But if I try to point to what it is I love so much about Christmas, it gets murky. Hochschild also gave us the “second shift”: the unpaid domestic and care work women take on after paid employment. Modern festivities operate on the assumption that women have endless hours to pipe royal icing onto structurally sound gingerbread like a yuletide tradwife. Call it the festive load, or the third shift: the disproportionate tasks needed to produce “the magic”. Cowan might as well have been writing about the festive season: every supposed shortcut simply widens the gap between “good enough” and “properly done”.

Source: The Irish Times December 07, 2025 17:00 UTC