I’m not sure if I’m said this recently, but I LOVE Christmas! Tsh from Simple Mom recently posted her thoughts about Santa Claus on her personal blog, and while we do things a little bit differently (there’s a brief summary of how we do it as the first comment on this post), I absolutely share her love of Christmas as a cultural celebration. Don’t get me wrong, we believe that Jesus is the reason and all that and we focus on celebrating His birth, but I also love Christmas all by itself.
Here’s a bit of what she says:
I love Christmas. Always have – I’m pretty Rockwellian on the subject. But Christmas is a cultural rite, a ritual that’s seeped far more in anthropology than in theology. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – I love fireworks on the fourth of July, and I love hearing the Texas Fight song on UT-A&M game day. All American, cultural rituals.
She put into words exactly how I feel about it!
Because I do love Christmas, I refuse – refuse! – to get stressed out about it. I just don’t want Christmas to be about meeting expectations or trying to create the perfect Christmas memory, and I don’t want my girls’ memories to be of the Momzilla who emerged every year in an effort to get it all done.
Obviously this year has been a rough build up to Christmas (quick recap – 3 weeks of the stomach flu with various colds mixed in, a lifelong friend passed away, Sean’s grandma passed away and I miscarried, all since Thanksgiving). I’m sure no one would blame me if I just wasn’t feelin’ it this year. But you know what? In some ways I’m glad this has all happened during Christmas because it has given us something to look forward to and a reminder to celebrate in the midst of it all.
That said, there is no doubt that I’ve had to simplify along the way, and I wanted to share a little bit about how I did that with you to encourage you that it IS okay to simplify, even at this stage in the game!
To start, we declared that this year would be a “Handmade Christmas.” Since I work at home full-time and have three little ones, that means I started early, even before I put our Christmas tree up (which is really early since our tree has been up for almost 2 months now!).
I made a list of all the handmade gifts I’d like to make, the supplies I needed, etc. I sketched out a rough “schedule” of what I’d have to get done each week to stay on task.
As time has gone, though, I’ve simply had to cut back.
The big girls aren’t getting rag dolls this Christmas. Sweet Doodle will get hers, and the big girls will get their baby doll accessories and cradles, but I just ran out of time to finish the rag dolls (and hairless, faceless rag dolls with lumpy heads would be kind of scary!), so I’ll save them for a special “just because I love you” gift sometime in the coming months.
Do I feel bad? No, not really. I want them to have these dolls, but I don’t feel bad that they won’t get them on Christmas. Truth be told, they’re probably still going to receive more toys and presents from us and their grandparents than any child needs. And even if they weren’t, we work really hard at teaching our girls to be grateful for the gifts and blessings they do receive, and I don’t believe that having lots of gifts on Christmas morning is what will make them happy anyway.
Along those same lines, I had several gifts planned for our parents and grandparents, but I had to eliminate one of them just because I knew I was running out of time.
And then this week I emailed some of my best friends and told them that unfortunately I was not going to finish the Christmas baking I had started and that for the first time since Pumpkin Doodle was born, I would not be sending out Christmas goodies. That was the saddest one for me, because it wasn’t just about cutting back to give less, but they actually won’t be getting anything now. But my friends are awesome, and they of course understood!
Oh, and my mom and I decided that for Christmas meals this year, we’ll have omelettes for breakfast, soup and sandwiches for lunch…and frozen pizza for dinner. No running around the kitchen trying to prepare a Christmas dinner when we could be cuddling with the girls on the couch watching Wall-E (our new favorite movie!) instead.
We will still be logging close to 12 hours of drive time between Christmas Eve and the 26th to visit family, but by simplifying at home, that seems a lot less stressful to me than it might have otherwise.
I know we’re only 5 days from Christmas at this point, but if you’re feeling the stress and you’ve stopped enjoying Christmas, I encourage you to sit down and figure out what things you can eliminate and how you could make your life easier so that you can enjoy your children and families this week. Let’s not lose sight of what’s important!
