We don't decorate until one week before Christmas. I enjoy the holidays, but I do not enjoy the melodramatic months long build-up. I want to eat my Thanksgiving turkey with a pumpkin on the table, not a pine wreath! I want the holidays to be something fun and relaxing instead of a huge pain in the butt.
Our family has accomplished that balance and I feel like I am becoming quite an expert on low-stress fun holiday experiences. There are so many family traditions and commercially mandated traditions (hello Elf on a Shelf!) that if you tried to do it all you wouldn't have any time to enjoy the company of your friends and family. Parents especially feel pressure to participate in a vast array of traditions that there seems little time to be still. Between chopping down your own forest tree to baking an alarming amount of sugar laden high fat treats, there seems to be little energy left for the things that actually matter.
Since I fancy myself an expert, I thought I would share some tips for making your holidays fun, low-stress occasions.
Traditions - If moving that little Elf around every night and exclaiming at the silliness is something you want to do, go with it. But try and establish some simple traditions that are unique and special to your family. We have a tradition of breaking plates on New Year's Eve. (long story) Each year we create a plate for each member of the family at one of those pottery places and use it for the year. Then at New Year's Eve we break the plates with the Hammer of Change (long story). The next morning the new plate is there at the breakfast table to greet everyone. Even though it is weird, no one else does it and that is what makes it special. Don't try and participate in every single holiday experience with the worry that your children will be missing out on some important piece of fun if you leave something out. They just want to hang out with you and do something memorable. Keep that in mind! Choose a few things or even just one thing that you will do every year and have that be your tradition. Ignore the extraneous.
Food - If you hate to cook, don't. If you love to cook, don't overdo it. If you have family members that want to help with the cooking, let them. If you prefer a restaurant, eat there. I tend to go overboard with the cooking and baking. This Thanksgiving I had awesome help in the form of my sister-in-laws and we had a great time pie-baking and prepping Thanksgiving dinner. I took a deep breath this Christmas and decided I would dedicate only one day to holiday baking. Know your limits and involve the other members of the family as much as possible.
Gifts - Give gifts out of love, not obligation. It is not a contest. I don't have much to say about setting a budget or the shopping aspect because that varies so much by family. We do a lot of shopping online and our Christmas shopping consists of taking the kids to the toy store and asking them to point out what they want. One of us then takes the kids out to ice cream or something and the other buys one or two gifts for each kid from the ones they expressed interest in and we are done. My husband and I do not formally exchange gifts. We will typically pick out a few things that we both want and buy those. The best part is we wrap those things up and open them on Christmas morning and act totally surprised! We each have five brothers and sisters plus numerous nieces and nephews and both of our families have developed nice, affordable methods of doing gift exchanges without making everyone feel obligated to buy 30 presents every year. Do not let the stress of gift exchanges dictate what you buy. If you do not have the money to buy expensive presents, then don't. You can let your loved ones know what they mean to you with a nice handwritten letter or homemade gift and if they don't appreciate your efforts than they are surely the ones in need of some holiday spirit.
I feel like I have given a nice long lecture to everyone which really helps me scratch that teacher itch I get now and then. I have many more tips and advice, but I'll stop there for your sake and mine.
Happy Holidays!
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