Are you your family’s Mrs. Claus?

And if not, why not?

Every year, we celebrate Santa Claus for tipsily flying across the sky to bring presents to children everywhere, but we rarely stop to think of all the work enabling him to do his one-day stint.

We all know who deserves the credit. And that’s Mrs. Claus. Tirelessly working round the clock in the background to keep her husband on his feet, the reindeer in good mental and physical health, and organizing wishlists alphabetically.

This is a fictitious scenario of course, but it probably rings quite true to many.

Why? Because if you are a person participating in the holiday season, you are almost certainly a person benefitting from -or doing inordinate amounts of- emotional labor.

I am pretty sure you can easily identify at least one Mrs. Claus in your family.

You see, trees do not suddenly appear in the living room on December 1, adorned in cardinal birds and glittering lights, joy does not just naturally swell when temperatures drop, gatherings do not just galactically come to be.

No, someone has rolled up their sleeves in the background, paid attention to the impending date on the calendar and started thinking things through. Many things through.

What do we need? Where are we going? How will we get there? Who is alone and should be included? Who needs gifts? What will they like? Where is the best place for decorations/supplies/food? What’s the budget? Who’s allergic to what? What about the kids?

That’s just the runup.  

After the runup is the actual execution part of the production of merry-holiday-joy. Hosting? Then someone has to clean, possibly decorate, think of what to eat, cook, welcome, entertain, serve drinks and food and clean up after everyone has gone.

This is all boring old domestic labor. But so often domestic labor is done with the specific purpose of creating feelings in others, which is especially true around holiday season.

Gingerbread men are bursts of nostalgia and comfort. A functional house is a space for seamless togetherness and belonging. Figuring out logistics to reunite allows for connection, memories and hope.

Every family has to have at least one Mrs. Claus if any tradition is to be carried through, if any assembling is to take place.

And for each Mrs. Claus, there are often a few sidekicks - let’s call them the Clausettes.

Clausettes may not take charge of the entire production of the family holidays, but they will still be expected to perform the kind of emotional labor that demands they bite their tongue for convention, to make others comfortable, or to avoid upsetting the mood.

Navigating intrusive questions from relatives about your weight, fertility choices, romantic life or career path? Patiently helping someone figure out technology for the fifth year running? Ignoring an in-law’s offensive opinion? Then you are a Clausette.

The question really becomes who isn’t either a Mrs. Claus or a Clausette?

We all know a few. That person who disappears after meals and takes the most comfortable chair without offering it up. The person whose name has been signed on the gift card but has no idea what the present they’re giving is. The person who rolls their eyes to their sofa companion when they are eventually invited to help. The person who turns on the television and makes an executive decision which channel it will be turned to.

Very helpfully, my wonderful marketing team at Flatiron has designed an emotional labor holiday bingo card, which invites people to circle what they will be doing in the upcoming weeks. It is copied below and you are most welcome to play.

If you get five in a row you get a BINGO, and for now – not much else.* Except, I hope, for the quiet understanding that, thanks to your work, community lived on for another year.

(* not much else unless you would like to be entered into a sweepstake to get an advanced copy of my book, in which case please do head over to @flatiron_books on Instagram and search for this recent post for more details!)