The holiday rush affects us all in major ways, and even the joy of the season isn’t always enough to keep us in balance. In competitive fencing, the holiday season is smack in the middle of the fencing season. That means fencers and their families can feel stretched and it is very important to be able to balance fencing with family time.
We’ve put together five ways for fencing families to help find balance during the holiday season!
Choose gratitude over guilt
You cannot do everything, and that’s ok. Yes, it would be great to take the kids to the holiday light show, out to a performance of the Nutcracker, and then watch all of the holiday movies you remember from your childhood, but there are only so many hours in the day.
Not being able to do it all can lead fencing parents to feel guilty about what their kids might be missing out on. Maybe you can’t both drive the kids to fencing practice and have time to bake holiday cookies together. Work commitments or extracurricular activities that the kids are participating in at school push and pull us this time of year too, and we naturally have to make choices.
Whenever those emotions sneak into your mind, turn towards gratitude instead. Maybe you pick just one holiday movie to watch, and it’s ok if that one is Die Hard, which is definitively a Christmas movie. Being grateful means that you and your teenagers actually enjoy watching Bruce Willis save the hostages from the bad guys in the festively decorated Nakatomi Plaza, rather than you constantly worrying that you aren’t doing enough. Guilt leads to unhappiness. Gratitude leads to happiness. Choose gratitude! [Side note: as a parent of four teenagers, I find it harder and harder to have them watch any movie with us, let alone holiday-themed movies. Hopefully the Die Hard would change that]
Make a list, then check it twice
There are so many things that have to happen in December, and it can be just totally overwhelming. Too often, families fall into the habit of assuming that some traditions are super important and others are not so important, but with kids you never know what’s the most special. It might be that the boxed hot cocoa you spice with cinnamon is the most magical thing, much more than the fancy cakes or pies that take a lot of time to make from scratch. Maybe the fencing competition that you go to every December at the same city is a symbol of the holidays for your child, though you think of it as just another competition.
To help figure out what’s really going to make everyone happy during the holiday season, what’s going to make it super special, sit down and make a list of all of the activities that everyone has going on and the things you’d each like to do. Once you can see all of it laid out in front of you, then you can decide as a family what’s most important.
This way, everyone can have a say and can make sure that their most treasured holiday traditions are honored. When there isn’t time to do everything, do the most important things.
Be flexible with your schedule
The fencing season is a marathon, not a sprint. If the holiday season feels particularly overwhelming, look at what you’ve got going on in your fencing training and see if your priorities need to shift at this moment.
This might be as simple as taking a day off from training (yes, this is an option!) or as complex as rethinking whether you need to go to a specific competition in order to reach your fencing goals. For example, if you’re well beyond your goals for accruing points to qualify for Fencing Summer Nationals, maybe you don’t need to go to that regional tournament in December. Or maybe you’re not where you wanted to be by December and suddenly that regional competition is a must-do.
Create boundaries
This time of year is synonymous with family time, and that time is so very important for everyone’s happiness. It’s ok to draw hard boundaries around those special days and set them aside for just family activities – fencing is not going anywhere.
Some families are firm that all youth sports stop between Christmas and New Years’. Others are adamant that the family is together every night to light the holiday candles with one another. This doesn’t just apply to the December holidays either. Your family traditions are important supports for the development of your kids and are worth the investment if they matter to you, no matter what time of year they occur.
Parents should feel confident that they can draw a hard line around that family time without the fear that it’ll endanger their child’s fencing career. Your young fencer will be absolutely ok, even if they might be upset about missing their training for those days. Talk it all over with their coach and see if it would be beneficial to make up missed classes or to engage in some physical activity to keep the body strong during time away from the fencing club.
Focus on the big picture
It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the details of the holiday season, precisely because there are so many details to be had! Whether it’s the meticulous decorating of the house or the festive holiday sweater for the dog, we can so easily get lost in the little things. While it’s true that those little things matter, just as each point in fencing matters, whether the match is won is rarely decided by a single point. Whether the holiday season is worthwhile is not decided by a single bulb on the Christmas tree.
Take a breath and take a step back, then remind yourself of the real meaning of this time. The point is not to do every single little thing, but rather to embrace the wider values that your family is about during this time of year. For fencing families, and for all families actually, looking for the memories that will be made together in all of their forms – from the holiday fencing party at the club to the quiet cup of eggnog after the kids are asleep – this is what we will remember.
This can be the most wonderful time of the year if we loosen the hold of pressure that we too often feel this time of year! Remember, you are in charge of your family’s season, and that means you can let go of everyone’s expectations. It is absolutely possible to balance fencing and family this time of year with some planning!
R
Lit first candle *after* returning from floor-managing 14 NAC-sized regional refs’ to final. Lit chanukiyah every night *before* practice. Will light last candle *after* returning from reffing Sacred Heart U.’s high-level multi-school. No problem! 😉