I love Christmas, except that it has always carried a certain amount of stress. DH’s parents are multiple divorced/remarried, and my parents were divorced and happily remarried, but that still meant four separate celebrations with family. Well, it still does.
We try to do as much at our house as possible. My stepmom has had lots of ortho surgeries and can’t travel, so we will be making the 45 minute trek to their house this year, but that’s okay.
To those who get stressed out, I get it totally. Every year, I vow to “simplify,” but it’s really hard with having four separate events. Some day, I know I’ll miss it, when the elders are gone, so I try to stay positive.
We are Christian and celebrate a religious holiday, not so much the secular one. When our children were small, the only serious disagreement with MIL was over her desire to teach our kids that all their gifts came from Santa – I was just thinking of te stress involves in guaranteeing gifts to small children! But we worked it out. I love the simple traditions we have built, and will miss them as the kids develop their own. Not much decorating or elaborate gifting, but we volunteer ringing bells (my boys, when they were 5 or 6, thought they were big shots) and donate to our favorite charities after colllecting the flyers through Advent and discussing our choices. We also cookie-bomb friends and service workers!
Which is not at all to say it’s not sometimes hectic or stressful, I totally get people who want to disengage. Not to mention, for many people it is full of absence and loss they want to deal with on their own terms. And, we want to respect the relgions and traditions of other people, too – I hate the notion that Christian is the default faith, or universal thought. Hopefully all of us will have a safe, happy, and meaningful winter, regardless of what we are doing.
H and I take the dogs for walks every day/evening and there are a lot of people with their house decorated and with lights turned on at night. H has even noticed some Xmas trees decorated and lit when he’s been walking at night. This is the first year it’s seems this early. I get some people put house lights up while it’s warm enough to do it but they usually wait until after thanksgiving to turn them on. If I were a benevolent dictator I would make it illegal to turn them on before Thanksgiving.
I am perplexed why so many people want to rush everything.
My parents’ church was so strict that we DIDN’T celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, since it’s not mentioned in the Bible. When I was very young, we referred to our tree as the “Holiday Tree.” Fortunately, my dad outgrew that phase, ha.
This year at Christmas, my parents are coming up to Maine, along with my sister (the one whose son ended his life in August) and her family. My BIL hasn’t been up here since my oldest son was born, in 1992!! I left it up to my sister, and she said they would like it we decorate and go all out. We will go to a local tree farm and cut down a tree once they arrive - my niece and nephew are very excited about that. We also hoping for lots of snow, since they don’t get any in Austin. It will be a bittersweet week, since my deceased nephew would have returned from studying abroad on December 23.
As to outdoor Christmas lights, most houses in my neighborhood seem quite large, so they have to hire it out. I think the Christmas lights companies are really booked, so this can drive the early start. If you are late to get on their schedule, you have to take the earlier dates.
It’s easy to burn out when people do too much for Christmas, or any holiday. If we all scaled back from the excess (no, the exterior of your house doesn’t have to be draped in lights or the inside of your house in garlands) it would all be so much more enjoyable! A tree with decorations that gain meaning over time; a few extra candles set up here and there; simple baking, a few thoughtful gifts and lots of family time near the fireplace, champagne in hand. It could be as simple as that. No need to be stressed for a month or more ahead of time… especially for those who just "did’ Thanksgiving.
I do minimal with outdoor lights, Just a big light star with garlands for the front porch and and a lantern hung from a tree branch. The lights won’t go up another week or two. I am not done with Thanksgiving yet. No one in my neighborhood put up xmas lights on yet.
We live in a neighborhood with huge jewish population. i don’t at all feel like xmas is the default. I feel like I finally get a turn at celebrating.
My extended family also regards the gift-giving aspect as “for kids only” meaning anyone under the age of 18 or graduated HS…whichever milestone signifying adulthood comes first.
I have never heard of Christmas lights companies! I truly think that 99% of people around here do their own lights.
I honestly feel like I’ll be the last to get mine out in the neighborhood - because most are out already! At the same time, some of these will be houses that have the tree to the curb December 26 - that for me is a sign that the season for them IS all about the Christmas morning and the gifts. A little bit of a generalization but you get my drift.
“I have never heard of Christmas lights companies! I truly think that 99% of people around here do their own lights.”
Oh yeah, it’s a big thing in tony neighborhoods. I read a piece about it in the local paper a few years back-think Microsofties and their homes. We always do a Christmas light drive around the city, but I personally like the homes where it’s clear that the people have done their own lighting, even the ones with thousands of lights. H isn’t even close to that though, just enough that it’s very bright. We keep them on a timer so as not to annoy neighbors-not too early or late being on.
I can’t deal with the commercialization and today was seriously thinking socks would be a nice gift- dozens of socks to donate to one of the local programs that gives them to the needy. And gloves. Or buying a few crates of the staple products food pantries here like to give out. Somehow, to me, thinking of others is a pretty good message at Christmas.
We have a beautiful artificial door wreath I got on sale one January. My neighbor and I used to just leave ours up as long as we could, as close to Easter as we could. She moved. Last year, the young boys in the new family came selling boxwood wreaths for their scout troop. They’re good neighbors, nice kids, the dad is expert at getting us out of snow banks, ha. So I’ll buy theirs again. (I can put mine inside.) And last year, the best move was getting a pre-lit artificial tree. We all liked that. E-Z.
I consciously avoid stuff that wrecks my Christmas spirit. I don’t put up any decorations until the day before the first Sunday in Advent, don’t listen to Christmas music until then, and avoid malls and shopping areas as much as possible starting in mid-November. I do nearly all of my shopping online.
We were in France (Aix-en-Provence) the first two weeks of November and I felt like we got a reprieve from all the commercialization of Christmas because their approach was very low-key, just a few signs here and there.
I think one reason there is so much depression and anxiety in our society is because we are so future-oriented. No one is allowed to just be right here, right now.
DH always did our lights. They were white lights that outlined our yard and sidewalk. Nothing on the house itself.
Now we are in a zero lot line home with minimal yard, and he hasn’t put up lights at all outside since we bought it (3 years ago).
The front section of our neighborhood are “estate homes” on 3 acres or so. They are mansions, literally. There is probably no way those people could do their own lights, as tall and large as their homes and yards are. We live in a “zero lot line” section of our neighborhood. The homes are much smaller, though all certainly big enough, and many people do their own lights. A good many people in our section of the neighborhood have opted to do no outside lights, though. Either because they don’t celebrate Christmas or they are empty nesters or travel away for Christmas. The larger homes are full of children, I suppose, so are probably more inclined to do the outdoor decorating. That’s my theory, anyway.
We’ve got a local neighborhood street (not fancy houses, small yards) that puts up a real excess of lights, fills those yards with every sort of standing thing, lit, and some moving. D2 and I always go drive down there. It’s one of those experiences where each ooh and ahh is larger than the last. A sort of Clark Griswold thing.
There was the year the big news was someone stole the baby Jesus from the outdoor church creche. A few weeks later, he mysteriously returned.
Thanks, greenwitch. It took me years to get this. Some people love to decorate, bake, shop, etc. I don’t like to do any of those things. And it’s all OK.
What I do enjoy: spending time with family, going to parties and events, hearing Christmas music, buying for those less fortunate, watching some favored movies. I also enjoy seeing other people’s decorations - just don’t want to do it myself.
I like to prepare and celebrate Christmas on my own timeline. No decorations have been put up yet nor have any cookies been baked. Just getting over the apple pie and pumpkin bread from Thanksgiving.
Haven’t really shopped the black Friday sales. Just enjoying quiet time at home.
This year instead of presents I think planning a nice trip would nice. Seeing Christmas lights at some park and watching holiday movies at homes will be fun.
I don’t decorate. Too busy doing all of the extra pastor stuff this time of year. Christmas Day I take a shift or two with my moonlighting home care job so others can have time off.
“I can’t deal with the commercialization” – agreed @lookingforward. More than anything else, this turns me off about Christmas. I still like the holidays very much, but the buy-buy-buy stuff is a drag. It’s particularly alarming how gift-giving turns otherwise lovely children into greedy little monsters for the day.