Just B Rant: Canceled for Christmas?

Bethenny shares her personal holiday traditions as well as how you may be overextending yourself.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Holiday hangover? Do you have a holiday hangover? Not from cocktails,
not from substances, not from a food coma, but from
responsibilities and obligations and different people's ideas of what a
holiday should be and where you have to go and
holiday travel and small talk and I want to bring

(00:36):
up again obligations. The holidays are such a time for
sacrifice and compromise and conflict. It's amazing that the holidays
are filled with joy and the holiday spirit and glitter
and ornaments and bright lights and Christmas spectaculars. But the

(00:57):
holidays are really challenging because we battle and struggle between
what holidays were for us as a kid, good or bad.
Are we trying to recreate that? Are we trying to
recreate the joy you had as a child as an
adult when you had none of the responsibility and only
the magic, or not recreate the past, like create something new,

(01:18):
make a new magic with your kids or your own family.
And are you trying to have your own identity in
the holidays, but you're dragged into other people's ideas of
what the holidays are, like your in law's idea of
the holidays, or your mother or a sister or an
obligation or somewhere you have to go, someone else's recipes,
someone else's idea of cooking. Is it catering? Is it homemade?

(01:42):
Is it pot luck? Is it fancy china? Is it?
Is it like you know, eat on paper plates and
throw it out? Is it lasagna instead of turkey? Is
it tofurky? Like? What? How do you create a holiday
that is meaningful to you when you have so many
other voices in your head and so many other obligations,

(02:03):
and then layer in travel and having to go places,
Or you have a boyfriend and you have to go there,
but next year they have to go with you, but
that means you're separating from the rest of your family.
It's riddled with guilt and conflict. And my advice is
to find a way to make the holidays what you

(02:24):
need them to be in order to not melt down
and to get emotionally overloaded, emotionally triggered. Did you lose
a family member? Are they not there this year? Are
you not with your kids because of a custody schedule?
How do you navigate this all? My way has always
been to be proactive about it and understand what's going

(02:45):
to happen. So let's say you're going somewhere and it's
all catered and it's super fancy and it's very stuffy,
and it's not your idea of Thanksgiving. Put guardrails around that.
How many hours are you going to do that? Maybe
you'll agree to do that, but you'll only agree. You'll
only agree to do that for a certain period of time,
and the rest of the time for you, or for

(03:05):
your family, or for your kids, or just for your
own emotional wellbeing needs to be a homemade Thanksgiving or
a pot lock dessert or something like that. Let's say
it's Christmas. You're not gonna be with your kids on
Christmas Day because of some schedule. That seemed like a
good idea in a custody agreement, but now in reality
is breaking your heart. Do you do a fake Christmas

(03:26):
Christmas two days before two days after and then make
it meaningful by taking advantage of all the sales? Do
you make New Year's Eve not mean that much? Or
come up with some new ritual? I have rituals with Brin.
Every year we go to see the Tree. Every year
we go to see the Christmas Show, and it can
be tiring, but we never miss it because it's a
memory that we always have. There have been times that

(03:48):
I haven't been able to be with Brynn on Christmas
Day or New Year's Eve, and I've managed to recreate it.
There have been times we couldn't be together on Thanksgiving. Okay,
Thanksgiving is a Tuesday before, or the weekend before we're
going to cook at our or the weekend after. Just
don't let the game start to move too fast and
you just resent what the holiday isn't for you, but
aren't doing anything to change that. Meaning it will not

(04:11):
be the Norman Rockwell Christmas card or painting that you
envisioned as a child, or remember as a child, or
want now. Because there are so many different aspects tainting
and affecting this time of year, make it what you
need it to be that you can control. So find

(04:34):
your own identity in this holiday. No matter where you
have to go, no matter what you have to do.
You will do things for other people, but there are
lines that will be drawn so you don't give away
who you are in the holidays. And if that means
being alone on a day by yourself, that may be
very healing. That doesn't mean you're lonely that doesn't mean
you're alone because on some calendar day the world said

(04:56):
you had to have a group of people around you.
Maybe it means meditat and reflection. Whatever it means to you,
just be proactive and thinking about it, because it will
come really quickly. And the same thing goes for the presence,
the pressure of the presents, the pressure of giving your
kids everything, sending out gifts. What are you doing with
Secret Santa for work? Can you afford the holidays? And

(05:17):
here's the thing, be proactive. If someone gave me a
jar that had like layered chocolate chip cookie ingredients in it,
but with some flare or personal twist. Does it have
a caramel crunch or does it have peanut butter chips
in there, or white chocolate chips and cranberry, and put
a ribbon around it and made a homemade card. That
would be so meaningful. If someone made a homemade Italian

(05:39):
sauce for me, or like a meal kit, like a
lasagna kit, or something that would be meaningful to me.
If you have a simple bottle wine you're regifting, just
elevate it, put it in a really nice furry wine bag,
or add wine charms to it. Like you can make
something inexpensive seem personal by really thought, by using your

(06:02):
mind and your brain, not just your money. And if
you do want to spend, get creative about where you're
going to spend, because there are certain retailers that really
lean into Christmas. You could buy the least expensive thing
at Tiffany and get the Tiffany bag and the Tiffany
bow and the Tiffany box. They're doing that for their branding.
If you know a Tiffany stationary, I bet you they have.

(06:22):
If you want to go into Baccara, they have an
eighty or ninety dollars crystal ornament, but they wrap it
like it's two thousand dollars, like try to find your
way in. Sophora has inexpensive creative gift sets and you
know ways. They have a perfume combo at Sophora that
if you you can buy the whole perfume with all

(06:45):
the different samples, and then you can go take that
box back in and get one of the full sizes
of the small one and the value of the full
size that they're going to give you is the same
as the price for six samp So just you know,
a small candle is great. But what if you add
a candle snuffer? What if you add little cute matches,

(07:07):
like be creative. People appreciate the thought. The thought is
really amazing. You have a bottle of wine, get two
cute wineglasses, tie them together with a bow, put them
in bubble wrap, and you've done a little wine set. Like,
really think about how things speak to each other when
it comes to gifts. A beautiful personal ornament. I got
someone in an a wintour ornament because they're very into fashion.

(07:28):
I got someone it's French fries. They love French fries, guacamole.
Someone's a photographer, it's a camera, someone's a hairstylist, it's
a blowdryer. Like, just get creative and put it in
a nice little box and it's They'll go on their
tree and they'll remember it forever. You do not need
to have the pressure of the money with the holiday