A Christmas Story of Covid and Chaos

Picture it. The week before Christmas. 2021. Life begins to run amok as we prepare for the holiday season, and warning signs drop like snowflakes. My husband ran into significant issues on his project, requiring long nights and overtime for his team just to get away on time. As a result, the holidays are overworked, overrun, and exhausted before they ever begin. Long drive home, and we arrive the night before festivities begin, with just a few hours the following day to squeeze in some much-needed routine appointments and errands. 

We zip to one family home, picking up presents I had stored back home, so we didn’t have to travel with them. Zip to another family home, squeezing in a belated Christmas get-together. The rental vehicle breaks down. Get it going and zip back to the first family home to jump back into festivities. 

The following day, we greet guests for the morning festivities. Zip-off to pick up the substitute rental truck and zip back to jump back in, exchange gifts, and say our goodbyes. Zip to the next family home. Our daughter accidentally breaks her glasses because she can’t see them when they fall. Broken glasses and no backup = vacation over. We zip out the door to find the only store open on Christmas Eve is O’Reilly’s, where construction dad buys all the JB Weld and works tirelessly to save a said vacation. It works. And this is all within the first 24 hours and very little sleep. 

We zip to our final family festivities and zip out to make time for the next leg of our vacation, Breckenridge, Colorado, with the whole family. Put in hardcore drive time, picked up skis, and pulled into our mountain home the following evening…barely. The new rental truck was a 2-wheel drive…oops. Apparently, the entire country was also coming to the mountains, and we spent the next few days unable to get around, get on the slopes, or get any oxygen. Suddenly, this wasn’t feeling like much of a “vacation” anymore. Up to this point, I had tried everything to make all my Christmas cheer f*&^%ing happen, dammit! 

(If you are an email subscriber, you might flashback to the tool I released before Christmas…remember my need to control? Yep, right here rearing its ugly, ugly head). 

We cut our losses and began the grueling 3-day journey back home with still very little sleep. When...BAM...covid. All of us. The actual “vacation” was the week of rest suddenly forced upon us. 

Unfortunately, this is how my life generally goes. How it has always gone since I can remember. And you might have similar stories if you feel like you wouldn’t have any luck at all if it weren’t for bad luck. My husband and I lovingly refer to our life as “the shit show.” So how do I handle the madness? Not great sometimes. I’m certainly not perfect. But…I have my tools. The tools I teach to others in my Chaos to Calm program are the tools I use daily in my own life because they work. My tools make the following happen:

• Keep my life running like a well-oiled machine.
• Allow me the space and time to recover from illness.
• My goals don’t get derailed because they are well-planned and keep me moving forward.
• Allow me to care for my home and family with relative ease.
• Provide a financial cushion for the inevitable emergencies that arise in life. 

My tools work WITH, and FOR my life, so I’m not constantly playing catchup. As a result, I can handle life’s busy messes with calm and clarity instead of worry and despair. Unfortunately, the Chaos to Calm program is closed for enrollment, but if you sign up with your email, you’ll receive weekly tools and tips to bring Calm into your Chaos that I don’t share anywhere else. 

Here’s a free tip for today courtesy of my husband as we discussed cutting our trip short: “It takes a lot more strength and shows more character to know when to cut your losses and walk away.” And he’s so right. Maybe you have some losses you need to cut as you move into 2022. I’ll help you along the way. Be sure to sign up for the email list below!