ADVENT CHAOS CALENDAR: Christmas Highs & Lows Of Our Lives

Two ADHD mums trade stories of Christmas joy and discomfort, from lost presents and hangovers to noisy rooms, politics at the table, and the ache of watching global tragedy on a festive night. We land on boundaries, gentle traditions, and how divided families can multiply love.

• navigating sensory overload and family noise
• witnessing global grief while keeping local rituals
• feeling displaced in a partner’s family home
• calling out racism and unhelpful politics
• handling body image comments and comparisons
• gratitude for extended family who host and hold
• co‑parenting that adds care, not conflict
• simple rituals for neurodivergent‑friendly holidays
• boundaries for conversation, media, and energy

Raise a fist and say it with us. Sisters in chaos.

Transcript

Setting The Scene And Banter

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's a wrong one. We're the ADHD mum. I'm Claire. And I'm Jen. And we're taking it in turns to speak today. We're trying not to over talk each other on our laggy Zoom connection. We're gonna try.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

She she was about ten miles behind in my connection, so I keep talking over her.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Um I'm normally the road

Framing Christmas Highs And Lows

SPEAKER_00 0:33

runner. Anyway, today we're gonna talk about our highs and lows of Christmas past. It's a Dekenzian tale again, like Claire's old old school lying on the floor on a cardboard box. Yeah. Yeah. Um so bit of dick pens. Hey, that's usually my role, and you're going, oh, for God's sake. Um, shall I go first? Go ahead, girl. Okay. Sorry to take you right down, right down. She's having this weird meal. She's getting it in there if you hear a bit of a clanking fork. So kind of expose your menu. She's eaten, she's run out of food in the cupboards. They need to do a shop. So she's having microwave rice with picolily.

unknown 1:30

Great.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

No, just get it right. It's like spicy picalily, chili lily, I think it's called. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

And slice beetruth. And I was saying to her, what the hell are you eating? It looks like AI food, it really

Displaced At A Partner’s Family

SPEAKER_00 1:47

does. Um, anyway, my Christmas lo I think was that year that my kids first ever went away, and I went to my boyfriend at the time. Now, no shade, his family welcomed me, and you know, he was a sweet guy with his heart in the right place. But I think I felt displaced because we hadn't been together like all that long. It wasn't like I felt like I was actually part of his family or whatever, and you know, looking back, our relationship wasn't the most like secure place to be in. Do you know what I mean? It was there was definitely like a lot of differences between us where I probably didn't feel quite in my element, you know what I mean? I was making a lot of like adjustments and allowances for what type of life I wanted to be living. Like I crammed into his single bed with him on Christmas Eve, like and like specially requested that he like change the sheets and shit, or like get a double coat on for the night.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

He still lived at home with his mum, didn't he?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

As well, like he's it so in his in his single bed, yes, and uh we're not laughing at that though, darling. Live on earth. Um, it was just a friendly bigger, wasn't it? We're not laughing at that. I'm not anyway.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

What a lovely guy, but um, I'm not laughing at him, he was lovely. The loan is more the the disparity in your living situations for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

It was a strange time that that's what I was doing with myself, but I was you know seeking comfort, and comfort came along in the form of this sweet guy who we happened to be on, as it turned out. He called it and he was right, completely different like life trajectories at

Witnessing Atrocity On Christmas Eve

SPEAKER_00 3:45

that time. Anyway, the reason I'm saying it was a low was when I look back, yes, I think I was really, really squeezing myself into a shape that I didn't want to be, like to be to be in that atmosphere or whatever that we've described, and also it was the first Christmas that the genocide had been happening, and I was like religiously following all of the on the ground accounts. Fucking hell, Christmas Eve. I saw I won't describe it, of course, but I saw like the worst thing I've ever seen in my life, and I'm of the generation that had like the internet in my bedroom, like Y2K, when there was like beheadings being like thrown about on YouTube and stuff. Like I saw some awful shit then, kind of by accident, um, and through having loads of like naughty stoner lad mates as well, um, and reading Bazaar magazine and all that, you know, I was pretty hardened to like gruesome imagery. Faces of death was that people used to look at, yeah, but um this was you know knowing that it was in real time and seeing it in like an herb an urban setting that was like families and people, and uh and to be honest, unfortunately, I've seen even worse since then, but it was Christmas Eve and I was scrolling through Instagram and it just came up and it honestly like I thought it was gonna vomit. And um it was just fucking like sombering and hellish to just know that like while I was like going along with Christmas prep and being you know there on Christmas Eve and like ready to have Christmas Day, that that was literally that had just happened somewhere on the same planet to the same to a human like me, you know, it was just broken horrendous, and it really like tormented me the whole of Christmas.

Traditions, Politics, And Feeling Small

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Um and then and you know what again, because we've mentioned other people's traditions, and how do you do it, and how did your family do it, and what are you gonna do with your Christmas, and are you gonna meet your own traditions? Even just that day for me, going along with like his family's way of doing things just again felt quite jarring and like isolating in a weird way because I was playing along and I was all loved up with him in a certain way, but I was I think deep down I must have known that I was out of place in terms of what I wanted my life to be looking like.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I remember with like my son's dads, and when I'd go to their family for Christmas, they were just so noisy, and I just made me go in my shell. I couldn't like speak or anything because everyone was shouting over each other all the time, and they all thought I was dead quiet, but I'm not. It was just like I couldn't cope.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

God, I also remember I got quite political, and they were like, they were like definitely of like conservative background. My my ex boy at all, um he was very liberal and like right on, and you know, all the things that we would hope for him to be, but his family background were definitely like conservative, like I definitely could have seen them thinking Thatcher was great and all that.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Um I literally had that with my ex-partner, um, they liked Thatcher racism outwardly. I remember something racist being said. Remember something racist being said about Bone M, you know, like thing I always have the Christmas songs, and I was just fuming inside, and I hated myself for not speaking up, but it wasn't my family. Well, I spoke up.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Um I can't remember what was said, and I can't remember what I said, but I just questioned it. Um oh, and then I remember another thing that really got to me like the whole family, again, not my boyfriend, but everyone else, the whole family spent a long time discussing.

Body Image And Family Comparisons

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Um like basically two sisters in a family that they were friends with, you know, like an aligned family that they the families had grown up in tandem sort of vibe. Two young women, basically, and they just like covered who the two were amongst themselves, but then they spoke at length about how pretty one of them was. And I was just like, Oh my god, like at length, just talking about isn't she pretty, and like, oh yeah, let's see a picture of her, and all that.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

This is a big thing in in my family on my mum's side because she is one of five sisters, and they all have knee, uh like I've lots of nieces, female cousins, and stuff, so much stuff about body image, and like I've I've always been fat basically as an adult, yeah. Um and you know, I stand out as being the fat one in my family, the pale one, the like alternative one, and I get my I have to get my picture taken every year with all these like glamour girls, and it's it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Oh my god, yeah, that's solid. I um yeah, so that's me, though. Um and by the way, there was plenty of moments of joy and bliss and happiness during that Christmas, but because I'm lucky to have not had a truly horrendous Christmas that like living in a place where there's a genocide going on or something, Jesus, like just awful. Anyway, unfortunately, that is still going on, isn't it? But my hi Christmas over the years. Do

Gratitude For Auntie-Led Christmas

SPEAKER_00 10:14

you know what? I feel really lucky, like I feel like because of my auntie particularly um facilitating like make taking on the role of like the Christmas make maker happener and host and fucking hosted the most, it was just great. I just really had a wonderful like experience of Christmas as a kid because my auntie just made it happen for me and my mum, and my mum was able to just literally what my mum did for Christmas every year as a mum was do me a boss Christmas stocking. That is it. She didn't have to cater, and she didn't ever have to like do the spending because my auntie and uncle did it, um, and I got some boss presents over the years because they were pretty loaded because they were both good jobs and no kids.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Um, so Christmas was boss as a kid, and that's the value of extended family, isn't it? And support for single mums and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, we have to remember that that some people have that, and that's lucky then. Yeah, um yeah, yeah. And me Christmas like general highs continue in the era of being a mum because it is just lovely, you know, the the the again because I'm

Parenting Joy And Creating Magic

SPEAKER_00 11:42

lucky and I haven't experienced like extreme poverty at Christmas or anything. I enjoy being able to like get the kids what they want for Christmas and like give them a lovely experience of like opening presents and all that stuff, and being able to take them to like Christmas events and this and that, and having family to go to. Um, and I just feel yeah, like Christmas high just overall is just like the fact that um I get to enjoy like continued magic of Christmas through giving that to my kids now, and it's lovely.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Oh, that's gorgeous.

The Hangover Christmas And Shame

SPEAKER_01 12:22

My love is it was when I uh it was when I was about 18 or around there, and I think it was the year I'd dropped out of the first year. I was supposed to have gone to university, but I dropped out, but I don't think I'd told anyone I had dropped out at that Christmas, so um I was in I was in a bit of a state at this time, I have to say, and I was drinking a lot. Oh god, um partying a lot, right? Yeah, so I I was out to out to clubs and that a lot. Anyway, Christmas Eve, um I was meeting up with my friends in town, and um we were we were like going for lunch and exchanging presents, and we started having a drink and that, and I still had some presents to pick up, including my mum's. Um so we were having a drink and that. Um uh once I start drinking, well, it's not so much anymore, can't stop. Um, I definitely couldn't back in the day then. We bumped into some other friends and they were up for like, oh yeah, let's pop the shops and do that, and then let's go and get another drink and stuff, and then meet some other people. Some of the friends that I'd originally met with had gone home. We went to the shops. I did buy something for my mum, I can't even remember what it was, like jewellery or something. Um, then we went out drinking, we drank more. We was like getting bottles of wine and champagne and all that. For some reason, we were buying champagne. I I mean, I don't know where I was getting the money from. Don't just being I was just spent, I was just spending all the money I had. But I think well, you probably had a student loan that you weren't gonna then use on being a student, yeah, yeah, and then also I think I was like thinking, I'll get Christmas money, so I'll just spend all my money. So buying bottles of champagne, spent a fortune, stayed out all night, got absolutely wrecked, woke up on Christmas Day, hung over, couldn't remember anything, I'd lost, I'd left my bag in town with the Christmas presents in. So I had no Christmas present to give to my mum on Christmas morning, and I was ast. I felt ashamed, like getting up that morning wrecked still, and I felt like so guilty and like had spoiled Christmas, lost my purse and everything as well. I'd lost like everything basically. I think someone had thrown me in a taxi to go home. I think

Co‑Parenting Harmony And Bigger Families

SPEAKER_01 15:06

God. I think I'd lost my coat, my hat, my bag, my purse, all the Christmas presents that people had given me as well. Because I got like a few lovely presents off my friends when we met up.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

And um just the shame of having no present for my mum in the morning. I felt so guilty, and she didn't take it very well either. Because I think they were all like thinking, oh my god, state of her, she's a bad redhead and all that. And when I think about it, I was like, I'd just left home, just left school. I was like a baby, and this was the state of me on Christmas morning. I feel I feel like if my baby did it when he's like that, I'd be more understanding. But like I think um, you know, it was different times, and they were like, my what's going to become of our daughter? She's an absolute disgrace and all this, yeah. And it was a lot more like blame and and punitive, not like, oh, our neurodivergent, or obviously cannot cope with becoming an adult at this stage. Fair play. Yeah. Um, so I think my best one was like probably when my son was about four, and he fully, you know, understood what Christmas was, and he got up that morning and he was just like the the buzz of that was amazing. Him still believing in all the magic and everything, and just like so happy, so excited. Just yeah, it was lovely.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Even though you had your ex-partner there co-parenting with you as a guest, a guest member.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Even though, you know, all the years that like we were split up and he's been with me on Christmas morning, it's always been lovely.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

That's great.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

And now it's with our partners, and it's still lovely.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Even more so in a way, because it's like it used to just be the three of us, and now it's like more people, because I always think, you know, the more, the more the merrier.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

I always have this funny little thought, the more the merrier.

Divided Families Multiplying Love

SPEAKER_00 17:29

I've um I've made the cheesy, like manifesting like gratitude type of like playlist because of my absolute fandom for Franny Amber. And when we went to book launch, she was saying she has a little playlist that she plays every morning, and it helps her remember to be grateful all day. And I've made my own one, and I've put a couple of the tracks she said is on hers on mine, and one of them says something about like, I'm grateful that my parents got divorced because when they divided, they multiplied it, and two parents became four. And I always think that is gorgeous, and like I always think of your son like really reaping the reaping the benefit of that, and the most part, you know, and having four loving parents or parent parental figures, he's got two parents and two supporting parental figures, and um there's there's no sign of that for me or my kids, dad, but you know, I kind of hope that maybe my kids will have that in the future, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Um it's a not yet thing, and and my son as well, he gets to have eight grandparents. I know. Well, I think about that too. Because they've divided too, so and all of them love him to death.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

So yeah, it's gorgeous. So any of you parents that are although any of you parents that are like a uh breakup or facing the thought of leaving your your partner or your kid's other parent and thinking, oh god, and that you're

Parting Thought: Happier Parents, Happier Kids

SPEAKER_00 19:05

gonna be denying them, you know, two parents. Just this episode is not about that, but I've got to say it, like I think a lot of the time it it pays to look at people that are proof of the fact that a lot of the time two separated parents can be two much happier, nicer, you know, more well-rested parents as well, rather than you know, two unhappy parents living together. But um, we digress, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Definitely it's I don't think you should ever stay in a relationship for your kids if it's not right, because it's better for them to have happy parents.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Exactly. So raise a fist and say it with us.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Sisters in chaos.