@northernmom61 that is very cool!
^^ I agree!
I’m going to make all of you who dread wrapping very jealous… When my kids were little I started a wrapping party tradition with 3 girlfriends that is still going strong! We get together on a Friday or Saturday night at my office (h and I own a consulting business) and use the big conference room table to do our wrapping. Everybody brings their paper and ribbons and gift tags, and we all share. We spend a lot of time picking out the perfect paper, matching ribbon and gift card for each package, and they look beautiful! We joke that the recipients (spouses and kids) barely notice or care, but it brings us great joy. The night is made festive with wine, apps and Christmas music. We go late Intot the evening! Wrapping was a HUGE drudgery for my mom, so I am thrilled it has become one of my most favorite things.
Like @alwaysamom, I go overboard on the gifts. Nothing extravagant, but I love picking out a variety of things I think the kids and hubby would like and wouldn’t buy for themselves. Same for the Christmas stockings, which is actually everyone’s favorite part of the celebration! We don’t get together with extended family on Christmas Day, and we don’t do a Christmas dinner. A number of years ago, when we were down to just one remaining grandparent, we nixed all of that and just spent the day in our pj’s, opening stockings and gifts, and then watching movies and playing games. We eat leftovers from our Christmas Eve potluck Open Hpuse which we always host. Christmas is the one day of the year that - for now - the four of us all just hang out together. This may be our last for that, due to serious SO relationships, so I will enjoy the time we spend opening all those pretty boxes under the tree!
We have an artificial tree, which we love and would never give up. I too love the lights and have it on all the time in December. This year we put it up on thanksgiving weekend for the first time, and that relieved a lot of stress! I will never wait to do it again!
Two years ago I got rid of a lot of the Christmas decorations I have accumulated, and I keep it much simpler now. I have also switched to finding places to store what I use close to where I display it if possible, to cut down on all the hauling.
I like doing the decorating, but hate putting it all away!!
I have given up the baking, although I will make a batch or two of dark and white chocolate bark.
Still deciding about the cards for this year. Probably not, and that will be a first.
Inspired by another thread… I don’t care about who I might offend and I make no apologies for it.
I say happy holidays because there are lots and lots of holidays in December.
I don’t pay attention to the wrapping paper.
I give my non-Christian friends Christmas presents (and they almost always reciprocate).
I celebrate Christmas as an atheist. I celebrate the secular holiday that Christmas has become, not a celebration of “our Lord” because really… Christmas is barely about that if you look at how many other traditions it’s appropriated.
I do not bake because I don’t want to kill people. I am a horrible, horrendous cook.
I do go overboard with decorations. My house is decked out in what many would call tacky (though not on my front lawn because I am not a fan of lawn decorations). The decorations are knickknacks and not in any way unified. My tree is filled with mismatched ornaments and each one has a meaning. I’ve never much cared for the cookie cutter ornaments- I like ones that tell a story 
@romanigypsyeyes, your decorations sound like ours. With very few exceptions, all of our tree ornaments were gifts, and accumulated over the years, from homemade by children to rather fancy. We reminisce while putting every one of them up. My daughter and I will do so next Sunday! There is an amazing collection of Swarovski crystal snowflakes that my mother in law started the year we moved overseas so they mark our time away from the states, and most of my daughter’s childhood. They will be a special memory of my mother in law (who is usually kind of selfish and not always nice).
I know some people like wrapping – I don’t. My daughter was over our house yesterday and honestly I paid her to wrap almost all of our presents, including some of her own (she knew what they were already as they were things she had had to try on, so no great secrets). She wrapped 12 presents and I paid her $30 (we had agreed on this price upfront).
I will add to this thread that TODAY when I had a million Christmas details I should be doing, I DIDN’T do any of them! It felt great!
Spent the morning running and with my DIL to be picking out her wedding dress.
Spent the afternoon running a few errands - not Christmas related with D2 and then we took our dog for a long walk in the balmy weather.
Spent tonight helping S made cookies - not Christmas! - for the end of semester cookie tradition he has with his junior high math class.
No wrapping happened. No gifts were bought. No cookies were made. Nothing!
It was a GREAT day.
This year I will not be wrapping! Everything will go into a gift bag!
I’ve used gift bags more and more each year, as I no longer enjoy wrapping and it is a job that shouldn’t be delegated to any of the men in my home. I purchase the bags at the dollar store, and they can usually be reused at least once. I’m loving the idea from @NorthernMom61 to use fabric sacks. Totally green! (And I’m not a fan of reusable grocery bags).
@3boystogo, I think my daughter kind of stole the idea from one of our friends who is very frugal and green. Our friend buys inexpensive cloth napkins in bright Christmas colors and stitches two together down three sides and voila, a bag for a gift. Ties the opening with ribbon and a tag. They look pretty under the tree too.
We don’t send out generic “greetings” that are essentially resumes. We don’t like receiving them. You know the kind that sometimes start out- Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Kwanzaa! I figure if we don’t know those on our list well enough to know if they are Christian, Jewish, or of African decent, then we don’t know them well enough to be sending personal holiday greetings.
I don’t want caught up on things like- Tammy is SO into art(meaning she’s covered with tattoos) or Tommy is such a free-spirit(on the lam from child-support). I don’t want to hear from some annual letter that Bob got a promotion, or Babs is retiring. Those, to me, just sound like someone sending a list of accomplishments to someone the sender didn’t care enough about to call or call on with news or information throughout the year.
One of the best gifts I ever got was from my sister in law. She gave all of the sister in laws and my mother in law, homemade gift bags in all sizes. They are made out of fabric with either Velcro or cords for closing. We have use them for over ten years now. The only presents I wrap are for children (who love to rip off the paper). Bonus is the fact that fabric bags hold up to travel whereas the paper wrap presents always were torn by the time the trip was over.
So interesting to read this thread! Stockings are one of our favorite family traditions. Decades ago my older sis made stockings for our parents and they were so touched - and tickled - and since then everyone has continued on. Some years DH clearly shopped at CVS at the last minute, but he’s gotten better - I pick up stocking stuffers all year long. I don’t love wrapping. When the kids were little and had lots of gifts I hired their sitter to wrap for me. Now I bundle gifts to reduce the number of boxes - but I don’t like bags, I like the unwrapping! I bake a few favorite things - decorate less but with the things I love - and we entertain a little. I even do cards, but to fewer people. Moderation is the theme, I guess.
I think those are dinosaurs from the decades where letter writing was the main form of communication. We did get one that was a photo card that had “top ten highlights” on it from the family, and it was, um, entertaining but odd. Like, one of their highlights was that their middle school boy enjoyed video games. Wow, coulda blown me over with a feather after finding out about that tidbit!
Ornaments-we don’t have rando ornaments, either. When we travel we buy 1 ornament that speaks to the spirit of the vacation, and when we get home I write the date and the location on it somewhere with a sharpie marker. We decorate the tree together as family, and when we put up the ornaments it’s a good memory trigger all around, especially since the girls were babies when some of the ornaments were found.
Stockings-still our favorite. It’s my favorite family time with just the four of us (ok, the dogs get stockings too), and unwrapping each tiny gift. We use special wrapping paper that doesn’t appear anywhere else over Christmas, and the girls one year asked me “is Santa really doing the stockings?” and I said “if you want to keep getting presents in your stockings, it’s best to keep hearing the bells ringing” (Polar Express reference-their fave Christmas book from childhood). I have my grandparents’ stockings that were knitted back in the dark ages, and I use them as decoration on the stairs.
I no longer send out holiday cards - especially since many of my friends and family are now on Facebook.
I honestly think it’s just a waste of paper, too. (Except for photo cards - I admit to loving the ones I get from others…)
I don’t use store-bought wrapping paper anymore. I use old newspapers and brown craft paper and I stencil little holiday designs on top, or sprinkle glitter. It’s more fun. And way cheaper.
We haven’t traveled to see family - half a day’s drive away - for several years. By the time D was 4, I realized I wanted us all to be in our own home on Christmas morning.
I used to pack us all up and drive down the day after Christmas, but I don’t even do that anymore. My siblings often have to go back to work, and my mom just wants to go shopping the days after Christmas (and before…) and I don’t want to shop anymore, after I’ve spent the past few weeks shopping… I also never know how the weather will be; one night in a Red Cross church shelter waiting out a blizzard was enough for me!
I no longer spend hours putting up outside lights. I now put LED candles in the windows, and two pre-lit small Christmas topiary trees on the porch, a wreath on the door, and that’s it. I think it looks nicer, actually, and a lot less work.
I refuse to shop for Christmas before December 1.
I refuse to put my tree up before mid-December. I refuse to take it down before Epiphany. (and I’m not even religious anymore, I just dislike how the holiday is more about the shopping season now, Black Friday through Dec. 26, although no one wants to admit it…)
Well perhaps, Motherofdragons, the occasional “resumes” I receive are just a few still living dinosaurs from days before telephones. Perhaps you’re guessing that those I know that choose to be incommunicado for a year have no phone or no email. But the people I know, that do send me such “personal” season greetings do in fact, have phones and emails. If we were close enough for them to share their personal goings-on, they have many more personal options throughout the year than a once a yr, pre-printed, one-size-fits-all holiday greeting.
But the “top ten highlights” sure was funny.
I don’t see why people get offended at the “pre-printed, one size fits all” holiday greetings. I don’t do them myself, but what’s wrong with them? Isn’t it kind of arrogant to think that a personal message should be written on every single card?
Yup, those people could use e-mail or phone during the year, but for whatever reason, habit mostly I suppose, they don’t. I hear during the year mostly from local people who arrange to get together in person with me periodically. Distant friends from decades past and some long distance extended family connect ONLY during the year-end holidays, when they are so busy with other doings that individual chatty phone calls, etc. are not likely to happen.
Some holiday letter writers do use e-mail for their generic greetings, by the way.
I admit I write a holiday letter and enjoy those from others, and fear some people would no longer be in my life at all were it not for the annual updates. (Speaking largely of college friends), those annual updates mean a lot to me, whether hand-written or typed/boiler plate. Guess I care more about staying in touch, however it happens, than the particular format. Better to be on their card/letter list than not on ANY contact list. Yes, I try to hold onto people in my life, and regret losing touch with anyone. I always provide phone/e-mail contact info. People are so busy, I am all for whatever shortcuts work for them and for me.
I appreciate holiday letters. Yes, there may be some predictable sentences in some of them, but there are predictable lines from most of us with in person contact as well. Just last night I received one from a relative overseas. Though we are in sporadic email contact, I had no clue about some of the details of their lives, and appreciated hearing. Many of us keep facebook details sparse, and don’t assume that anyone cares enough to hear life events via email.
I don’t do malls or baking which always felt very high pressure to me. I usually forego a gingerbread house for the kids, but not always. This year, something I am really happy about, is the dinner I usually make for the extended family on Christmas Eve has been moved to 1/1/16…just saying it makes me happy.
I WISH my extended family would give up presents for adults or put names in a hat but I have a SIL who will buy for everyone no matter what…so we keep going. Last year the three adult groups actually exchanged gift cards to the same local restaurant group!!
I stopped sending Christmas cards and giving gifts to extended family. I send a small picture collage with the year’s special events (graduation) to grandparents, aunts and uncles. It is small enough that I can write a personal message. Even that might stop next year as the kids are now grown. I don’t bother sending pictures to anyone outside immediate family as they probably end up in a junk drawer or the garbage. I mean, I don’t know what to do with pictures people send me. I don’t do photo albums or scrapbooks anymore.
Some extended family that we see all the time might get a bottle of wine or coffee, depending on their preferences. for the couple as a small gesture.
I still decorate but don’t turn the lights on until second week of December, right before kids come home from college. Utility bills have killed me in the past.