If you pay them, they will come.
Is it about now when you hit peak seasonal anxiety? Or do you tend to succumb in mid-December, just as the in-laws descend? Do holiday tip-ping, ham glazing, and hunting down the perfect present for your partner leave you exhausted? Does it help, when you're up at midnight planning menus for visiting vegans, celiacs, and intermittent fasters, if your fam-ily asks why you're so stressed? Is your wilting tree becoming an awkward metaphor for your feelings of personal inadequacy? Do you suspect that the mandate to Have Fun and Make Mem-ories this time of year was the work of a sadist?
Staff Up
The dream is a staffing infrastructure that runs like a well-oiled machine while you kick back and sip eggnog. To achieve this nirvana, recruit the troops for Operation Jingle Bells (staff often use military code names) early in the year and make sure they're up for the Tom Wambsgans role of collective pain sponge. Not only will a good house or estate manager absorb the holiday stress so you don't have to, they'll also conceal the exertion it costs them.
The work is “more than the family probably realizes,”
