Holidays can be beautiful and fun, but they can also be a strain – especially for the people responsible for making that beauty and fun happen. For example, a new survey from the meditation app Calm found that 83% of millennial moms say carrying the mental load of the holidays is stressful.
Calm referred to moms as “chief magic officers” during the holiday season. Overall 65% of moms said pressure to make holiday celebrations “perfect” is overwhelming, with 76% who at least feel the pressure to make things perfect and 50% who said they feel more pressure this year compared to last year.
“For many moms, the holidays add a new layer to an already full mental load,” said Calm. It noted that moms are often in charge of everything from coordinating travel and school events to planning gifts, meals, and “magical moments.”
In fact, Calm found that hearing certain words can make a mom’s heart start to race. Here are the top stress words it found:
· 74% said budgeting
· 68% said holiday shopping
· 64% said delayed shipping
· 59% said mental load
· 58% said hosting, (and nearly two-thirds said having guests over is even more stressful than wrapping gifts)
Calm’s survey is the latest installment of its “Not Calm Moms” campaign that highlights the pressures on mothers. To help support moms, it is also releaseing guided practices led by expert Mel Mah.
While this survey focused on mothers, other research has shown that the holidays can be stressful for all adults. Earlier this month, Audacy reported on Deloitte’s 2025 Holiday Retail Survey, which found that 59% of local shoppers say gift-buying is stressful, “especially when shopping for people who seem to have everything.”