My Christmas Temper Tantrum

And how it helped me find some joy.

Hello lovelies. Deep breaths. How are you, actually?

How did you move through the holidays? What joys and pains did you endure? Suddenly, we’re four days into a new year. Is that momentous for you? Mundane?

Transition times are always challenging for me. I over-index on the ‘doing’ (Enneagram 3 here, hi!), so the slowing down, the ‘being’ that transition times often invite, makes me irritable because feelings that normally get only a passing glance appear in full colour demanding their stage time.

Fortunately, I’ve been partnered with someone for over five years now who understands my challenged relationship with liminal-space/time and knows that it will make me over-controlling and grumpy. Like what happened when he was wrapping presents on December 23rd, and I was sullenly slouched on the couch feeling grinchy and not being quiet about it.

Christmas hit me hard this year. It’s been 2.5 years since going no-contact with my family (because of diet culture/anti-fatness), and witnessing my husband carefully wrap presents as he thoughtfully described why he’d bought each gift for his kids felt like an arrow in my heart.

His love filled our little apartment…and I felt achingly alone, unloved, and abandoned.

So of course, I dissed all his thoughtfulness with why the kids were wrong for wanting those presents…and I did it by manipulating my knowledge and experience as a coach and someone who studies human motivation & behaviour.

…His 16-year-old daughter obviously has abandonment issues from the divorce if she’s still wanting stuffed animals and why aren’t the adults in her life doing more to build her independence in the specific ways that I dictate so that she’s able to become a functioning adult.

…His almost 14-year-old son obviously has no self agency or esteem if he can only wear clothes that are pre-approved by some TikTok influencer and his hair routine is getting waaaay too precious and for sure that’s because he got screen time too young and if something isn’t done he’ll never become a functioning adult.

I know, I know…pretty awful, eh?

My sweetie didn’t join me in my temper tantrum, rather, he said he was done telling me about the gifts because I was making him feel sad.

Brilliant move on his part. I value ‘impact reports’ and boundaries give me pause, both slowed me down enough to turn my gaze inward and ask myself what’s really going on. Which I did, and then was able to ask him to come over and hug me because I was really sad. Which he did.

It’s wasn’t until the morning of December 25th, about 25 minutes into the four of us opening presents, that I finally felt the holiday joy. It didn’t grow slowly- it engulfed me in a surprising burst of light, and I turned to my partner holding out my hand for him to grasp and whispered that I was so happy in this moment.

For years, I’ve been obsessed with joy…why does it show up when it does? Can we create the conditions for it to show up more often? What’s possible when we’re joyful versus other emotional states? Can we live from joy most of the time? Should that be the goal?

On my podcast, Fat Joy, I dutifully asked each of the 100 guests what they thought joy was. Buddhist minister and author Lama Rod Owens said that joy is the capacity to hold the fullest spectrum of human experiences and emotions. Philosopher and author

Kate Manne

said that joy = presence + significance.

Not interviewed on my podcast, poet and essayist

Ross Gay

said on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast that joy is the practice of entanglement that connects us with ourselves, each other, and the world.

I love these definitions of joy and feel like they each reflect how I jumped from grinchy to joyful in a moment. Even whilst feeling such despair at the separation from my birth family, some part of me was able to connect to the beauty of the moment with my new family and conduit my joy through their joy.

If I dissect the catalyst, I think it was opening the gift from my step-daughter as she explained to me why she chose it. Her thoughtfulness moved me deeply. She’s 16, and I mostly feel peripheral in her life these days. But here was this gift that showed she’s been paying attention to me…that I belonged in her constellation.

Step-parenting is the hardest life experience I’ve ever had (their mom is a narcissist who has done a lot of shady shit including alienation, lying, moving a dangerous boyfriend in, etc.*). And it’s my duty to always be trying…always be modelling…always be letting go. For someone like me who thrives on making plans and actioning them towards a desired result, step-parenting when I have zero control or influence is excruciating. I feel like I’m failing all the time.

(Enneagram 3s are motivated by being the best at everything they do.)(Can you tell I’m currently getting Certified as an Enneagram practitioner?)

So, feeling that entanglement with my step-daughter, dropped into the present moment and significance that she cares about me, and holding both connection and disconnection from families…it looks like that was the recipe to get joy blooming for me.

As expected, the joy levels ebbed and flowed from that moment until this one which sees me cozied up at the Dog-Eared Cafe** in Paris, Ontario where I’ve come on a self-created writing retreat for a few days. Bahamas is blaring, my latte is hot, and I’m overlooking the Grand River while imagining you reading this.

• Entanglement- check!

• Presence & significance- check!

• Holding despair & wonder at this world- check!

Is that it? Have we solved the conditions for joy?

Let me know.

Sending you my hopes, wishes, and blessings for moments of peace, ease, and joy as we move through 2025.

*should I do a podcast about step-parenting life? My partner and I have tossed this idea around because step-parenting is not talked about much, there are minimal resources, and there’s such a taboo around not liking parenting/step-parenting that I feel like we need some real talk to make us all feel better about our struggles. Would you listen?

**coffee shop + book store + open mic events in the evenings, this place is a gem. I’ve often dreamed of opening up a place like this for community to gather and feel at home.

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