Every year around the holidays, we start hearing the same advice.
Don’t eat too many cookies. Watch the carbs. Get your steps in. Drink water between cocktails. Stave off the holiday pounds.
But are we worried about the wrong things?
For a lot of women, especially moms, the thing wearing us down during the holidays isn’t what’s on our plate. It’s everything that’s on our LONG list.
’Tis the season … eat the cake!
Somewhere between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, many of us quietly become the CEO of Christmas. We’re buying gifts, wrapping gifts, and then hiding gifts. We’re remembering class parties and which kid needs to wear pajamas to school on Tuesday. We’re planning meals, coordinating family schedules, decorating the house, and trying to figure out whether we bought equally for all the kids.
Then there are work parties, neighborhood parties, family gatherings, girlfriend gift exchanges, and the annual realization that we somehow forgot somebody.
All while trying to make it magical. And I do love the magic of the season. Don’t we all?
I love driving around the Triangle looking at Christmas lights. I love the decorations, the sweet traditions, and the excitement kids have sharing their wish lists and hoping for snow. I love meeting friends for a holiday dinner and seeing our community completely transform for the season into a festive display of lights.
No one wants less Christmas.
I just don’t think we should have to completely exhaust ourselves to create it.
Maybe we need to rethink what “healthy” looks like during the holidays.
What if being healthy in December isn’t about turning down your grandma’s pie? What if it’s realizing that you don’t have to attend every event you’re invited to?
The power of no is a beautiful thing. Especially if it’s an event you don’t have the time or money for.
What if it’s going to bed instead of staying up until midnight wrapping presents that your family will rip open in 0.7 seconds?
Slow down and let yourself be part of the memory making.
What if it’s ordering dinner one night because you simply don’t have it in you to cook?
Maybe it’s taking an hour and walking around Downtown Cary Park, the American Tobacco Trail, or the trails at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Not because your iPhone says you need more steps, but because fresh air and a little quiet can do wonders when your brain has been running through a checklist for three straight weeks.
And maybe holiday health means actually enjoying the delicious seasonal food.
Somewhere along the way, we’ve turned December into this strange month where we’re surrounded by foods we love while also being told we should feel guilty for eating them.
I’m not interested in spending Christmas calculating the calories in a sugar cookie.
Have that cookie. Eat two!
Eat the meal your family makes once a year. Enjoy the party. Then tomorrow, eat a normal breakfast, drink some water, and move your body. Don’t beat yourself up for enjoying those special, once-in-a-while guilty pleasures.
One meal isn’t going to make or break our health any more than one salad is going to magically transform it.
But I do think there is something that can take a toll on us: spending an entire month stressed, exhausted, and feeling responsible for everyone else’s happiness.
That’s the part of holiday health we don’t talk about enough.
I’ve also realized that some of the things I remember most from Christmas have very little to do with how much money was spent or whether everything went according to plan.
The DeLong family has made the Stuff-a-Bus Toy Drive an annual tradition.
It’s the music playing in the kitchen. The kids piling into the car to look at lights. A conversation with someone you haven’t seen in months. Sitting around a table longer than expected because nobody is ready to leave.
Those are the things that stay in our minds and hearts.
Nobody is going to look back 10 years from now and say, “Holidays 2026 was incredible because Mom found the perfect matching wrapping paper.”
At least I hope not, because mine probably won’t match. Heck, my family is lucky if the gifts are even wrapped some years.
So maybe this year we give ourselves permission to do the holidays a little differently.
We can make the memories without making ourselves miserable.
We can say yes to the things that matter and no to a few things that don’t. We can take care of ourselves before January 1 instead of spending December running on caffeine and adrenaline and promising that we’ll “get healthy” when the holidays are over.
And yes, we can eat the Christmas pies and goodness. Because maybe the healthiest thing we can do this holiday season isn’t lose weight, exercise more, or create a perfect Christmas.
Maybe it’s reaching January without feeling like we gave every ounce of ourselves away.
The lights will come down; decorations will go back into boxes. The kids will head back to school, and life will settle into its normal routine again.
Let’s aim to enter January refreshed rather than depleted. Taking care of ourselves should be part of the holiday tradition, too.
Stay connected on social @EricaDeLong
- Mrs. Claus Knows
- Out & About in Wake County: November/December 2026
- Say Yes to Stanbury
- Season’s Sips
- Recipes from Readers: Dark Chocolate Bourbon Brownies
- Liquid Assets: Cranberry Kölsch
- Garden Adventurer: Poinsettia Care Essentials: Earth, Wind, and Fire
- Small Business Spotlight: Alter Scalp Spa
- 2026 Gift Guide
- Pay It Forward: PORCH Cary
- Erica Chats: A New Type of Tradition
