That Santa Baby Kim Kardashian Video vs Our Real Holiday Chaos

I was standing dead in the center of my mother-in-law's aggressively pine-scented living room in December 2017, wearing a pair of black maternity leggings that still had a crusty white streak of spit-up down the left thigh, clutching a mug of coffee I had already microwaved three separate times. Maya was barely four months old, and she was screaming a very specific, high-pitched, I-am-losing-my-absolute-mind scream that only happens when a baby has been passed between fourteen different relatives who all smell like various harsh floral perfumes and peppermint schnapps.

My husband Dave was in the kitchen eating a meatball, completely oblivious.

I remember just staring at the twinkling, flashing, headache-inducing strobe lights on the tree and thinking, well, this was a massive mistake. I had dressed her in this stiff, scratchy velvet dress that she clearly hated, dragged her out of her nap schedule because I felt obligated to show off my little festive prop, and now we were both miserable.

I mean, if you’ve seen the viral Santa baby Kim Kardashian video that’s been everywhere lately, you know what I’m talking about with holiday weirdness. The one where she's crawling through this bizarre, hazard-filled, snowy dystopian holiday party? It’s peak internet fodder. But her version of unhinged holiday chaos is heavily produced and aesthetic, whereas my version involved actual bodily fluids, sleep deprivation, and me silently crying in a guest bathroom while hiding from my own family.

Anyway, the point is, nobody warns you that the holidays with a newborn are basically just a sensory nightmare disguised as forced joy.

What my doctor said about fried nervous systems

When I took Maya in for her checkup right before the holidays, I asked Dr. Miller how to keep her from turning into a screaming tomato at family gatherings. She told me something about babies having totally underdeveloped nervous systems and limited cortisol thresholds, or something scientific like that? I don't really understand the exact neurobiology of it, honestly. I just know she said that for a baby, a loud room full of shifting faces and flashing lights is basically the equivalent of you standing in the middle of a heavy metal concert while people randomly pinch your cheeks.

She said they just short-circuit. They literally can't process that much input at once.

Dave always thought we could just put those giant noise-canceling headphones on her and call it a day, but Dr. Miller suggested establishing a "safe room." Basically, the second you arrive at whatever chaotic relative's house you're visiting, you claim a dark, quiet bedroom. You just declare it yours. When the baby starts doing that thing where they turn their head away from people, or clench their tiny fists, or suddenly look weirdly sleepy when they shouldn't be, you just take them in there and sit in the dark for twenty minutes.

It sounds anti-social, but honestly? Sitting alone in a dark room scrolling on my phone away from my Uncle Gary's political opinions was the best part of the party anyway.

The bizarre toilet paper roll rule

Let's talk about the floor. If you've a baby who's crawling, a holiday living room is basically an obstacle course of death. Dave has this weird obsession with collecting these tiny, fragile, vintage glass ornaments that look like they would shatter if you just breathed on them too hard.

Dr. Miller taught us this trick that I thought was a joke at first. She said to take an empty toilet paper roll tube and walk around the house. If any piece of holiday decor, ornament, or random festive plastic crap can fit inside that cardboard tube, it's a choking hazard and needs to be moved to a shelf where a baby can't physically reach it.

I spent an entire afternoon shoving miniature decorative snowmen into a toilet paper tube. I felt insane. But it turns out almost everything on the bottom half of our tree was a choking hazard.

The time Dave destroyed a greeting card

But the absolute worst offenders are the musical greeting cards. Oh my god, I can't express the depth of my hatred for these things. My Aunt Susan brought one over for Leo’s first Christmas. It had this tiny little button battery inside, which, by the way, Dr. Miller told us can cause fatal internal burns in like two hours if a baby swallows one. Terrifying.

But beyond the mortal danger, this specific card played a tinny, high-pitched, electronic version of "Jingle Bell Rock" that would NOT STOP. Maya thought it was hilarious to keep opening it, and Leo kept trying to chew on the cardboard, getting his drool directly into the battery compartment. The music started glitching. It was just this demonic, stuttering jingle bell sound echoing through our house.

Dave finally snapped at 2 AM. He took the card out to the garage, placed it on his workbench, and literally smashed the little speaker mechanism with a hammer until it died. We found pieces of glitter and crushed cardboard out there until Easter.

Oh, and poinsettias are toxic so just throw them directly in the garbage and move on with your life.

Why holiday outfits are mostly garbage

Every year, the stores roll out these elaborate, itchy, synthetic holiday outfits. If you're going for that whole trendy Baby K aesthetic, you might be tempted by the sequins and the tulle and the little stiff collars. I beg you, don't do it.

Maya had horrible eczema her first year. If I even looked at a polyester blend, she broke out in angry red hives all over her stomach. The scratchy velvet dress I shoved her into for that 2017 party was a disaster. She overheated instantly because those cheap fabrics don't breathe at all.

I ended up completely ditching the fancy outfits. The only thing that actually worked for us without causing a massive skin flare-up was dressing her in organic basics. My absolute favorite staple became the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit Sleeveless Infant Onesie from Kianao. It sounds so boring compared to a tiny tuxedo, but honestly? It’s 95% organic cotton, undyed, with no scratchy tags.

When we were in a hot, crowded living room with the fireplace blasting, she didn't get that gross heat rash on the back of her neck because the cotton actually breathed. We just layered it under a soft cardigan, and she was so much happier. Plus, organic cotton is grown without the weird pesticides, which made my paranoid first-time-mom brain feel slightly better when she inevitably decided to suck on the collar of her own shirt for thirty minutes straight.

If you actually want your kid to be comfortable, skip the synthetic Santa costumes. You can browse more stuff that won't make your kid break out in hives over in the Kianao organic baby clothes collection.

The aesthetic toy trap

When Leo came along, I was obsessed with getting him those beautiful, minimalist wooden toys. The kind that look amazing on a perfectly curated Instagram feed. We got the Wooden Baby Gym | Rainbow Play Gym Set with Animal Toys.

I'll be totally honest here. It's gorgeous. The natural wood, the muted earthy tones, the little elephant hanging down—it looks so much better in my living room than those massive neon plastic things that play farm animal noises at maximum volume.

But Leo was just kind of... indifferent to it? I don't know if he was just a lazy baby, but he would lay under it, stare at the wooden ring for about five minutes, occasionally bat at it with a chubby fist, and then just fall asleep. It didn't exactly buy me hours of free time to cook holiday meals like I foolishly thought it would. It's a nice, safe, non-toxic piece of gear, and I appreciate that it didn't overstimulate him, but don't expect it to be a magical babysitter.

Teething during the holidays is just cruel

What did capture Leo's attention entirely was teething. His first teeth decided to violently push their way through his gums right around Thanksgiving, and by Christmas, he was drooling like a mastiff and trying to gnaw on the edges of our coffee table.

Everything went into his mouth. Wrapping paper. Ribbons. My car keys.

We finally got him the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy, and it was the only thing that stopped the constant, low-level whining. It's made of food-grade silicone, so I didn't have to panic about him ingesting whatever toxic paint is flaking off cheap dollar-store toys.

The best part is that you can throw it in the fridge. We would chill it for like fifteen minutes while we were packing the diaper bag, and by the time we got to whatever family dinner we were dreading, the cold silicone would seriously numb his inflamed little gums for a bit. He loved the textured parts. I loved that I could just toss it in the dishwasher at the end of the night when I was too tired to see straight.

Look, the holidays with a newborn are never going to be perfectly peaceful. There will be crying, there will be inappropriate comments from relatives, and your coffee will always be cold. But if you dress them in something that doesn't itch, hide all the chokeable garbage, and occasionally retreat to a dark room, you might genuinely get to eat a slice of pie in peace.

If you're desperately looking for safe, non-toxic things to shove in your kid's mouth so they stop chewing on your furniture, check out Kianao's full collection of teething toys and wooden play gyms before the holiday chaos completely takes over.

Messy questions I get asked all the time

Do we really have to go to every family party?

Absolutely not. Oh god, I wish someone had told me this with Maya. You have a baby. That's the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. Just text everyone that the baby had a massive blowout or hasn't slept in two days (which is probably true anyway) and stay home in your sweatpants. Nobody wants a screaming, overtired infant at their party anyway.

How do I stop my relatives from kissing the baby's face?

You have to be brutally awkward about it. Dave is terrible at this, he just awkwardly smiles while his great-aunt aggressively smooches the baby's cheeks. I finally just started wearing the baby in a carrier strapped to my chest. It creates a physical barricade. If they lean in, you just pivot your torso and offer them your shoulder instead. Blame the doctor. "Dr. Miller said absolutely no faces near the baby, sorry!"

Are glass ornaments really that dangerous if they're up high?

The problem isn't the ornament when it's on the tree, the problem is when the cat knocks it down or the pine needles dry out and it drops on the carpet and shatters into microscopic invisible daggers. Dave still insists on keeping his stupid vintage glass ones, but we literally zip-tied them to the very top branches so they can't fall.

What if my baby won't sleep in the "safe room" at someone else's house?

They probably won't, to be honest. Maya never honestly napped in those strange bedrooms, she mostly just nursed and glared at the ceiling fan. But that's fine. The point isn't really to get them to sleep a full REM cycle, it's just to get them out of the noise for twenty minutes so their tiny brain stops vibrating. Even just sitting in the dark and chewing on a silicone panda for a bit helps reset their mood.