I wish I could après-ski for the holidays.

Festive financial stress, the benefits of envy, and how to follow your alpine desires on a budget.

Left: (Halfdays), Right: (Slim Aarons)

This time every year it seems I’m asked the same question over and over: “What are you doing for the holidays?” It starts creeping up in late November and then runs rampant through the streets by the second week of December. Co-workers, friends, family members, the cashiers at my local grocer—everyone is tired of talking about the weather so they switch the script over to holiday plans.

This is an innocent enough question to ask someone, even a stranger. Yet, with social media comparisons and the constant advertising of ‘bigger, better, more’, this age-old time filler can start to feel like a judgement. As if we’re being asked to provide something impressive or opulent. I would undoubtedly love to answer this popular query with: “I’ll be renting a chalet up in the mountains, escaping my digital life for weeks, and gracefully following in the slope style fashions of Princess Diana, Brigitte Bardot, and Jackie Kennedy.” So for people such as myself who don’t have an international flight booked or a set of skis in the closet that have been counting down the days since their last annual trip to frosted peaks, this question can bring up some personal stress around finances. I’ve spent years feeling like a bore, feeling ‘behind’ for someone my age, and feeling envious of those who can afford to celebrate Christmas like the late great Gatsby. But more recently I have accepted my ski-less winters and reframed my relationship with comparison, judgement, and the green eyed monster.

You see, I have many aesthetic kryptonites and après-ski happens to be one of them. Even though I can’t afford to hit the slopes for the holidays, I still dream about that luxurious lodge lifestyle. Something about the chic alpine villages of Norway and Aspen start calling to me once December rolls in. I’ve been told that I’m drawn to a lifestyle outside my means, and that has proven to be true many times over. When people say this, they imply it’s a negative quality or a dangerous habit that I should be careful of, and I feel obligated to correct this belief. Although this can be true for some (and even myself in the past), when your relationship to envy is healthy, it can lead you to possibilities and opportunities you once didn’t think possible.

Left: (Casablanca Ski Club), Right: (Hand Luggage Only)

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Let’s talk about this ‘deadly sin’ and the bad societal reputation it has for a moment. We are often taught to feel shame about our envy, referring to it as unsavoury or malicious. Envy is a feeling than can come up when someone has something, or is doing something, that we would like for ourselves. Instagram is really good at bringing this feeling up, causing the user to start desiring the lives their peers are living. In an unhealthy situation, envy can make us want to tear others down—even people we care about. Nobody wants to be at the very bottom, so you might feel like discrediting people who are more successful than you, or putting them down so that you’re on a more equal level. A healthy relationship to envy however, is about noticing role models and fuelling your desires to better yourself—climbing up the mountain to your own successes.

So how do we avoid damaging behaviour and turn envy into something beneficial?