You Are Not Doing the Holidays Wrong: Caregiver Burnout, Grief, and the Weight of This Season

Burnout isn't your fault.

The holiday season is often described as joyful, magical, and full of meaning. And for many caregivers and death-care workers, it is also exhausting, emotionally complex, and heavy in ways that can be hard to explain.
If you’re feeling worn down, overwhelmed, or burned out this time of year, you are not alone—and you are not doing anything wrong.

The holidays hold both beauty and heaviness

As I write this, I’ve just returned from a 10-day visit with family. We all came home sick, without enough sleep, and trying to get back into routine. At the same time, I’m doing my best to create meaningful holiday traditions for my young children: planning gatherings, getting outdoors (even in freezing temperatures), holding space for community because it matters deeply to me.
This is the paradox of the season.
Many of us genuinely look forward to certain traditions: decorating, gathering, familiar rituals that anchor us. We also carry the very real logistics behind those moments—physical labor, emotional regulation, competing needs, time pressure, and fatigue.
It can be beautiful and overwhelming at the same time.
That tension doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re human.

The kids with Santa.
Sprout has enough hair for a tiny fountain ponytail and it is adorable.

Caregiving during the holidays amplifies burnout

Caregiving takes many forms:

• parenting
  
• supporting aging or ill family members
  
• caring for clients
  
• holding emotional space as a death doula, hospice worker, or end-of-life professional
  

All of it requires sustained emotional labor. All of it draws from your nervous system, your body, and your capacity to stay present.
During the holidays, that load often increases rather than decreases.
Add to that the expectations—internal and external—around making the season meaningful, peaceful, or “special,” and it’s no surprise that caregiver burnout becomes more intense this time of year.

Parker, our pup, has decided it’s snuggle season

​Grief and anticipatory grief don’t take the holidays off

For many caregivers, the holidays also carry grief.
Sometimes it’s the grief of someone who has already died. Sometimes it’s anticipatory grief—the ache of watching someone change, decline, or forget.
Even years after my grandmother died, I feel her absence more sharply during this season. Recently, while spending time with my grandfather, there were moments when he didn’t recognize me and spoke about my parents as if they were strangers. These experiences layer love and loss together in ways that are difficult to carry.
Grief doesn’t cancel joy—but it does make joy heavier.
If you feel both grateful and heartbroken, connected and alone, hopeful and exhausted, there is nothing wrong with you.

​When self-care stops working

Many caregivers already have strong self-care practices:

• getting enough sleep (when possible)
  
• movement
  
• meditation
  
• routines that usually help regulate stress
  

And yet, burnout still happens.
In a caregiver support circle I recently joined, I found myself naming something many caregivers experience:

“I know I’m burning out when all my normal self-care tools don’t seem to be working. It’s like I’m trying to fill my tank, but there’s a hole in it.”

A peer responded with words that landed deeply:

“Burnout isn’t because of something we’ve done or not done. Burnout is the sickness we catch from living here, in this place.”

This matters.
Burnout in caregiving is not a personal failure.
It is often a rational response to chronic stress, inadequate support, and systems that ask too much while offering too little.

The girls in their sled

You are not doing the holidays wrong

If you’re feeling “crispy around the edges” this season, consider this:

• Maybe you aren’t doing anything wrong.
  
• Maybe this season is genuinely hard.
  
• Maybe the supports available to you are not enough for what you’re carrying.
  
• Maybe burnout is a reasonable response to your circumstances, not a moral shortcoming.
  

If you feel pressure to make the holidays special because:

• this might be the last one
  
• illness is shaping the season
  
• things don’t look like what you imagined
  

That pressure makes sense.
And it’s okay if you can’t meet it all the time.

Community care matters more than perfect self-care

When your usual self-care tools feel stretched beyond capacity, it doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means the load you’re carrying exceeds what individual practices can hold.
This is where community care matters.
Being witnessed.
Asking for help.
Letting things be imperfect.
Allowing others to care for you, even in small ways.
Mutual support is not a luxury—it is often what makes caregiving sustainable.

A gentle reminder for caregivers and death-care workers

If you need permission this season, let this be it:

• You can lower the bar.
  
• You can let things be unfinished.
  
• You can honor grief without rushing past it.
  
• You can accept help.
  

And if moments of ease or joy show up—however briefly—let them count.
You are not doing the holidays wrong.
You are navigating a complicated season with care.