How to make Christmas better

Drop the martyr routine. Seriously, everybody hates it. I was talking to a man the other day who groused about how nuts his wife gets in December. She's genuinely trying to give her family a perfect Christmas and ends up exhausted and grouchy and they always have a huge fight either on Christmas Eve or a few days before. He really wishes she'd chill out and doesn't appreciate her "show off" efforts because they just make everybody miserable. His wife is not a shrew. She's a nice woman who's trying to to live up the sick crazy train standard that other women create for women.

Ladies stop it. Get off the train. Your husband doesn't give a hoot about whether the tree is a Grandin Road original or came from an award winning tree farm. He doesn't want an exact replica of the White House tree. He really doesn't. You aren't Martha Stewart, heck. Martha isn't even Martha Stewart!She has servants and a magazine staff to make her mansions look beautiful. You aren't Jackie Kennedy, who had maids, and a nanny. You aren't your grandmother. You aren't your sister-in-law or your neighbor. You aren't that woman in the magazine. Stop it. Calm down. Jesus doesn't want you to freak out over the strudel. Remember what He said to St. Martha, "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." This year do something different. Be a rebel. Do less. Tell the secular world and it's unrealistic expectations to buzz off.