'I'm stressed out struggling to create memories for my kids - Christmas needs to change'

ok.co.uk:

Author Gill Sims, lives in Scotland with her husband, two children and two Border terriers. She embraces the Christmas season but says that there are too many things to worry about in December when you've got kids.

Gill wishes that parents could use the build-up to the festive season to spend more time with their children instead of having to rush them to numerous events like carol services and concerts.

Here, the 45 year old, who has written six fiction novels about motherhood to date, gives her honest account of the stress she faces each year... "From early October (or even September when the first mince pies appear in the shops) we start to be bombarded with the MAGIC!

Christmas is magical! We must create magic for the children! "Will no one think of the children? And every year, we seem to have more and more plates to spin or the magic will be destroyed, we will be bad parents, and we might as well light a flaming candy cane, burn WhoVille to the ground and take ourselves off to our Grinchy cave on Mount Crumpit if we do not fulfil every single obligation and request, or adhere to this year’s new marketing gimmick, which was almost certainly dreamed up by a grumpy man who had been made to work late on a Friday evening to come up with a brilliant new sales campaign for some piece of tat no one wants or needs (I’m looking at you ‘Elf on a Shelf’, with your terrifying perma-grin, and at you, Christmas Eve boxes, because obviously we are not fleeced for enough money in December and need to spend more!). "Every December sees parents wincing every time they open their emails or the school WhatsApp group to find another notification about another event (again invariably costing money).