Feeling overwhelmed this December

This year December really has knocked the wind out of me. Usually December is my favourite month of the year; I love Christmastime, and everything that comes with it, but this year I've found that I've been struggling a bit.
It feels like there's more pressure than normal to do everything and be everything. There's end-of-year goals that I want to achieve. But they're looking near impossible and I'm just finding I don't have the energy to try for that big ol' December push. There seems to be more pressure than normal to do blogmas or vlogmas and look back over the year to see how far you've come. There's a seemingly endless number of work Christmas dos, and special days to keep track of. There are endless expenses from feeling the pressure to buy more presents than normal to dinners out with friends and more. 
December is hard. It's a time when the loss of loved ones becomes most poignant. Christmas is about spending time with family, and if your family isn't the way it used to be, or is missing a person, things can get upsetting. It's the time when we spend the most money, and it becomes more obvious, to you at least, that there may not be as much money for Christmas as you'd dreamed there would be. 
It's a time where there's a massive focus on food and your appearance. Festive treats and Christmas meals get talked about and plastered all over the media all the time. You're expected to simultaneously buy into all of the 'omg it's not Christmas until you've eaten Quality Street' while at the same time maintaining the 'perfect' figure for Christmas and the new year. We've gone from being shamed for eating what we want in the media for the past 11 months to now being told to eat everything in sight, but also work it all off, and keep your end of year weight goals in sight. It's all utter bullshit and it's just so intense. 
What I'm trying to say is that it's totally okay to feel overwhelmed this December, and you're far from alone in it. Spend your December how you want to spend it. If that means taking the month off of blogging, or taking some alone time a few days a week, or even cancelling some plans that are mounting up, then do what you need to do to make December bearable, and even happy. I'm not even sure if 'need' is the right word. There's this massive pressure to do absolutely everything you can unless there's a 'real reason' that you can't do it. Not wanting to do something, or not even having the energy to do something is 100% a valid reason not to.  Follow me on Bloglovin | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube | Facebook