You could easily afford lots of lead-laden loot... Of course that's not what anyone would settle on for their preciouses.

I don't think you need meds, though I'm no doctor. (Not yet at least.) I start feeling similar dread once it becomes clear there's no way I can make all the expectors of gifts forget that Christmas has lain down at yon door.

It sounds like normal anxiety to me. Anxiety is a bitch and can manifest in tons of ways, especially during the holiday seasons. I'm sure you're going to be fine, <mode emt> it wouldn't hurt to talk to someone though if you feel that you could use some help </mode emt>.

Honestly I'm feeling the holiday stress too as this year we're not going to be with the large family and I will be all the way in Florida at my Grandmas, I was hoping for a snowy christmas too

personally, I always go back on my meds for the holidays... there's a 20mg minimum of prozac required for dealing with the extended fam , and finals, and the fact that I'm usually broke by the end of a semester (just in time to buy presents, yay)... it all adds up to a shitty amount of stress, and that's probably nothing compared to what you're dealing with raising a passle of kidlings.

I don't see any shame in taking pills, and if this is a problem you've noticed since the wee one came along you might want to talk to a doc about it, postpartum depression is nothing to overlook (I've known women who seriously suffered from this, apparently my mother did as well, or so I'm told). And even if you end up not needing meds, or don't want to take any, talking about it with a trained professional type person would probably be beneficial.

Exactly, what she said ^ If you feel a little something would help, by all means go to the doc and get something. If your family is the type that everyone exchanges gifts, then just announce that the adults should just concentrate on the kids. Suggest letting the kids in the family all draw names and buy a gift for the one they pick.

In my family, there aren't many little kids left in the extended family. That makes it easier just to concentrate on my two. The adults in our family don't exchange gifts.

Exactly, what she said ^ about the kids and the gifts... if its a big family, extended or otherwise, and cash is strapped, just focus on the kids. This is what my extended family has done (which really isn't that big compared to some, but still), primarily our nuclear families exchange gifts privately xmas day, and the night before when the extended clan gets together the only gifts that are exchanged (aside from some small sweets and treats among my mom and her sibs) are between grandma and grandkids, and everyone spoils the two grandchildren that are actually still children (they're 6 and 9, the rest of us are in college or older, there was a huge age disparity between my one aunt and the rest of her sibs, so her kids are still pretty young)... but basically, we all came to this recognition several years ago that the gift giving was not what we should focus on and that xmas should be for kids... and anyway we adult grandkids were just like "whatever, the only thing we really want is someone to pay our credit cards off, but that's not gonna happen so we'll just settle for spending time together".