It is so easy to fall into the “cranky” mode, especially this season. It’s a season of too much to do—the year ending professionally and personally, holidays and obligations and commitments that seem to have no limit and no end.

I find myself sometimes muttering that I’d really like to “get a life.” That’s my shorthand for feeling that I can’t see how everything is going to get done. Even though I know it is, even though it always does. I think the stress comes from being the anxious, compulsive perfectionist that I admit to being. And it comes from this desire to have things “off the list” as I watch the list getting longer.

When I have a few quiet moments, when there is a lull in the chaos, I do try to remember that my problems are not just small, they are good problems to have. I mean, really, to have a big family and a wonderful group of friends to buy gifts for? Yes, it takes some effort but it is also a joy, both in the choosing and in the giving. To feel pressured by the holiday meals and baking that I (and no one else) require of myself, again, this is a choice I make.

My husband will say that he never has to worry about anything because I do it all for both of us. It’s the same about expectations. I create my own and they are far greater than anyone would create for me. That is not necessarily the best aspect of my character but it is the truth.

So, taking this moment to breathe, to note all the things that have, indeed, been already crossed off the list is also a time to remember to be so grateful. I am grateful to have a loving partner who accepts (and tolerates) me, a healthy family that (for the most part) enjoys being together, an extended family of cousins (my mother would have said “cousins by the dozens”) who are like my siblings and friends who are truly family. I am grateful to have the desire, the energy and the ability to devote to my work and to my personal life and to be able find meaning in all of it.

Perhaps our holiday gift to ourselves this year should be some moments devoted to grace, to listening to the sound of our breath, to connecting and grounding and remembering how blessed we are, how fortunate to have such full hearts.