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Here’s a conversation I would like to have with Elizabeth Warren: How did you handle Christmas Stress when you were raising your kids? Cuz it really weighed on me all those years and I carry the scars to this day.

The expectation to produce tons of toys -- essentially a sleighful of toys -- for our three little kids could never adequately be met. First of all, I didn’t have the budget. There was no more income in the month of December than there was any other month of the year. Second, I really didn’t have the budget for the expensive electronic toys that the kids increasingly wanted. Third, I didn’t really want the kids to have those toys, even if I could afford them. And fourth, the disappointment on Christmas morning at not receiving what they’d asked for was a tragedy for both them and for me.

Over the years, I tried many diversionary strategies. I tried big stockings filled with lots of little toys, and one big present per kid under the tree. But kids, even three-year-olds, can count past one. I tried little stockings with barely anything in them – oranges and toothbrushes – and lots of little packages under the tree. The kids still looked for the nintendos and the racetracks. I tried giving them coats and boots that they needed but I hoped they would also really like. In the kids’ minds, coats and boots didn’t count at all. And of course, I tried making presents, sewing, or building, or papier-maché things. Also didn’t count; if the toy wasn’t in a box with a cellophane wrapper, it wasn’t valid.

Seriously, how do you sit down with a five-year-old and explain that Santa loves you very very much but simply can’t bring you as much stuff as he brings your next door neighbor?

Elizabeth, you have given so much time and thought to the challenges of middle-class and working-class families making ends meet. And I don’t hold you responsible as a Senator or the architect of the Consumer Protection Bureau or an economics professor to solve my Santa Claus hypocrisies.

Give me credit, Elizabeth; I tried to budget Christmas throughout the year, saving a hundred bucks each month, but you know how impossible that was. I even tried buying presents throughout the year, at the risk of being found out (and I was) and ruining the surprise. But the point is that Christmas expectations are fueled by retailers’ hype and it puts a huge burden on young families, and most especially on young mothers.

When I tried to talk to my husband about this awful feeling of insufficiency, he answered that it was largely of my own making, and that I should simply not do what I didn’t feel comfortable doing. But I noticed that he often went shopping on Christmas Eve for presents that were way more expensive than we could afford. We paid for those gifts in January and February and he didn’t feel any guilt at all.

My kids survived my shortcomings because they grew up. I haven’t. I still dread Christmas, feel inadequate, oppressed by the unrealistic expectations, and am now getting all knotted up over the grandchildren. As an attempt at self-care, I am here and now declaring that Grandma is offering nothing but food and drink and music and decorations and one big fat check per family. Will this solve my problem? No, but I can afford to pay my way out of hypocrisy.