Next year, ahesylvan, am I wrong? I always put a gift receipt in with a gift, so the person can return for the price I paid.
My deepest condolences to @coralbrook, @MaineLonghorn and others who are struggling this holiday season.
I recall there was a list someone linked to on apartmenttherapy (?) about getting ready for the holidays early. While she’s pretty corny, Flylady also has a pretty good holiday manual that helps with lists and starting in November (or maybe even October). Thoughts for next year…I hope the new year brings everyone peace.
^SIL bought the items in August and they have a 60-day return policy. After 60 days, they accept the items at whatever the current sale price is, regardless of how much was paid for them. I had the receipt, but only got about half of the original cost.
I was very happy I did so much so early. My brother in law died after a few days in the hospital in early December. Fortunately I was ahead enough in my shopping that I was able to help my sister with some of hers. Her adult kids would have understood, but she would have had a hard time having gifts for 2 of her adult kids and not the 3rd.
I did a lot of things early, but still felt like I was chasing a runaway crazy train. And somehow I managed to be on call at work on Christmas Eve… don’t ask me how that even happened, as I am the keeper of the on-call schedule…
There was a lot going on, and we had a tree but it wasn’t doing anything but sitting on the porch waiting to be brought inside… the ornaments and stockings were still in the basement… lots of things still unwrapped, dinner undecided… no cookies baked… D and I were both rushed and stressed when we realized that we are in charge of our own celebration; we don’t have to adhere to a calendar! It’s just us this year.
So… we rescheduled Christmas for tomorrow. Baking cookies and doing the tree during the day; opening gifts in the evening. So we’re stretching the holiday so we can relax and enjoy it! This works for us. (We did manage to get to church and D made a beautiful roast duck dinner on the 24th. )
One of my stressors was a large artificial tree. Too big for me to wrestle in a box or bag by myself, and even the individual pieces were large and hard to handle. Sold it on Craigslist in early Dec and bought a slimmer, easier to handle tree. Takes up less room in the apartment living room and less storage space. We put up the ornaments we like best, and D1 sorted through the remainder and took some home. It was a good change. We can also change the light colors — kids just left for their dad’s for the weekend, so I switched them to colored (which they dislike) as soon as they left. 
I am so over Christmas. I am not religious, so it has no deep meaning to me. The “Festival of the Merchandise” just feels ick to me. But it’s very important to my mom, and she is important to me, so I have to play along to some extent.
My college daughter and I really want to skip future Christmases and go on ski vacations instead. But my high school son likes the traditions and still wants to do Christmases at home. I’m not quite mean enough to ditch him, but getting tempted… (totally kidding!!!).
I’m sorry, @bjkmom. It’s nice you were there to help.
I am not very good at buying presents, cooking or hosting, so Christmas is stressful. This year I did stockings for the significant others which added stress. Maybe buying things for the stockings throughout the year would help. We host Christmas Brunch. We used to host Christmas dinner, but S1 and his wife spend Xmas Eve and Xmas morning with us so I changed it to brunch. This caused a few cousins to drop out, which kind of works out. My dad with Alzheimer’s complicates things, so this year we just had him over for an hour in the afternoon, rather than brunch with everyone else. Despite the stress I am looking forward to next year because there will be a new baby (S1’s wife is due in May!).
I really get tired of hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we have a very small family and no one else has a large enough home to host anything. My kids are in tiny apartments and my brothers are each single and live in a small (not-so-clean) home. My parents could host but my mother is embarrassed by the clutter in her home so she doesn’t want anyone to come there. Luckily, we are all in the same town (or nearby) so there are no overnight guests. Since my S is now married and we have to share him with DIL’s family, we had our celebration on Christmas Eve and I didn’t even get dressed on Christmas Day. I took a long nap and then went to bed early!
For some reason, the holidays crept up on me quickly this year. We host H’s office party every year and its my mental kickoff for the season but this year, I just seemed to shut down right after the party. I was mentally done! Fortunately, H and the kids like Christmas low key. The stressful part was spending the day after Christmas with the in laws. Even though we drew names to make gift giving easier, a few took it upon themselves to give gifts to everyone and there were a lot of us.
No gift giving for us. We each buy something small as needed. I bought one nice pack of coffee I wanted to try. Quite frankly, we have each other, comfort and health, which are the best gifts we can have. Absolutely no need for other things.
Really, pretty much every day is a Christmas for me. Maybe help someone else.
My sympathies to all who’ve experienced loss of loved ones.
H, S and I have already discussed going to Florida for Christmas next year. D and SIL would likely go to his parents place … which happens to be in Florida.
I am going to book a HI escape for us for NYE and some next year. Need a little escape.
@BunsenBurner sounds perfect!
I would love to host holidays here. We certainly have the space, and could accommodate many for overnight as well. We invited DHs parents for many years…and they never once came. Siblings came a few times…and that was fun…but not my in-laws.
So… after 20 or so years of invites, we just stopped. We have been celebrating these holidays with some friends for a LONG time…and that’s really fun. And really no stress!
We are happy to have both of our kids here for at least part of the Christmas season.
Just found out that my H is on call Christmas 2019. No idea what will happen next year. The family talked about renting a place in Florida but we won’t be able to go. Whomp, whomp.
Same here @thumper1 . We traveled to see family some years , but never succeeded in getting any of them to come for Christmas here. It was much more enjoyable after we let it go and did our own thing.
We had a very nice holiday season so far. H and I and D all got colds in early December but were able to get over them before S arrived on 12/20. He started a cold 12/25, after being exposed to his young pre-school/K cousins who were at the party sick.
Fortunately he rested a lot and was able to delay his flight from 12/28 to this morning and fly mostly recovered.
Other than these little colds, we had a happy holiday season. It was productive as well, as we got the kids to see the allergist, dentist and eye doctor while they were in town.
I’m thankful for the Christmas my family enjoyed, but I’d only give it a grade of B. I gave it some thought while I was in the long drive-thru line at Chick-Fil-A earlier and the big positive of it all was having all of my family here. However, it seems that we plan for a month to make a memorable day and it’s all over in a flash, particularly as my children have to head over to have Christmas with their dad’s family by early afternoon. I really love the whole season, but Christmas Eve and Christmas Day wear me out. The biggest stress is that it’s almost time to start meal prep for the next meal as soon as we finish one. I ran the dishwasher more in 4 days than I run it in a month by myself and hand washed so much stuff that can’t go in the dishwasher.
14 month old grand-daughter is teething and she had the same runny nose that I did, so she was frequently fussy. I love her dearly, but I have missed my beloved Christmas Eve service the last two years because of the way S & DIL plan their arrival. I feel like we got all caught up in the presents & food and lost out on the real focus. Since S wants to have Christmas for grand-daughter at their home next year, our family’s celebration will be different and I think I will be okay with that. I’m ready to transition from being the chief cook and planner and to shift to a role of visiting parent with one or both kids. My house is too big for just me, but not big enough for 5 adults, 1 toddler, & 1 large golden doodle (D’s dog).