In this post, I’m highlighting the changes I’m making to bring back joy for the holidays. However, Christmas, primarily, has brought me a lot of stress in the past years. I’m the one that always has to travel. Thankfully, I don’t have to fly and I could return in a day though it would make the day long and the visit short and frequent.
Travel has brought extra problems in that I don’t really have a home or personal space while I’m there. I’m basically crashing on a couch for many days with no control over noise or lighting. Everyone else will fall back into their habits and get to unwind but I haven’t been able to figure out how to fully relax when I am cramming in, not actually being accommodated.
Additional challenges include the temperatures and watching the weather in three locations to safely drive the distance. I have to keep the plans fluid enough to leave a day early or late if there is bad weather. Also, some gifts might freeze…I’ve been given plants and fruit for Christmas which means I have to unload them and remember them five days later to take them back with me. Thankfully, that’s rare.
This year, I joined Dawn and Diana for 5 Days of Christmas Planning and took some time to think over what my favorite part of Christmas really was. Please consider joining this group even after the event if this is also an issue for me. I believe both their planners and the group are free.
Favorite Parts of Christmas:
- Christmas Tree Lights
- Christmas music
- Christmas Decorating
- Wrapping presents
- Outdoor decorations (my hometown is in a valley with snowflakes on the highway)
- Shopping trips
- Visits with friends
- “Playing with” Christmas presents – group activities
- Baked treats (not candy)
Making Gift-Giving Fun Again:
Historically, I’ve tried homemade gifts, purchasing expensive fun gifts, and budgeting roughly how much to give each person. Many of my people are difficult to shop for because no one needs anything and everyone buys what they want. I have mostly found shopping for everyone to be stressful. However, this year, I started early and decided to break up immediate family gifts and give one thing they want (from their list) and another for fun and keeping it around $30/person.
If you want to see the extra gift I gave my brother, click here to watch the video of me wrapping this oddly sized present.
I’ve also decided to schedule a shopping day with a friend to find some of the people’s presents from local stores, which lets me put two of my favorite activities together, and in the Christmas season, I can also get the third and fourth with Christmas lights and music in there.
I’m definitely going to avoid the Black Friday event timing.
Bring the Holly into the Holiday:
I do usually get lots of time with Christmas songs and now the entire family knows I love Hallmark Christmas movies so we spend some of the extra time watching one of those. I successfully got my exchange sister hooked during past years’ Christmas while she was visiting.
The part I need to increase is time with holiday decorations. I’ve been a minimalist for a while and even in the years before that, I moved a lot. Due to these things, I never acquired more than a tree for décor. Last year I borrowed some of my favorite childhood decorations that my mother no longer put out so I had some new ones. Even with this, I travel for a lot of the season and miss out on my own decorations during the entire Christmas time, and shopping used to keep me from decorating for half the month or more.
Usually, a weather change makes me think of Christmas and I break out the tree and music at the same time. I like this method and then wrapping and placing the presents under the tree immediately.
This year I’m opting to only add seasonal decorations, not specific holiday decorations. I purchased some trees and twigs for Christmas and some basic fall leaves and pumpkins for the fall season. I’ve been looking for base pieces like a vase that can transition the seasonal leaves into branches or berries appropriate for different seasons.
Then I’m keeping the season-specific pieces collapsible or disposable like picking up pinecones from outside and making toilet paper pumpkins. Additionally, garland that I can decorate outside and roll up into a small container. I did get some bigger pieces that I expect to replace over time. There was a truck that doesn’t work as a truck and I’d replace it with a toy truck probably, but for now, it gives me the fun fall feeling without having another purpose.
I’d love to hear about how you keep seasonal decorating minimal. If you get stressed by the holidays as I do, please check out Diana and Dawn’s 5 Days to Christmas event, even without catching everything live there’s great value in group and wonderful suggestions for how to bring the cheer back into your Christmas!