The Sunday Scaries Hit Harder in December

Published 13:04 20 Dec 2024 GMT

Sundays are supposedly a day of ‘rest.’ That is, if your idea of “rest” involves staring into the void of your laptop screen, pretending your to-do list is “future you’s problem,” and eating a meal made entirely of cheese and fear.

The "Sunday Scaries," for the blissfully unaware, is the internet’s silly term for that creeping sense of dread that comes knocking at 6 p.m. every Sunday. It’s like The Fear, but younger and rebranded for the internet age. But where the fear is more mounting anxiety, the Sunday Scaries have nothing to do with the drink and all to do with being part of the proletariat.

And then comes December—the final boss of the Gregorian calendar. The festive season is a marathon. A juncture marred by sparkling lights casting long, ominous shadows. In a time where Christmas bops try desperately to drown out the gnawing hum of existential panic. Mondays loom larger than ever. Especially the Monday after the office Christmas party. You’re still processing that you shook your arse in front of your boss and inexplicably put a tie around your head and you have to go back into the office and talk about not meeting your quotas. It’s just too much for one Sunday to bear.

December Sundays are a no-man’s-land—a grim purgatory between finishing last week’s work and avoiding the mountain of year end reviews that need to be done before the year actually ends next week. Honestly, who has time to be productive when you’re already booked solid? There’s 12 Pubs of Christmas, five secret Santas, four last-minute Dunnes runs, three work parties, two housemate catch-ups, and a partridge in Pearse Street station and an unidentified fault on the Luas.

If the Sunday Scaries are a beast, then December feeds it a steady diet of holiday excess, broken routines, and financial fallout. All things that science has proved only serve to heighten anxiety. Sundays always haunt the end of the week; but in December they demand we confront an entire year’s worth of unfinished business, unmet expectations, and wasted potential dialling the dread up to panic stations.

The pressure is unbearable. Close out the year strong! Be more festive! Save your last €50 for the artisan market at Dublin Castle because wouldn’t it be so cute if you bought everyone hand-knit tree decorations instead of boring socks? Never mind that those decorations cost more than your monthly bougie coffee subscription.

If you’re Gen Z, the dread is only sharper. 74% of Zoomers admit to feeling the Sunday Scaries at least once a month. Far outpacing even the anxiety riddled snowflake millennials of yore. Hyper-productivity culture has robbed them of the sacredness of weekends, leaving no room for pause—only catch-up. The economic system is rigged against us all, and they know it: wages are stagnant, housing is unaffordable, and the cost of living is obscene. Add in the digital chaos—notifications, side hustles, looming deadlines, hobby commodification—and the line between work and rest disappears entirely. Perfectly fertile ground for the Sunday Scaries beast to thrive.

It’s not just the young ‘wans who feel it. December is equality-of-dread season. For the women of Ireland, December is the ultimate unpaid internship in emotional labor: shopping lists, meal planning, familial peacekeeping. By Sunday night, the weight of seasonal demands settles like a lead blanket, leaving little room to breathe. You’re not ready for Monday. How has it come around so fast? Nothing feeds the Sunday Scaries like the weekend zipping by.

December Sundays magnify everything you’re avoiding. The emails. The bills. The ghost of New Year’s resolutions past. What happened to your grand plans for 2024? You were supposed to learn French, get fit, and maybe figure out how to afford an apartment that doesn’t have molud on the ceiling. Now, it’s the end of the year, and all you’ve achieved is getting banned from a pub for losing the run of yourself on your fourth flaming Sambuca.

Adding insult to injury, Instagram is here to remind you that everyone else is having a better time. While you’re battling your anxiety and a two-day mulled wine hangover, your feed is full of influencers grinning in matching Penneys Christmas PJs and posing in front of their Pinterest-perfect trees. Never mind that their “festive photo shoot” probably ended in tears and a screaming match over who ruined the fairy lights.

December Sundays are peak “compare and despair” season. They’re not about rest; they’re about reckoning. What you haven’t done. What you’ll never do. And what you can’t afford.

So what’s the solution? Burn the to-do list. Stop pretending you’re going to have a productive Sunday. The year’s basically over, and let’s be honest, so are you. Forget the gym, forget the emails, and embrace the fine Dublin tradition of curing existential dread with a toastie and a pint in Grogan’s.

December is not a race, and Sundays aren’t the finish line. The illusion that you need to “tie it all up in a bow” before the year ends is just that—an illusion. Sometimes, the bow is messy. And that’s okay.

Here’s your permission slip to log off, close the door, and spend your Sunday however you damn well please. Wear your oldest jumper. Eat your eighth Celebrations Miniature of the day. Even the worst Sunday is survivable with a bag of chips and a bit of craic.