How to tame your inner grinch

Admit it, there are times when you would like to spend Christmas hiding out in a cave. But put away that scowl, because our Grinch-busting guide will raise your yuletide spirits faster than you can say Cindy Lou Who.

'Tis the season to be jolly! Except you're anything but. Instead, you're sulky, resentful, cranky -- in short, a Grinch of the first order. And who wouldn't be? You have to:

• Host your husband's family for Christmas dinner yet again (doesn't anybody else own an oven and poinsettia candleholders?);
• Find the perfect gift for everyone on your list -- on budget;
• Attend an office party, on your own time, and bring a cheesy gift (like you need one more person -- and one you hardly know -- to shop for);
• Be cheery with, or at least civil to, your sister-in-law (nephew, cousin, uncle), with whom you had a falling-out last Easter and who you never could stand anyway;
• Shop not only for your own family but also for your partner's; and
• Enthuse over Auntie Lois the Aged Hippie's yearly politically correct gift -- this year, handwoven Peruvian pillowcases;
• Attend more concerts and recitals than the Queen does on a royal tour.

It's all enough to give even Bob Cratchit a nasty case of the humbugs. No wonder 68 per cent of Canadian Living Magazine readers polled on Canadian Living Online admitted they suffer from seasonally induced Grinchiness. However, as the original Grinch found out in Dr. Seuss's classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (Random House, 1957, hardcover, $20), you can't stop Christmas from coming -- so you might as well get on with it. But how do you transform overwhelmed into overjoyed?

We consulted some expert Grinchproofers, among them Mrs. Santa herself -- at least, that's how Virginia Brucker, an author and teacher, is known to her Nanoose Bay, B.C., elementary-school colleagues. Her book Gifts from the Heart: 500 Simple Ways to Make Your Family's Christmas More Meaningful (Insomniac Press, 2006) provides inspiring alternatives to the yuletide frenzy, and the sales of the book have so far raised more than over $98,500 for the Canadian Cancer Society.

"I think people feel like Grinches because of a lack of time, a belief that we must give and receive expensive gifts in order to be happy, a feeling that the holiday has been commercialized, excessive and unrealistic expectations of what the holiday can do for us, a lack of connection to family and friends, and family problems," says Virginia. Careful reflection and thoughtful planning, she says, are the keys to coping. "I make a conscious and deliberate choice to think of it as a season of opportunities rather than obligations."

Let's get started.

Who do I look like -- the Naked Chef?
How was it that your dining room got to be the Christmas Diner for the entire extended family? Or that you became chief cook and bottle washer? As Darlene Sandquist from Calgary told us online, "I love Christmas. I love every bit of it except for one thing: the mess. I would like to know who declared me chief of the cleanup crew. I clean for days before and then all day on Christmas Day. I try to stay cheery about it, but by the end of the day I am usually steaming because I am doing dishes once again -- knowing I will be doing it all over again on Boxing Day."

"Cleaning...well, I hate doing it, so I make up a list and choose one major chore each week, starting in mid-November. Then I select a couple of small chores for each day as it gets closer to company arriving. I love checking off my list: it makes me feel totally accomplished instead of dragged out."
- Mary Meister, St. Albert, Alta.

Grinch busters
• Virginia suggests that you start by looking at why it's always your turn. "Many families get locked into doing it 'the way we've always done it,'" she says. Suggest a family meeting or conference call long before Christmas to put the host issue on the table, as it were. Who knows -- you might even discover that somebody else has been longing to play host.

• Maybe there are good reasons why you're always "it" when it comes to hosting dinner: perhaps your home is the most central or the most spacious. Or maybe you just can't bring yourself to ask someone else to take a turn. Whatever the reason, consider asking each guest to contribute one item to the menu. Explain that you're determined this year to spend more of the day enjoying family rather than cooking.

• How about launching a new "labour law"? In some families, all the females prepare the big dinner together and all of the males clean up afterward.

• Remind yourself, as Darlene MacLean of Halifax does, that your family and friends are "really there to see you and not just your home and food. The basic thought of keeping it simple works so well if you just take the time to realize it."

The Grinch is a trademark of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LLP

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