We have two different friends who write very funny Christmas letters. One of them is witty funny while the other is silly funny, and both are very enjoyable. Instead of Christmas cards we send New Years cards and news letters a couple of weeks after Christmas. It takes one more bit of pressure off of getting everything done in time for Christmas.
We always have a good tree and decorate the inside of the house, but I’ve never put up outdoor lights or displays. When they were little the girls felt deprived by this. But I knew I could never keep up with the extravagant displays of some of the neighbors, so I didn’t even try. I focused instead on filling the interior of the house with Christmas spirit. In their teen years our girls said our house was known among their friends as the “Jewish house” due to its lack of outdoor Christmas lighting.
I no longer write Christmas cards, I write New Year’s cards because that’s when they end up going out anyway. It takes me so long because I write a note to each person and I never send them out until they’re all done. I don’t keep strict track of who sends us one or whether we get a generic letter or just a signature from those who do include us. I have a dear friend who’s getting up in years who no longer sends at all because writing is physically difficult. She loves to get mail though.
I no longer buy the gifts my kiddos give our relatives (they have their own spending money) but I still take them out individually and buy them lunch. My husband takes them out together to shop for me and buys them lunch too.
I no longer get all the decorations out (just our favorites), but I do leave them out until the epiphany. I especially like the handmade ones from the children.
I don’t try to make every family favorite treat from scratch anymore (I’ve discovered that store bought pie crusts will not kill me), but I do take special requests. This year it’s making a homemade gingerbread house with my teen daughter.
I’m spending my extra time doing more with my family (concerts, the theater, family board games, roller skating, etc). It’s much more relaxing.
I think I may borrow PG’s idea and pay my daughter to wrap everyone’s presents (but hers) so I can add, “no longer wrapping.” Simply brilliant.
I love getting the holiday newsletters because I enjoy hearing about people’s accomplisments and good news. Most people do. It doesn’t matter to me that I don’t know some of these people well. Just think about how happy we are to hear about each others’ good news here on this site, and we are all total strangers.
I just realized that I’ve received a bunch of electronic holiday greetings this year by email and I don’t even bother to click on the link to open the greeting. Does that make me a scrooge? I hope there are no invitations embedded in them.
I haven’t gotten any of those, or if I have, they went to spam and I never saw them. Would I open them? Mmm, probably not because it might be phishing or a stolen email addy.
The invitations usually come from Evite, though. Those I open Then because we’re introverted (me mildy, DH a LOT), we agonize over whether to go.
I send cards out most years, but I’ve missed some years either because I’ve been too busy, haven’t quite felt like doing it, or I wanted to spend the money elsewhere. I have my card planned this year, and I’d like to send them, but I still may not; we’ll see. I don’t personally sign them; I figure that hand addressing the envelopes, which I do, is sufficient. And, even if I did not hand address, I’d be fine with sending out unpersonalized cards. I think the thought of sending a card is what counts! I do like receiving all types of cards (and so assume some others do, too), and I like to look back at our own, so I do prefer sending.
We go all out with decorating, which I love, but I needed a deep breath before doing it this year; I dread the taking down even before we put it all up! Our interior decorations are all replaced with Christmas ones (except some paintings/pictures). We even have 3 trees! One is outdoor themed, one holds all other ornaments, and one is a small advent tree that holds nativity ornaments made by the kids when they were younger. (We put an ornament up a day on the advent tree and read a page from a book we made years ago) My H and I have already discussed how we’ll probably go down to 1 tree after the kids have grown and take all of their ornaments for their own trees. I love the lights from the trees and banisters, etc., in these dark winter days, and so we keep up everything for a long time. We’ve gone to the last days of January before (and we put up the weekend after Thanksgiving)! Plus, remember how I said I dread the take down process? Procrastination! Lol
We bake cookies, but only as much as we want (which is often a lot, but there’s no pressure). The kids like decorating gingerbread houses, so we do that if they ask, but we use the store bought kits. One asked to make ornaments this year (which we do every 2-3 years–whenever we feel like it or see an idea we love), so we’ll do that, which will be fun.
We focus on together time and meaningful traditions.
Ah cookies… I guess I better get going. I may see if the kids want to help tonight. I don’t bake a lot of cookies, just sugar and chocolate chip most years. I know C Ch. Are not normal for holidays, but they are son’s favorites.
Regarding cards, I cut a few local people off the list this year. I tend to write at least a line or 2 in each card, so they can take quite some time to do. I may cut the list even more next year. I try to no only highlight good things… For example, this seems to be the year of bad car luck for kids.
I have tried to cut back on presents for kids, but I always seem to get “done” early, and then make a last dash to the mall and get more stuff. This year we are taking a trip as our big present, and I want to continue to enjoy time together, and focus less on physical gifts.
Attended the cookie exchange last Sunday with the cookies I purchased rather than homemade. The exchange gifts are usually tied to a theme, but the item I ordered arrived late so I found something else that did not fit the theme. You know what? No one cared. We were just all glad to get together, see each other and catch up. We are making plans to get together again soon.
Spending time with friends I don’t see often enough? Priceless.
NO cards here–I mean zero–and I did buy a box as I have a few that I send and need a few more to put $ in for services. The box I did buy has a crazy looking reindeer with a mustache and pipe–cute. Gave one to my retired hairdresser and then H asked me if I had noticed the inside message, “Have a Scotchy New Year!”
Gads! at least the one I gave it to has a sense of humor!
The next card I gave was a thank you card with a handwritten “Happy Holiday” message.
I am so glad to see all the folks here who don’t send cards. I thought I was the only one, and that was pretty guilt-inducing.
I’m having the most stress-free Christmas season I can remember ever having, largely because I started thinking about gifts around Oct 1, and had everything pretty well nailed down by Oct 31. Not bought, but decided (deciding is the hard part). Then around mid-November, I started hitting up the internet and was done shopping by Cyber Monday. I’ve been wrapping several gifts a day, and that’s also done. Friday I went shopping for the non-perishables for Christmas eating, so on Christmas Eve I’ll only have to dash in and get produce and dairy. I’ve even gamed out the cooking, ham glaze will be made several days ahead, pies will be baked on Christmas Eve, etc.
I’m awaiting the arrival of my sister and her family - they flew into Boston late Saturday night and are driving up. She’s the one who lost her son in August. I asked if they wanted to come up to Maine to get away from everything, and they accepted my invitation. She said she would like it if we decorated, so we went all out. We lit up a couple of pine trees in our front yard, and covered the front of the house in lights. Tomorrow, we’ll go cut down a tree at a tree farm, then go up to see the light display at the Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor. I don’t usually do all of this stuff, but this year Christmas is truly about ministering to my sister, her husband, and two teenagers.
I don’t bake cookies for the holidays. But I will make bread and maybe some prune strudel my immigrant relatives used to make. Take some to friends and send some home with the kiddos.
I threw out the idea of having dinner out on Christmas Eve and it looks like the family is biting. The rest will be low key.
I have given up ribbons and bows on my Christmas wrapping. It always aggravates me to spend the time wrestling with the ribbon, and it always seems like a waste after the presents are opened. So this year I am going bow-less and I like it!!
I don’t wrestle getting the wreaths on the front doors anymore. Not one family member notices I have less decorations out! I love this scaling back stuff.
I had an “ah-hah” moment the other day, and decided…we’re not going to have Christmas dinner!!! We’ll do the traditional Christmas breakfast spread, then just have snacks/appetizers for the rest of the day. Everyone gets to pick one (it’s just me, H, S, D this year) that is their favorite. I feel SO LIBERATED. Excited, even.
oooo that does sound good! My pick is cocktail meatballs in the crock pot. H wants a sandwich tray with cold cuts and stuff, D wants veggies and ranch dip, and S picked “pigs in a blanket” (mini hot dogs in crescent rolls). But a dip in a breadbowl…now that’s a thought…
We’ve always done Christmas lunch-I like cooking so it’s the whole turkey/stuffing/potatoes/gb casserole traditional thing, but we do it at noontime instead of the evening, and I prep almost all of it a few days before. Since all of our small extended family are morning people as well, this works for everyone-breakfast at home, they get to the house around 10:30 or 11, we do presents while the food’s all in the oven, then we clean up the wrapping paper and eat, then we play cards, eat some dessert, and we’re pretty much done by 2 and they go home. And it’s casual-when you’re showing up at 11 ish it’s jeans and ugly sweaters :).
I agree with other posters that getting stuff done ahead of time takes a huge amount of pressure off.
I also love the bread bowl spinach dip-the knorr vegetable one is awesome and I don’t have to cook it.
@JustaMom5465: I’m going to steal your idea. There will be just three of us here this year, and I’d rather not prepare two big dinners back-to-back. We’ll all be happy with snacks/apps on Christmas day after a feast on Christmas Eve.
I’ve been cutting down on my card list for years. This year, I just bought a small package of cards to use with gifts for our mail carrier, trash guys, etc., and did not mail any cards. The cards we receive from RE and insurance agents plus dh’s consultants/vendors far outnumber the personal ones.
I haven’t baked a buche de Noel for several years. Since dh was diagnosed with T2D, I haven’t baked any bread, cookies or cake at all. We stopped doing stockings when the kids graduated from college. They used to be done on the Feast of St. Nicholas instead of Christmas morning, so our Christmas celebrations ran from 12/6 - 1/6. Once everyone was back to school or work before Epiphany, we stopped doing anything big then, too.
@movemetoo: I have just 3 bows left from a package of them purchased last year, and have left them for someone else to use. I skip gift tags, too, at least within the family, and wrap each person’s presents in a different paper.
Then because we’re introverted (me mildy, DH a LOT), we agonize over whether to go.