Making It to the End of the Year on Fumes

A reflection on December exhaustion, functional freeze, and why the nervous system asks for more quiet this time of year

If I am completely honest with you, December is the hardest month of the year for me. It is a month that is rife with echoes of old trauma and deep grief that wells up amidst what is supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year”. So while our schedule is filling up with Christmas parties, family get togethers, holiday sing-alongs at school, trying to find the right gifts for everyone and traditions that are long held within our families, I usually feel like I am in a pressure cooker trying to keep moving forward without letting my less cheery bit seep out around the edges.

Year after year, I notice the same pattern. I grow increasingly weary and on edge, and by the time Christmas Eve arrives, I feel ragged and worn. I’m like those cartoons you see where the car coasts across the finish line banged up, missing a wheel, and running on fumes. I have nothing left to give and am quietly holding back what could very well turn into an epic sobfest.

This is also the time of year when I find myself daydreaming about escape.

Earlier in my career I worked for a company that was based in Georgia that invited everyone to the office for a few days of working together in person and for the annual Christmas party. It was always genuinely fun and festive… full of good food and drinks, a themed white-elephant gift exchange, and a highly competitive gingerbread house build affectionately called “Gingerbuild” where I once watched my boss and his wife create a fully functioning carousel out of just gingerbread and candy.

But none of that was what I looked forward to most.

At the time, I was a single mom raising a wonderfully “spirited” preschooler. As much as I loved him, I also deeply loved those few days away to catch my breath. Each year, before my plane even touched the ground in Atlanta, I had already planned one perfect, unscheduled evening. I’d grab my favorite takeout on the way to the hotel after a long but good day of work, and by 7 p.m. I would be nestled into a quiet, clean hotel room — alone — for an entire glorious evening.

No talking required.
No caring for anyone.
No cleaning beyond throwing away the empty takeout container.

In the years since leaving that job, I still find myself thinking about what those evenings did for my mental and emotional health. Last year, I even seriously considered using our hotel points for a night away alone at the Embassy Suites just a few minutes from our house.

What I understand now, that I didn’t always have language for then, is that this pull toward solitude wasn’t me being antisocial, ungrateful, or “too much.” It was my nervous system asking for fewer inputs. Less noise. Less responsibility. Less tracking of other people’s needs. A chance to downshift.

Looking back, I can see that in that season of my life, I was often living in what we might call functional freeze. I was still showing up, still doing what needed to be done, but running on very little reserve. On the outside, life kept moving and I was keeping up the pace, meeting or exceeding what others expected of me, often seeming unbothered or like I was completely fine. On the inside, my system was quietly shutting down and conserving energy wherever it could.

When the nervous system has been carrying grief, old trauma, or simply too much demand for too long, togetherness can begin to feel like pressure instead of connection. Even good things require energy: conversation, eye contact, decision-making, emotional presence. By December, my system is often already working hard just to stay regulated, and the desire to be alone is less about escape and more about relief.

In somatic work, we talk about capacity not as a moral quality, but as a biological one. Capacity fluctuates. It shrinks under stress and expands with safety and rest. For many of us, December drains capacity faster than we can replenish it, and functional freeze becomes a very adaptive way of getting through. We have to keep showing up and functioning but our nervous systems do so by narrowing, conserving energy, and limiting anything that isn’t strictly necessary. What we’re often left with is a body hanging on by a thread, bracing for impact, pulling inward, and holding itself together just enough to get through the day.

There’s something deeply regulating about a quiet hotel room because it offers exactly what nervous systems in that state tend to need most: Time and space. Predictability. Low demand. Permission to stop performing. No one needs anything from you. Nothing is unfinished. Your body can finally exhale.

I’m sharing this with you not to say that everyone needs to disappear for a night in December, but to normalize the impulse. If you find yourself feeling the need for more quiet, more space, or fewer conversations this time of year, it doesn’t mean something is wrong. It might just mean your nervous system is asking for a little less input and a little more care.

If this resonates, you might simply notice where your nervous system is asking for time and space and see what becomes possible when you offer a little of both. And if you happen to have hotel points collecting dust, that might be one way to listen. Who knows… I might see you in the lobby.