I constantly carry around a cup of tea or coffee all the time. It’s like my hands around a mug remind me of the fact that I am, I don’t know, cozy, loved. It’s like the warmth of it just makes me feel good, it’s the oral fixation of having something right there. It makes me feel strong, and loved, and okay. It’s a shield of some sort. I wasn’t going to say that because I don’t know how to explain it.
Abby Wambach:
No, I totally get that.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a shield.
Abby Wambach:
I feel serious about myself.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, exactly. I could throw this tea on you if I need to.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, come at me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it’s hot. It reminds me of if I’m going into a social situation, I will sometimes, especially if it’s a wedding, I will chew gum.
Abby Wambach:
Huh.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know why that feels like a shield to me.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, because you’re like, look at me and my jawline, I am serious.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, and it’s like I can’t talk because I’m chewing gum.
Amanda Doyle:
Awesome, don’t call us. We know you’re not supposed to chew gum at weddings, we know we’re not it’s …
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t care, that’s a tradition. If I have to chew gum at a wedding that I’m go … I can’t drink, are you kidding me? So you can have six vodkas, but I can’t have double mint?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, that’s right. I was just going to say the tea thing is a great call for sober people, because I feel like that’s a whole nother huge aspect to the holidays. Because like, you know why you all can handle this, you know why you could get through this, is because you are wasted.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That’s a hack, sober people get to do whatever the hell they want. Abby and I will never be anywhere past nine o’clock. Because when people start drinking, bless you, we love you. We love you, we do not judge you, except a little bit after nine o’clock. Because everybody thinks they’re hilarious, everybody’s saying things that maybe they wouldn’t say in the morning.
Abby Wambach:
It just gets a little bit louder, a little bit more obnoxious. After nine or 10 o’clock, nothing good ever … nothing good happens after nine o’clock or 10 o’clock at night.
Amanda Doyle:
Right, or you’re having different experiences. I do the same thing, I really just everyone who is sober listening, over the holidays you get to be odd too. Because it’s not just you being odd, everyone’s being odd. The person over there, she’s on her 12th drink, she’s saying some crazy shit. If you want to go sit on a couch in another room, that’s just as odd as what everyone else is doing.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
I have given myself blanket authorization to do whatever I want.
Abby Wambach:
I love that.
Amanda Doyle:
Because even being a sober person over the holidays is a thing you’re actively doing all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
Everybody else has their strategy of just drinking to survive, you get to use your strategy.
Amanda Doyle:
And you should.
Glennon Doyle:
And you should, which is leaving, which is removing yourself, which is whatever you need to do.
Abby Wambach:
I love that.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s this one weird thing that I want to say that I do that is strange because I’m not an outside person. But there’s something about holiday days that makes me need to go stand outside in the cold, cold, cold, maybe every couple of hours. I don’t know what it is, but whatever home I’m in, it’s beautiful and there’s so many people there, things are happening. But I have to step outside, take a deep breath and just give … It’s not enough to be in a different room, I have to be outside. Little breaks outside for a few moments and deep breaths out there, just try it.
Abby Wambach:
It’s almost like, you know how they say taking cold showers wakes you up? Sometimes it can get really daunting being with a lot of family during the holidays, that getting outside if it’s cold where you live, it’s like a good splash. It’s like getting yourself woken back up to like, what are my boundaries, why am I here? Am I good, are you okay?
Glennon Doyle:
Checking in with yourself.
Abby Wambach:
It’s like checking in. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s what it is, it’s a little meeting with yourself where you’re reminding yourself of who you are, of all the good things.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, because it’s very easy to get wound up and to get wrapped up in all of your familial rememberings.
Glennon Doyle:
You get lost.
Abby Wambach:
All of those ways like, here’s my brother and sister, they’re teasing me again, because this is the way of my family. Or, here we go down this weird road again, and I don’t love this road. Like, Jesus.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, I don’t love this road. It’s like the touch tree, that’s what it is. The leaving is like returning to my touch tree’s when I get a little bit lost, right?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So work in those touch tree moments where you get to check in with yourself.
Abby Wambach:
Just to circle back to the food bit, one thing that I’ve done, the first Thanksgiving we spent together I made from scratch. Because that was my value add to our family, is cooking, I made from scratch all of the food. I spent three days not only cooking it, but prepping it. It was like a whole week, buying all the food, then prepping it, then making the plan for when and how we were going to do this with one little oven. And so, long story short, what we ended up doing was, okay, it’s still important to me to cook the Turkey. So, I get a pre-cooked Turkey and then I zhoosh it up in the way that I like to, put some butter and cook it.
Abby Wambach:
But then what we’ve decided, and yes, this is a privileged position, but we just go get already pre-made holiday sides. That has freed up an entire week of my life. So, if you have the means to be able to do that, to be able to buy some of your time back, do it.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, it ended up being cheaper than buying all the …
Abby Wambach:
It actually did.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s just not a privileged thing, we do it for Thanksgiving with our … We basically do a potluck situation. I think it takes a hit on you because you’re like, “I am not presenting the thing.” Same thing, I was like, “No, thank you, ma’am.” I am delighted to have everyone over, and that’s what I love to do. Also, everyone bring a thing.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, that’s right. Guess what? It doesn’t taste that much worse or better.
Amanda Doyle:
No, it tastes better because people are making the one thing they know how to make.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, exactly. Well, remember the year before you came, you were kind of appalled by this. But you said what did you do last year, I said we got our dinner from the grocery store. Abby was like, “You did that package where you ordered it?” I was like, “No, I went to the buffet.” The day of Thanksgiving, I went to the buffet and I-
Abby Wambach:
The hot bar.
Glennon Doyle:
The hot bar, and I scooped a bunch of shit into plastic containers. The Turkey was like little cuts of [crosstalk 00:41:25].
Amanda Doyle:
It was already sliced.
Glennon Doyle:
It was already sliced. There was stuffing in there, there was potatoes.
Abby Wambach:
Brilliant.
Glennon Doyle:
I put them on the table and it was fine.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, totally.
Glennon Doyle:
It was fine.
Abby Wambach:
Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
The number two hack was eat, drink, breathe. Eat, drink, breathe.
Abby Wambach:
Good luck.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s a good idea.
Glennon Doyle:
Now, I feel strongly that this is the most important one.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, it is.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister Bear, this is the most important holiday, and perhaps life hack we can offer you, precious ones. We are calling number three be unsurprised. Sister, can you just start us off with this one? It’s my favorite ever.
Amanda Doyle:
A hundred percent we know what our family is. The key maybe to life but to the holidays is not allowing ourselves to be surprised about what is 0% surprising.
Glennon Doyle:
Correct.
Amanda Doyle:
So in order to have peace and integrity and not walk away from holiday events and the holidays in general feeling like shit about ourselves and maniacal about our families, is just picking our 10%. Our 10% is what will inevitably go down with our families over the holidays that we will for sure act to ourselves as if it’s shocking. They are the kind of things, if you’re trying to think of these, the kind of things that we will leave feeling ick about ourselves. They will be the kind of things that we carry with us, the kind of things that we have to get in the car and immediately talk to the person in the car about and debrief on.
Amanda Doyle:
So, the comments about why we’re not married yet, how many Weight Watchers points those potatoes might be, only because she’s super curious. Also, anything that’s a dog whistle, homophobia, racism. It’s like we have to pick those 10% of our family stuff that insults our soul.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, so these are the mountains we’re willing to die on.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, and the good news is we do not have to die.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re right.
Amanda Doyle:
They’re just the things that by thinking of them and preparing for them in advance, we don’t spend the whole time walking on eggshells, holding our breath, because they wouldn’t dare do it. Because, yes, they would dare.
Glennon Doyle:
They would dare. Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
They double dare you every time, they’re going to do that thing. Then we don’t have to be scared about it happening, and then we don’t have to leave berating ourselves for not saying what we wish we would’ve said, and just thinking about in the shower for the next six weeks.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Basically, what you’re saying is you’re going to spend the time preparing the retort anyway. Usually what we do is we do it when it’s too late.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s [inaudible 00:45:07].
Glennon Doyle:
We spend the whole year preparing the retort we should have said before, afterwards. What we’re going to do instead is we’re going to take even just … It’s going to be less time, we’re just going to do it ahead of time instead.
Abby Wambach:
Prepare for it.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to prepare our retort to dog whistles, to racism, to homophobia, to the thing that our aunt is going to say about not being married, to whatever we know is going to happen. We are going to be ready, so instead of eggshells dreading, we’re almost going to be hoping that that shit comes so we can say our thing.
Amanda Doyle:
We’re not mad about it, I’m not mad that two plus two equals four. We’re not mad, we’re just like, “Dorothy, Dorothy, here’s my response to you, Dorothy.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s brave, that takes some courage.
Amanda Doyle:
Right, but we think in advance of it and we’re not … We’re trying to be courageous, we’re trying to have ourselves remain intact.
Glennon Doyle:
Integrity.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re trying to make the outside self and the inside self one, be integrated. We’re not abandoning ourselves by letting things go that we should not.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s right to me, and it feels like that’s the part that makes us feel ick when we leave our families. Is because we let that 10% chip off of us and then we’re wondering, “Am I really a hundred percent me?” Because in that moment, I wasn’t. I think also that’s a service to ourselves, but it’s also a service to our families. Because the 10% that we choose to make our existence in that space align with our beliefs, and our boundaries, and the way we view the world. Making ourselves show up in those 10% of the spaces is what moves families down the field.
Abby Wambach:
You will dread family interactions less.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
And you will break terrible old familial patterns that need to be broken
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, because racism, and homophobia, and all of that shit, those are traditions.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Listen, my mom … Mom, I love you so much, if you’re listening, just turn up the volume a little bit.
Glennon Doyle:
Down. Turn it down?
Abby Wambach:
No, turn it up. I want you to listen to this because I’m going to have a moment. Almost every single time that I’m on the FaceTime with my mom, I haven’t done my hair. I have basically what’s called a Mohawk, I shaved the sides of my head and this is not a look my mother loves because it’s evidently more gay to her or something. I’m not sure exactly because I’ve never had this conversation with her. But at the end of the day, she always says whenever I have not done my hair so that you can see the shaves on the sides. It’s fallen over the shave, it looks like a normal, short haircut, like a …
Glennon Doyle:
A bob.
Abby Wambach:
A Bob-ish. I don’t know. Yeah, a short bob. She’s always like, “Oh my gosh, I love your hair like that so much.” She doesn’t understand that I know that that’s her dog whistle me. That’s like, please don’t wear your hair in the really gay way, you know what I mean? I don’t think that she thinks of it like that. I don’t think that she’s conscious of it, I think that she’s just trying to compliment me and it’s this backhanded thing. It’s like maybe one of these days I’m going to get the courage and be like, “Mom, this is who I am, whether my hair is this way or that way, I am gay and I’m proud of it. Also, stop this charade of you thinking that you’re going to somehow control my way of being.” That’s just like at the end of the day, we just got to keep accepting people for who they are. This is a long story-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so exactly right.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, at the end of the day, it’s like I need to get brave enough to be like, “Mom, I really love you and I know you mean well here, but please stop commenting on my hair because it’s too loaded. It’s too loaded. There’s too much loaded it in it for me that I always leave those interactions feeling bad about myself.” That’s, I think, what we’re saying with some of this family, that little zinger. And mothers with like, “Oh, I love … Have you lost weight?”
Amanda Doyle:
You look so great, implying you look like shit from the decade before that.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, there’s so much loaded in what we say to each other. I’m not perfect either, but I just think that there’s a little bit of consciousness that we can bring into some of this.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, and there’s your 10%, right? What you just said, that’s loaded for me, that’s your 10% of preparation. Because actually, babe, when you got off the phone the other day.
Abby Wambach:
I talked to you, right?
Glennon Doyle:
You were like, you said to me, “She said it again. She always says it. She always, always, says it.” And so it’s like, wait a minute, if we know she always says it, why aren’t we more prepared? Because then we have to spend so much time afterwards …
Abby Wambach:
It’s so true.
Glennon Doyle:
Thinking of what we would’ve said, but then we don’t say it again.
Abby Wambach:
Be unsurprised.
Glennon Doyle:
Be unsurprised, and be prepared. So when your uncle says the racist thing, when your mom asks you why you’re not married, when your aunt asks you if you’re still gay, when your brother asks you if you’re starting your diet. When your mother-in-law asks if maybe you’ve ever considered brushing your children’s hair, just be prepared.
Amanda Doyle:
And both ends. Be unsurprising and be prepared for the 10%, that is yours to do, right? The other thing that is yours to do is then let your family do what they do.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re focused on that 10%, and then the rest of your focus is on letting our families be exactly what they are. Exactly as regrettably and delightfully as they are, because we are being unsurprised and we are letting them be.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, we’re are not changing them. We’re not changing them on Thanksgiving, no, we’re not, but we are also not changing ourselves. I love it. All right, so in short you have three next strike things this holiday season. Number one, remember that it’s your effing holiday. Number two, eat, drink what you’re supposed to drink, whatever that is. Breathe. Number three … shit, what was number three?
Abby Wambach:
Be unsurprised.
Amanda Doyle:
Be unsurprised.
Glennon Doyle:
Be unsurprised. Also, we’ll be back here on Thursday for you. We will be here for you on Thursday. If you need a pit stop, if you need a touch tree, a place to remember.
Abby Wambach:
On your drive to your family, we’ll be with you.
Glennon Doyle:
Win, win. When the holidays get hard, don’t forget, We Can Do Hard Things.