A simplified Christmas

After a hectic fall, I was nonetheless excited to head into the Christmas season. I had my little Word document checklist of all the things we had planned for December. We had three parties to attend, and a couple of other fun events, like a birthday party for one of D's classmates, and a craft night at my friend Jasmine's. And of course there was D's school concert, for which Hubby took time off work. But this year we kept it pretty simple.

Decorations: for the first time, we had a real tree, and it did not die in my care! We got it for free through our mortgage broker: she holds an annual client appreciation event at a local Christmas tree farm. We had fun riding the "traptor", as M calls it, and choosing our tree. It fits quite nicely in our living room bay window. The girls helped me decorate it, and would periodically re-assign ornaments to different branches. The breakable ones were up high enough that they couldn't be reached. We also had a cute felt advent calendar on the wall, and the girls would take turns adding a piece every day. The girls also had chocolate advent calendars to open each morning. We had a wreath on the door, ribbon on the bannister, and two nativity sets up on the mantle, with Christmas cards nestled all around them.

Gifts: we kept to the 4 items rule of something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read. This year, though, we are two days past Christmas and the girls have not yet opened all their presents. Last year, they (or specifically D) were overwhelmed by presents from Hubby and me, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. By the end of the 25th, D had begun asking people "do you have a present for me?" Not an attitude we found cute, to put it mildly. So instead of opening everything at once, we've been staggering things. D and M had many gifts to open at Grandma and Grandpa's on Christmas morning. The next day, we Skyped Nana and Poppa to open their gifts. Today, we opened gifts from one of my aunts. They still have three things from us and one each from Grandma and Grandpa left. The gifts are much better loved and appreciated when the girls can actually play with them right away, rather than being rushed on to the next shiny thing.

Omitted: I've been tired enough that making dinner has been about all I can manage. I opted out of most Christmas baking, although my sister was kind enough to make us some peanut butter-marshmallow squares when she was here! I did make monkey bread for breakfast on Christmas morning, and the girls helped. We also didn't get around to taking a family photo or sending out Christmas cards... maybe we'll do that for Valentine's Day or something. I didn't finish the sweater I've been working on for Hubby in time for Christmas. I didn't even pretend to start making stockings for each member of my family!

None of these things really matter, and it's taken me this many years to understand that. In the past, I've had such high expectations for Christmas, and if anything went wrong, I thought it would ruin the day. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, or because I have kids and I know that things can go wrong without ruining an entire event. I read so many blogs where people work so hard to make everything perfect for the holidays, and it seems like a lot of wasted effort to me. This year, we did the things we wanted to do, for the people we love, and cut the dross. We spent a lot of time talking with the girls about what the gift of Jesus at Christmas really means; we explained who Saint Nicholas was, and mostly stayed away from the emphasis on Santa and elves on the shelves. Everyone seemed to be quite content with that.