Hello!
How is your Wednesday treating you? So far mine is great - I have a cup of coffee in my hand and both dogs stayed in the yard during their morning potty break, so the day is looking up.
I was chatting with my aunt yesterday about Christmas to-do’s and realized that I am experiencing an almost completely stress free Christmas. This is absolutely amazing, because last year around this time I majorly was freaking out.
Granted, last year a lot of that stress had to do with my decision to make my gifts, but there was also life stress -I was weaning Ina from nursing and Dan was recovering from a hip replacement.
This year, believe it or not, I would say we have had even more life stress (more on that later). So, what’s the difference?
I think the difference is that this year Dan and I have made it a priority to celebrate the birth of our savior, and we will get to everything else if/when we can.
When I think of Christmas that way, there seems to be plenty of time for me to do everything else I want to do. The extras:
-I purchased almost all of our gifts online and stuck to a strict budget. One gift is wrapped, but there is still plenty of time for that.
-Our Christmas cards won’t get here until December 15th, which means that people will likely get them 3 days before Christmas, which I think is perfect timing!
-We already did one “activity” and have time to do at least one more
-Our decorations are “sort of” up. Some friends popped in when I was putting garland around our stairway, so I stopped half way and a week later, that strand is still barely hanging on.
-We have sang more Christmas carols that I can count with only minor hiccups. Ina typically has a certain song in her head that she wants to sing, but Dan and I usually have no idea what she is trying to sing, especially when she starts sobbing because we aren’t singing the right one. Hashtag terrible twos.
I hope that my attitude will always be this way, because I don’t want to put a damper on the spirit that Dan and Ina have in them this year. Example: last night Ina and I were driving home from the grocery store and she saw a house with lights and she yelled, “Christmas lights!"
I laughed and immediately turned into the nearest neighborhood to take her on a little tour. She seriously freaked out over every single one. Her favorite were the stars and reindeer. When we saw a nativity scene I would say, “Look, there is Baby Jesus!” which I think confused her more than anything. I can totally see her thinking, “Um, Mom, why doesn’t Jesus come to our house?"
OK, now I am just babbling.
Take home point: stress-free Christmas >>> stress-FULL Christmas.
Have a good day!
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