This year I felt like I took on board two absolutely obvious Christmas lessons that apparently I have to keep learning again and again:
1. Christmas doesn’t always have to be the same. What seems DELIGHTFUL and IMPORTANT one year can be totally different than what seems delightful and important the next year.
2. It’s a good idea to have a few little good-for-anyone gifts around.
I kept feeling like Something Was Wrong because we weren’t watching as many Christmas movies, or because this year I couldn’t find A Book for Each Stocking the way I have in the past—but we don’t have to do it the same every year, and in fact if the past few years have taught me anything it’s that FLEXIBILITY IS VALUABLE: if it isn’t a set-in-stone tradition that we absolutely must have chocolate oranges every year, then it is not so upsetting if chocolate oranges are not available. And just in general: there is no reason to waste time and effort and money on things we don’t even want, just because we used to want them, or think we ought to want them.
You can do new-Christmas-pajamas-on-Christmas-Eve OCCASIONALLY if you want: it doesn’t have to be EVERY SINGLE YEAR until every bureau drawer in the house is filled with nothing but Christmas pajamas. You can do an expensive and work-intensive customized advent calendar ONCE if you want, or ONLY when you have the time/inspiration, and do $2 cheap-chocolate-a-day calendars on other years. You can set up a card table and put out a Christmas puzzle just on the years when you feel like it. You can buy books only for the kids who like books, without having to make everyone’s presents match, or make everyone’s presents fit a little rhyme. You can buy tickets for an expensive Christmas performance ONCE, without having to do it every single year. Etc.
And you can do it this way EVEN IF other people in your household express disappointment that you are not putting in all the time and money and effort to make these things happen for them every single year! You can say merrily “Oh, yes, wasn’t that fun, the year we did that? Maybe we’ll do that again another year!” Or, if you are speaking to another adult in your household, you can say merrily “Oh, yes, wasn’t that fun? It’s not on my to-do list for this year, but you can go ahead if you think it would be fun to do again!”
As for the supply of little general-purpose gifties, this wasn’t something I would have done in our poorer years, because I think it only works if you’re fine with having some of the things unused. But this year by accident I overbought and/or overreceived a few things that happened to be perfect for this: a box of chocolate-covered mint marshmallows from Trader Joe’s; a bag of Lindt truffles; extra candy and extra individual Milano cookie packets from the stockings. I had put those things aside in a bag to Figure Out What To Do With Later. Also into the Figure Out Later bag I’d dropped some miscellaneous things: the too-pretty-to-throw-out-OR-ARE-THEY? golden net bags the Trader Joe’s chocolate coins came in; some pretty tissue paper from received gift bags; etc.
So then when I was putting out the gift card for the mail carrier, my eye fell upon the Figure Out Later bag and I added one of the little pretty golden net bags filled with a packet of Milano cookies and some of the Lindt truffles and extra stocking candy. And when I was putting together the gift bag for my workplace Secret Santa assignment, I added a handful of Lindt truffles just for flair. It didn’t feel NECESSARY in any way, so it’s not something I’d recommend if money is tight; but it did feel FESTIVE and FUN. (And, if money IS tight, I’ll mention that about half of my Figure Out Later bag was made up of things I was given / couldn’t use, and things-that-came-free-with-other-things like the Trader Joe’s coin bags, and things that were extra after I divided things up for stockings.)
YES THIS!
“Oh, yes, wasn’t that fun, the year we did that? Maybe we’ll do that again another year!” Or… “Oh, yes, wasn’t that fun? It’s not on my to-do list for this year, but you can go ahead if you think it would be fun to do again!”
🙌
The truth of this is just beautiful.
Thank you for this, it really helped me. I was so exhausted from hosting – and, as it turned out, coming down with COVID – that I was too overwhelmed to get out the Nerf guns and have a Nerf gun war, or play board games, or otherwise do Fun Christmas Things. Maybe next year.
Oh, this is so wise. My family had so many traditions when I was growing up that I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of WE MUST, but… sometimes it just doesn’t work out! Sometimes it isn’t fun, to fold and squash and force life into a tradition shaped box! And while I do sometimes mourn the lack of Every Single Time traditions, I kind of like that now I don’t feel like we MUST see The Nutcracker every year; it’s fine to see it every few years. We don’t HAVE TO make the exact same cookies every year, if other cookies sound better. We can have a Traditional Dinner that we make when one set of grandparents are here, and a Traditional Dinner we make with the other set, too!
The thing that you mention that gives me the most angst, though, is the responding merrily to others. “Responding merrily” instead of aggravatedly is probably something I need to work on, in general, but I could see myself getting quite shrill if I were doing all this work of being flexible and rolling with the tides etc. and my family asked why we weren’t doing something we always did. Sigh. I suppose that kind of thing falls under the category of “you can’t change other people’s behavior, only your own reaction” but knowing that doesn’t make it easier.
I think I’m a peace with showing my annoyance. If it’s THAT important to you, do it your own self. This person doesn’t need any more items on her ever expanding list.
I’m also grumpy about Christmas in general and then this stuf and &@*{£~}’&7&’%£^¥#¥#
‘Sometimes it isn’t fun, to fold and squash and force life into a tradition shaped box! ‘
Yes! This!
I love your Figure it Out Later bag. This year I have a Sort it Out Later bin, that is, I’ve been carelessly tossing decorations and stockings in the storage bin as we finish with them, to be organized Later, when the trees come down. No point in trying yet.
Also, this year I realized something: I don’t like red and green together. I do like them when there is also purple or pink, or a less crayon shade of green, so I’m going to get rid of some decorations that I don’t like and keep an eye out for ones that I do. Because I am a grownup and I can do Christmas however I want.
YES!
Yes! This was the first year that one of my kids wasn’t home for Christmas. We always spend the night Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my mother in law’s, but she moved to a townhome after 30 years in a big house, so that was strange. Then I came down with a stomach bug (plus it had been a rough fall for multiple reasons). I really pared down the traditions, and everyone seemed to understand. I asked specifically which things were most important, and tried to delegate more than usual. It actually went well, until my son also came down with the stomach bug. But truly, while I admire people who can do it all and stay sane, I am ready to accept my imperfect self and focus on the things that are important to me and that I do well. So I say now – I may need to paste this in my calendar for Christmas 2023.
As to the figure it out later bag being filled with some stuff that you had been given- yes. I have never received a handier gift than the year I received a Starbucks gift card on the same day that the beloved babysitter who had moved out of state and I was not expecting texted to say she was dropping by in a few minutes with lovely gifts for my children. I intended to use the gift card! But. It was WAAAAAY more useful and wonderful to me as an emergency gift. I sometimes hold back nice food gifts for that reason too. I’d love to eat them! If I don’t need them.
Our entire four person household (one toddler!) had been hideously sick since a week before Christmas, with no end in sight. High delirious fevers, deep horrible coughing, migraines, crushing fatigue. I wrapped the kids’ gifts with a 102 fever and had to take weeping breaks.
The only good thing is that it is really highlighting the Christmas things we miss and the things we don’t give a Fuzzy Frick about.
Missing: Going for a walk to see neighborhood lights, making baked goods, listening to pretty music and setting up on Christmas eve, seeing family on Christmas Day
Not a frick: Christmas cards, any public events, big elaborate meals, dressing up to take pictures
This sounds so awful. I wish I knew you so that I could send you one of those care packages that come with soup, cookies, etc. I hope everyone is feeling better.
This year, Christmas was a really thrown together at the last minute kind of affair (and it was fine). If someone in this house had complained (or even just mentioned in passing) about something that we normally do, didn’t get done this year I swear, I would have slapped them and then promptly fell to the floor in tears.
With luck, next year I’ll be a little more ahead of the curve. I hope.
Swistle, what were your favorite gifts to receive this year?
Smart lessons that are so true. We could not find chocolate oranges this year, did not look hard either. The tradition from my childhood was a box of orange sticks (chocolate covered gelled orange). While I miss the orange sticks they mostly gace way for other things later, and the chocolate oranges have not always been there either.
We keep wanting to go to that one big Christmas show but this has not worked out for maybe 7 or 8 years. This year was just not possible with Sherri still recovering from her PE. Once upon a time I tried to go to a performance of Nutcracker every year, nice tradition that is also expensive and takes a lot of time and planning in an already busy season. This year we did have the time, in fact absolutely everything was relaxed and simple.
We never purposely make sure we have extra generic gifts, but this year we did have a few and it worked out well. We happened to have a few extra things that fit the bill very well, and they were needed for a couple of surprise gifts.
My kids are still pretty young at 7 and 12, and my husband grew up in a communist country with a *very* small Christmas that happened on New Years. His gift to me is only commenting positively on my “making magic”, being my stage hand for the major events, and biting his tongue about the hoopla. So, Christmas is definitely my show. This year, early in December, I asked my kids what they thought of when they thought of Christmas traditions. Not everything I thought would make the list did, and frankly a few things I thought of as “extra” turned out to be really important to them. It was a great conversation to have. I was under the weather the week before Christmas, and with that conversation in mind I was able to easily set priorities and spend my energy where it counted. I jettisoned some activities that hadn’t made the list, and just three days after Christmas I can honestly only think of one of them. No one missed them.
It really depends on your kid, but for us, asking was the way to go!
I’m unemployed this year so I checked in with the kid about what we traditions were most meaningful to him and we prioritized those. Obviously that won’t work if you CAN”T do something they want, but it was helpful for us this year.
This is year #26 that I’ve been responsible for every aspect of our family’s Christmas magic. I’m so tired.
Love this post. Christmas looked a bit different for us this year because of a lot of sickness in the lead-up (and aftermath). Some things we do every year simply didn’t get done and it’s okay. But it can feel like failure to not do every single tradition every year. But the math doesn’t work well, because I find each year we do something new and think: we should do this every year. And there isn’t enough time and energy to go around, so I’m committed to being more flexible with what we do/when. It doesn’t have to be a cookie cutter Christmas to be wonderful.
And I love, love, love having a few generic – but nice – gifts on hand. Every Christmas season I think of someone or we get invited to something last minute and it’s nice to not have to go panic buy something at the store, but simply peruse my little stash of items at home (usually purchased on sale, or duplicates we’ve received etc).
We had Covid at Christmas (brought home by my husband and daughter who likely were exposed at one of her hockey events) and missed the yearly fancy lunch with my dad, Christmas eve dinner with my dad’s side, Christmas day brunch and gifts and nibbling with my mom, etc.
But we did the usual Christmas stuff with my mom on New Year’s Eve instead, we did turkey dinner with her last night, and tonight we’re doing pizza and gift exchanges with my dad’s side, and while that last would seem to be kind of a letdown, my stepmother is the world’s worst cook and everyone is enthused that we’re ordering pizza instead of having one of her elaborate meals. And the weather here was so terrible on the day we were scheduled for fancy lunch, no one felt safe driving so it didn’t happen for anyone anyway. I’m not glad everyone had to miss it, but I’m still sort of glad we don’t feel like only we missed out.
2021 and 2022 were the years of just not doing a lot of the things that we had done in previous years for different reasons: in 2021 my in-laws took the whole family to Hawaii (a trip that had been planned for 2020 but…) My kids are teens and no longer believe in Santa so there was no way I was hauling all of Christmas to Hawaii so we just did it much smaller when we got home. This year Oldest barely got home in time for Christmas and Youngest was sick just before Christmas so we ran out of time and the inclination to do things like watch a bunch of Christmas movies/bake a ton of stuff/do a Christmas card etc and it was just fine. On the one hand, I kind of miss the Christmas magic vibe we had when my kids were young and believed. On the other, MAN is it easier to have everyone sleep until 10 and then open gifts and not worry about making everything magical etc. Changing Christmas traditions here I come!
1) A lot of these lessons seem more common from your baby name side of things. ;) Sometimes it’s okay to skip a tradition and move things around to make people happy or peaceful, yes? XD
2) The key, I’ve learned, is to have a Specific Box that you out very cheap gifts in. For example, me, and post-Christmas sales. I have $2 fluffy socks and $2.50 mittens, bonus gift cards and clearance gift bags, hair scrunchies and one very cute scarf I might, actually, steal for myself. XD But it’s the key for me because I need to plan Christmas a year ahead or I do everything last minute.