I dread it. I wish I could just go to sleep tonight and not wake till January (or never).
We were going to do a beach vacation over Christmas this year but it was just too much $$ for that week so we are doing it right after New Years instead. Since the trip is our gift to each other and my D won’t be home from college until Christmas eve, I am thinking to go pretty minimal this year if I can. A friend gave me her old tree (artificial) but it’s still 7 ft and means getting out all the lights and decorations and I think I’d prefer a table top tree. If I can find one that isn’t too $ then I’ll get that.
But I love doing all the decorating when the kids are here and helping, not so much now that it’s all on me, so I definitely understand where @conmama is coming from.
I keep it minimal nowadays. I used to love Christmas and decorating for it. I never could get anyone interested in decorating the tree or he!ping take it down. We had a large and rather heavy artificial tree. One year I got so frustrated that no one would help me take it down that I left it up (sans ornaments). It stayed up for several years and the cat loved it and would sleep under it (my excuse). I finally took it down a couple of years ago and its not ever going back up. Maybe if we ever look to have a family gathering for Christmas I might get a more manageable tree. We have some very minimalistic decorating but nothing like we used to. My son lives across the country and usually works Christmas so coworkers with kids can be off. Son in law has a large extended family and divorced parents so it was always a struggle for them who to spend Christmas day with (they end up doing 4-5 Christmases over several days and getting a bit stressed out by it all). To make it easier we decided to do Christmas with them a different time and make our own plans. Last year we went to Vegas and had a lot of fun and are doing the same this year (we actually got a great offer with a comped suite for 3 nights at the hotel we stayed at last year - it looks incredible - way outside of my price range if I had to pay for it).
Yes, @conmama I dread it a bit. A lot of it makes me anxious: not decorating enough (tree, wreath and seasonal kitchen towel is all I do 
my husband like to do the outside lights), having too much stuff (including the decorations), dreading getting more stuff, missing Christmases as a child, feeling bad when I get some lotion I don’t actually like, forgetting to water the tree… But it is nothing new and seems to be improving little by little actually. Two years ago I sobbed to coworkers at Christmas time, but last year I didn’t.
Yes, how can anyone dread Christmas unless they are using someone else’s metric??? Do what works for you and your family --there is no set rule on how to celebrate. A tree will suffice – although when my children were young I will confess that our house looked liked something out of a story book. Now, not so much – too much work and I have scaled down a lot.
This year my goal is to get everyone independent with their gift giving. In the past I have always done a lot of shopping for my children and husband. This year I decided the children are old enough to take care of whatever giving they want to do and it’s about time H did his own shopping for the children. So I set up a google doc where everyone is posting links for suggested gifts and I circulated it. That alone will make my holiday a lot less stressful. If they want to purchase from places that do not wrap, this year I will have wrapping paper on hand but am not going to wrap for them either.
A friend of mine loved the book “Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season”. I haven’t read it myself, but she raves about it and recommends it every time someone says Christmas has become too much.
Honestly, the best holidays I’ve had as an adult is the few times we left the country and sat on a hot sunny beach for a week. No decorations back at home. Simple, simple presents tucked in a stocking, tossed in the luggage.
Ahhhh…
I quit putting up my tree a few years ago. I am single, and the kids are out of the house, so no one is here to look at it except for a few hours on Christmas Day at dinner. My family does not exchange gifts so the tree looks a little odd with no packages under it. I found I never even plugged in the lights most of the time when I was here alone. It is stored in the attic and is very difficult to get down and put back up with no help at all, so I won’t be doing it this year. I will stick a poinsettia on the coffee table and will have some kind of Christmasy centerpiece in the dining room. I do drag out the Christmas plates for dinner each year, though. When the kids were little, I went overboard with the decorating and maybe I will again if I ever have grandkids.
We bought some new lights this year that are “fairy lights”… Tiny LED lights on a fine copper wire. I twined a test set up the stair rail to decide if they gave enough light to use in the fake garland.
Sudden epiphany, just saying no to all that fluffy fake garland and ribbon and ornaments and the mess of putting it up and taking it down. Just a little string of fairy lights up and down the stair rail. It looks wonderful! Less can be so much better.
On the 23rd, I stated that I dreaded dragging out boxes, putting current decorations in them, and putting away the boxes again. I just needed a few days and to enjoy Thanksgiving; now, I’m eager and excited! This is typical of me. I don’t like to think of Christmas much before Thanksgiving because I like enjoying Thanksgiving and fall and being immersed in them. Then–bam–I’m completely immersed in Christmas!
We got our 2 live trees today (a smaller tree we use as an advent calendar is artificial), and we’ll decorate them tomorrow before D1 goes back to college. I can’t wait to transform our house (while still pushing away thoughts of taking it all down, lol).
I’m still not too eager to go outside and decorate in the cold, but we talked a bit today about hiring someone to do it this year… 
We’re listening to Christmas music almost constantly, talking gifts, and enjoying holiday traditions and activities. Ahhh…I really enjoy this time of year!
I can see scaling back when the kids are older, but, with the span of my 4 kids (oldest will be 20 in a month; youngest just turned 11), it may not be too long before grandkids come along, and I bet I’ll want it all up then, too, so it might be a long, long while.
DS offered to help put up the tree. I certainly was not ready yet to take down the fall decorations as my maple trees in front still have tons of red leaves. But…how could I say no? I haven’t had help in 5 years. So, the tree is up, but I don’t “feel” it yet. I’ll decorate the rest of the room as I feel like it.
I certainly do less now that the girls are out of the house. No outdoor lighting but I still put wreaths on the windows and have an arrangement in a urn on the porch. Instead of multiple trees I only have one and I quit putting garland on the staircase and mantle. I mainly use candles and a few well loved decorations around the house. Simple but festive! I quit setting up my Dickens village many years ago. We still do stockings as both of my 20 somethings love them.
LOL about the Dickens Village. We have the Snow Village set. In the future, we may not have a tree, wreath, stockings or any sign of Christmas, but we will have that darn village set up. The mantel in our family room is 16 feet long. It also has several outlets on it. Perfect spot for it. S was home from grad school for a few days. Last night he lugged the boxes up from the basement and set it all up. He is so attached to it. I have to admit - it does look nice.
I never do Christmas decorating until mid-December. By then, i’m more into it. When it’s still November, nope.
We don’t decorate unitl mid December either and do not put the tree up until almost Christmas. Old tradition for Advent, we used to not put it up until Christmas Eve and left it up the 12 days of Christmas, taking it down at Epiphany. We do it a little sooner now so Christmas Eve is not so crazy.
We bought a new (downsized) house in December '14. After the New Year, instead of packing the Christmas Crap away, we hauled it all to the curb (minus a few sentimental ornaments that fit in a large shoebox) along with half of the other detritus in our house, held several garage sales, and hauled everything that was left to Goodwill. We moved into the new house in February, and though it was smaller, we had empty cupboards and nothing to put in the attic. That felt great. Last year, we bought a pop-up, pre-lit tree. This year, I may get a wreath for the front door, but none of it will go up before 12/15.
Humbug.
Christmas has to change and grow with your family. What might have been great for the little kid years might need some changing up as the brood becomes young adult.
I had a few Bah-humbug years, but I learned to stop worrying about what the rest of the world thinks…and start doing what was best for us, what felt sincere and true to who we are now.
Church depressed the crap out of all of us. None of us felt particularly tied to it…so we quit. Was a huge relief, and while we felt a little guilty at first, we’ve discovered different ways to nurture our own spirituality (or lack there of in some cases). We all get a lot of enjoyment out of working at food pantries and soup kitchens, and getting some holiday surprises for a needy family.
We watch movies and play board games together. We go downtown and look at the lights. We attended a living nativity in someone’s barn, which was way more cool than it sounds. We went to the zoo and took their winter lights animal tour. We went to a place that was offering horse drawn sleigh rides one year, and took a ride on a dogsled another year. Sometimes, we’ll catch a play or a concert together.
We usually wait until the kiddo is home from college and go cut a tree down at the last minute and have a mad rush putting it up. And we love this.
My daughter and I both love to cook. We’ve started doing internationally themed dinners. LOL. Last year we had Mexican Christmas dinner. We visited a Mexican food store to buy the right ingredients we’d researched and made some really delicious dishes. We even made a Tres Leches traditional Christmas cake. Yum! This year, we’re talking about doing Japanese Christmas. It’s just a fun way to keep us engaged in sharing a new experience, doing cooperative projects…with time to talk and adapt to our changing relationship.
I think that’s one of the bigger sad parts about Christmas when your kids grow up. All of those Santas and reindeer and cookie cutters and things…remind us of a relationship that is gone…one that we’re still grieving…where we were our kid’s worlds, and everyone seemed closer and wanted to snuggle in one bed, or read stories, or talk about magical things. We miss our little kids. We miss being mentors and respected authorities, and being “the best mom ever”…you know?
But here’s the thing…your relationship with your young adult kids can be so incredibly cool, too. You have to kinda pivot to more equal footing, and develop a friendship. You have to be your kid’s student sometimes, and let them lead you by the hand like you’ve always lead them. You have find that commonality again, that magic, that ability to laugh and cuddle and love each other…at a time in their lives when they are biologically programmed to desperately need independence from you. LOL.
it’s different! It can be harder for a while. And yeah, the sad feeling of change can be tough when you pull all that sentimental stuff out of a box and no one is around to help you.
Change it up. Do only what makes you feel joyful. Finding ways to feel intimately close to your adult kids is a different bag of tricks. But as a parents, there’s still work to do. They still need us. They need us to let go, and they need us to stand up and be ok after we do. They need us to live in the present and make new memories…and to enjoy being with them as the adults they are becoming. They need us to want to know them. They need us to share new parts of ourselves as adults.
And maybe they’ll feel a little sentimental and want to embrace some of that old stuff, too. And maybe if we wait and follow their lead on that, it’ll be more fun:)
And then…when the grandkids come…all that traditional stuff will be magic again.
In the end, the holidays are all about maintaining the relationships that mean the most to us. The rest is just a bunch of tinsel and wire.
@MaryGJ …what a nice, warm and thoughtful post you shared. It resonated with me. I know all these things, but it still hits home when reading it from someone else. I love your last paragraph, and will remember that. It all really touched me this early morn.
I think we are going to have to just let go of holidays past. It’s a lot different now with deaths and family estrangement. Not as fun for us or the kids. Thanksgiving was a lot of work for me, and not sure anyone had that great of time. Youngest DS was bored, sulky and grumpy the entire week home. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to talk about with my sons, and then other times they open up. I need to think of more fun things to do with them.
@MaryGJ I wish I could “like” your post multiple times.
We learned that we did indeed have to “let go” of the idea of being with a lot of family and do our own thing. Now that D is married we are being flexible as to where she and SIL spend the holidays. In some ways it is freeing as we no longer feel we HAVE to be home on Christmas Eve or Day, we don’t feel we have to put up a live tree, etc. I’m sure it will change someday when we have grandchildren.
This year, since it’s just hubby and I (DD, 21, is studying abroad in Germany for a year and won’t be home till late August), I decided to do what >>I<< want this year.
As soon as I took down my Halloween decorations in the beginning of November, I put up my Christmas decorations. Just my tree and a few decorative items that i enjoy the most. My tree is only about 5 feet tall, so i put big colored lights on and and decided no bulbs or ornaments are needed. I started watching Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel all the time, and the car radio is programmed to the 24/7 Christmas music station. DD wouldn’t have let me get away with that if she were still at home haha
So basically, I’m doing whatever i want that makes me happy. (And as DH says, “Happy wife, happy life”)
My big decision - do we just leave the browned wreath on the door, or go ahead and get a fresh one.
I kid you not. It’s related to Newton’s first law…
Usually we take it down by Easter. But this year, it stayed green and aromatic for a long time. Then, we were just about to take it down and a Carolina Wren decided it was a fine place for her nest. We actually stopped using our front door for a month so as not to disturb the eggs, and then the hatchlings. And then again…another clutch.
After that, well, now it’s just sort of interesting that it’s STILL there, and it has this cool nest right in the middle…