When holiday stress adds to working stress.

This last period was crazy as hell, at least for me.
If we count that after the last holiday in September I came back to work straight, knowing that after a couple of days, I had to take once again the flight to northern Finland following field work on a construction site on a ten-hours shift to keep up with the schedule. As the week was over, I had one day back to the office before leaving for Ohio for the Author Academy Awards. As soon as I came back, I had only two days at the office before leaving once again for northern Finland. 

December was the craziest of all and finally yesterday the fiscal year at my company ended with my team and me, stretching for 14:30 hours of continuous work without taking a lunch break.

Now, I have almost three weeks of deserved holiday, but the ghost of this Christmas is still haunting my rest. You know we still have to wrap our gifts, prepare the dinner for the family, and the most horrifying task of all, going for grocery.

Honestly, now I remember why I generally escape the Christmas being on holiday for this period and I am regretting the decision of being with the family instead than being far away to a place where nobody knows it is Christmas and there is no hurry.

I have been during this week to the shop just to buy small everyday items, and I felt lucky that I was going by foot, instead of having a car, because the traffic was the craziest thing I have ever seen around here.
Helsinki, besides being the capital of Finland, is not very densely populated, so the city itself, road and junction are thought and planned accordingly. Something they didn't expect was the craziness that the traffic can reach during this period, and everything looked like stuck.
But what's happened on the road is just a foretaste of what is going on in the shop. Finnish people are (thankfully) calm and do not give up on stressful behavior, but when they are all in one shop... I give up to stress.
There is a song that came to my mind recently during my brief visits to the market, "sometimes I feel like screaming" of Deep Purple. Indeed I felt like exploding inside myself, wishing only to be far away on the small, dark, lonely path that leads home, where the only beings I might come across are the wild hares or squirrels and birds.

I am not the only one to deal with the dinner, the gifts, the preparations, the decorations, being also able to follow your own life, that one that goes on regardless of the season.
The only suggestion I can give you all is trying to simplify the process and focus only on enjoying each other's company, feeling blessed for another year we have been given to spend together. Nobody expects a Michelin star restaurant experience, so let's take it easy and make sure to be ready to spend a great evening with your beloved ones.
To you all, I wish a great holiday as next time we are going to talk about New Year's resolutions and goals to be achieved during the next year.