Oh, how I wish I had even thought to think along these lines when I was a young wife and mother. I handled the holidays like I was producing a month-long event, which in fact I was — and while there were creative and satisfying aspects to the whole experience, it was also stressful and exhausting, and by January I usually ended up with some respiratory complaint just because I was so drained. Of course I was also resentful, but I couldn’t acknowledge that beyond making wry jokes with my similarly overburdened women friends. All that suppression takes a lot of energy all by itself. Sigh.