Christmas stresses me out.
I haven’t always dreaded Christmas. As a child I loved Christmas. I loved putting up the tree, listening to Christmas music, and wrapping presents. One thing that I really loved was the way my dad made it his mission to decorate the outside of our house. I was always so proud of our house with the bright colored bulbs wrapped around the roof and flashing twinkles in the tree and bushes. So yes at one point Christmas may have been my favorite time of year.
That all changed as I reached adulthood and realized how commercialized Christmas was. I always thought that Christmas was supposed to be about family and spending time together, but I started to noticed that there was a lot of focus on the gifts. Lets be honest gift buying is not easy or cheap. I do not enjoy trying to guess at what might be an appropriate gift for some people, I do not enjoy trying to squeeze gifts for everyone out of my microscopic budget and I do not enjoy spending hours trying to make sure that everyone has even amounts of gifts from our family.
The number of events and gatherings that must be attended are overwhelming. Trying to pack in every last shindig and keep every last person happy is tiring. Heaven forbid you anyone else be slightly let down…you can just run yourself into the ground and stress yourself out to the max. Why can’t people see each other at other times of the year, why does it all have to fall into the month of December?
When Luke and I met, I found my grinchy match. We have prided ourselves on keeping Christmas to a minimum… at least in our house. Last year when Monkey was born we couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed since we were down to one income and running on an infants schedule, Christmas was not our idea of a good time.
After some talk we have decided to try and give Christmas another chance though. I want my little girl to experience Christmas the way I saw it growing up. I want it to be a magical time of year. So this year Luke and I are trying to shove our ginchiness to the side a bit. I am hoping that we are able to make Christmas about the memories for Monkey. I do not want Christmas to be an excuse to spoil her…Christmas isn’t about the gifts. I do not want Christmas to be overwhelming for us as a family…Christmas doesn’t have to be busy and complex.
Step one in our plan was decorating our house. Which thanks to the help of my sister we have pretty much crossed that off the list of things to do.
Step two is to focus on the parts of Christmas that I like or enjoy. Things like handmade decorations we have received, baking cookies with my Grandma and Sister, ornaments from far away places, twinkling lights around town and our matching stockings hanging in a row. So in an effort to kick start step two I am jumping on the bandwagon with Jay over at Halftime Lessons and I am going to share a few pictures of Christmas around my house with you.
These ornaments were my Great-Grandmothers, I was lucky to receive 2 boxes of her old glass ornaments when she passed. It means a lot to me to put these on my tree every year.
My Grandma painted these Santa’s for me and the covered bridge was handmade for me by my Grandpa.
Monkey and her Aunt G baking cookies for last Christmas at my Grandma’s house.
These are two of the ornaments Luke and I purchased in the many Christmas Markets in Cologne, Germany in 2006.
We found this beauty in China Town during our trip to San Francisco this summer.
I love out matching stockings. This year we added little picture frames to distinguish which stocking belongs to which person. I think they are adorable!
I love to wrap presents. Last year Monkey helped me wrap all the Christmas gifts, something tells me she won’t be quite so “helpful” this year!
Okay so now you have seen some of what makes my Christmas special. So go on now, show me some of yours. I would love to see what makes your home feel full of Christmas cheer. Oh and check out Everyday Moms Christmas Tour, she has some cute Christmas stuff too!
