We're in full swing Christmas mode over here.
We have my mom in town, are planning Olive's class party, going to her Christmas program, having friends over this weekend and are 99% done with our Christmas shopping. It's crazy how quickly Christmas is coming this year.
I made the decision to edit our Christmas tradition again this year.
I wrote about it about in 2017 (Editing Your Traditions). I realize that every year I'm editing our traditions a little bit depending on the season of life we are in. I think it's so important to let your family values, family priorities and your family preferences guide you instead of feeling the need to do EVERYTHING this Christmas season.
I know that my family enjoys holiday events, traditions and activities, but we also very much enjoy quiet days at home. It's not fun for us to be on the go all the time or go to multiple events on the same day. This requires some editing and prioritizing to make the holidays fun, enjoyable and memorable for us.
This year our priorities are:
1. Baking cookies to share with neighbors and friends.
2. Mailing out photo Christmas cards
3. Going to church every Sunday in December + Christmas Eve
4. Decorating our home
5. Getting a real Christmas tree & add a tree to our playroom
6. North Pole Breakfast
7. Decorating the outside of our house with lights
8. Olive's Christmas program and three class events this month
9. Santa Brunch & Gingerbread Decorating Party
10. A handful of community Christmas events
These things have been edited out of our plans this year:
1. Getting out every Christmas decoration we have. Last year I edited our Christmas decoration collection. This year I am opting to only get out about half of our decorations. I attribute this to a short Christmas season, me being 22 weeks pregnant or just wanting to enjoy the holidays vs stress about all the decorating and undecorating. This is an area that always has room to be edited in my book.
2. We had to miss out on some fun activities in the name of resting and relaxing together at home. We missed birthday parties, fun community events and activities to avoid making our family time stressful.
3. Limit buying new decorations. I really did not buy many new things this year. We were stocked from last year so the main focus of our purchases were outdoor Christmas lights.
4. Limit out of town travel on the weekends in December. We are hosting instead of traveling and are grouping our travel together so that we are home most of the time this month.
5. Limit the Christmas recipes I'm making. We have favorites and I like to cook/bake. I'd love to try all the recipes on my Christmas Food Pinterest board. But that requires a lot of looking, shopping, clean up and work to make those happen. Instead I'm making favorite recipes and only trying a couple new things.
Are you finding yourself editing your family traditions this year?? How have they changed?
I have a few friends to share with you today! Justine and Whitney are two of my favorite blog friends and they both wrote Christmas posts that struck a chord with me this week. Their posts are SO GOOD. Check them out:
Justine @ Full Hands Full Heart
Giving the Gift of Time
Whitney @ Come Home for Comfort
3 Things to Pray Before Christmas
Love this! You're definitely going against the mainstream way of doing December and that can't be easy. There have been two Christmases that I only set out a few decorations and didn't do a tree, due to moving or something else big that was going on in our lives. You still have lots of fun things planned and I bet you'll enjoy them even more this way! Thanks for sharing this encouragement - and for sharing my post too! <3
ReplyDeleteLove that you have church on your list of priorities! I hope you guys have a very Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteI love this post friend! And I won hundred percent agree with the philosophy that every season needs to be edited to meet your family‘s needs for the season of life that you are in. There’s so much freedom in saying no to certain things and also learning what is important for your family..making saying “yes” to things much easier!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for giving me a shout out!❤️❤️
I even got rid of some of my christmas decorations this year! it felt so good
ReplyDeleteI love this post so much! Editing Christmas traditions could be in response to changing family dynamics, health issues, grief/loss, and so many other reasons. In today's consumer-driven world, it's important to be ok with saying "less is more." I know our family traditions have been tweaked a little now that the kids are teens. You're doing such a good job of putting your family's needs before keeping a "busy" schedule.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I am keeping it pretty simple. It feels good. Last year we went to a town holiday outing, but this year we did not and I'm okay with it!
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