Christmas and New Year’s can be the most exciting, eventful and stressful times of the year. The whole month of December can rush by in a whirl leaving you freaked out by January 1st – if you aren’t careful with your holiday plans. Here I’ll share some of my Christmas tips on creating traditions, staying true to yourself and keeping it simple.
The notion of our society for things to be better and bigger, and have more stuff plays to the nth degree at Christmas time. Your neighbor has an icicle lined roof – you want an icicle roof. Your friend gets a new necklace for the holiday party – you want a new necklace. The kids have a mile long list of specific things they want – you run crazily from store to store looking for them. The Christmas dinner – oysters, a roast and a 10 layer cake – not to mention the parties in the weeks leading up to Christmas and all the cookies, cakes and chocolate treats. Somehow Christmas has lead to overindulgence in every area of our lives.
Now don’t get me wrong I am not pooh-poohing on Christmas – just the ever increasingly materialist nature of it.
For years I got caught up in it too. The presents, the decorations, the cookies… and for a long time I didn’t even know what I was celebrating. Was I celebrating my family and how much I loved them? Yes, but if I didn’t know the meaning behind all the celebration why didn’t I just do all this craziness in July? Until I started to learn more about God and Jesus – Christmas was nothing more than a commercial celebration of overindulgence to me. Now that I am actually celebrating the birth of Jesus it is so much easier to set limits on Christmas. I don’t need to have it all – I don’t need a million lights in my front yard, I don’t need to buy the most expensive gifts, and I don’t even need to make a million cookies. I have limits. I have a budget. And I keep the real meaning of Christmas in the forefront of my mind – as it is so easy to get swept up into the craziness of it all.
Somehow at the turn of the millennium everyone got PC – not a computer – but politically correct. When I was growing up in the 80’s everyone said Merry Christmas and wrote it on their cards – today you hear Happy Holidays! Ugh! The fact is people are fearful – afraid to rock the boat. Do you really think a riot will start if you said Merry Christmas to a Jewish family by mistake? No – hopeful they would kindly say “we’re Jewish” and you would say “well then, Happy Hanukah” – you all smile and everyone would be fine!
Our country was founded “One Nation Under God” and now God has been taken out of so many things – by the way, are they still trying to take Him off our currency? Even where I live in the Bible Belt, I still sense that people live in the PC world, not wanting to talk about their faith.
Well Christian, Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical – what have you – you’ll find a bunch of people that believe in God, and what God stands for, including the good rules of life as stated in the commandments. Simple rules to protect us all. But in our PC world where people want to take God out of everything, and not follow His rules we end up hurt and lost.
So if more of us believers in God could come out of our shells a little more and speak up for what we believe in we might be a lot more happy and at peace.
Have courage, be yourself, don’t’ be afraid to say Merry Christmas – if you mean it then say it!
Some of my friends ask if we do the whole Santa thing. In some religious communities Santa is controversial. But my thought is Santa is a representation of the Spirit of Christmas. So yes, we absolutely do the Santa thing! Growing up my dad always had my sister and I sit on his lap and read us ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Then we could barely contain ourselves for the rest of the night – waking up every hour to see if Santa came yet! It was the best to finally get up in the morning and see the tree with presents. That type of Christmas spirit is what I want my family to experience, through simple fun and family traditions.
To keep myself less stressed during Christmas season I start planning early, by making lists– a budget list for gifts, decorations and food, a Christmas card list and a To-Do list to make sure I am not over planning and things don’t get left out.
After that I keep it simple. I use a little creativity and ingenuity. A few lights out front, a few decorations (my front yard does not look like a store threw up all over it), a couple of batches of cookies – made with the boys of course. Making sugar cookies is part of a family tradition I did with my mom. The dough can be made in advance and put in the freezer, rolling out the dough and pressing down the tree shaped cookie cutters and then slathering them with frosting and sprinkles. They taste like my childhood. I hope my boys will remember the taste of their Christmas!
The Christmas tree is probably my favorite tradition. For my entire life I have been fortunate enough to be able to go to a tree farm to cut down a tree. Many years the snow was crunchy and deep, and we trekked our way through the farm to find just the right Christmas tree. After my dad brought the tree to the car we’d stop in for hot cider and cookies in the little hut with a wood burning stove. It was so special! And I love that we have carried that tradition on with our boys.
Tradition keeps families together, bonds them. Tradition holds their memoires tight. Traditions are important – so pick a few simple ones you’d like to do with your family, and those memories will last a lifetime!
- Helping you achive your Domestic Success!
- Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!
- Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!
