The picture above is our Christmas tree, a couple of years back.
& a couple of my favorite articles that I have shared in the past.
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2012/12/17/resisting-the-h...
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My job is crazy insane busy during the Christmas season, and so this has been a very big factor in our attitude about Christmas. I don't have the time and the energy and so mostly sit out the season.
Our attitude is also compounded by the in-laws' Christmas gift extravaganza. It's like, the kids got 100 toys from Grandma, so no one else gets absolutely any joy giving them gifts. Even my parents just don't get them anything. I share just to point out that all of the above is more for the adults than the kids. My kids know that their paternal grandparents are a little crazy and excessive but that everyone else we know is the complete opposite. I think it's obvious to them that their experience with Grandma is not the norm. They have never once asked me why no one else gets them any presents - aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. It's never occurred to them that they should be getting presents from everyone. They just think Grandma really really likes Christmas!
I read through those articles again and it reminded me of the final rules of Christmas simplicity in our house. We don't travel and we don't cook. My spouse has a problem with taking the kids anywhere on Christmas day because he hated that when he was a kid - he wanted to stay home and to play with his toys. So, Christmas day is always at home. I am more than fine with that because is I am lucky to get Christmas day off and certainly can't swing more time off than that.
Dh is really good about cooking and helping with cleaning, etc. But we make Christmas a day of rest. I think dh is probably fine with throwing something in the crockpot and maybe we have done that on occasion. But it's my mom who really has a problem with people cooking on Christmas. So she usually insists that we just order a pizza or pick a take and back from the store (our grocery store has great pizzas). Surprisingly, even my MIL seems to like this tradition. She loves the idea of ordering out on Christmas day. I've never lived in a house with a Christmas feast, so all of the above works fine for me. I don't do anything to prepare, and we keep Christmas day very low key.
November 30th, 2014 at 07:18 pm 1417375098
November 30th, 2014 at 07:36 pm 1417376216
December 1st, 2014 at 06:27 am 1417415274
For the past 12 years my sister has hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas at her house. Fisher for Thanksgiving it was "small" with only about 28 of us gathered around the three tables. Christmas morning is done at her house by herself with my other sister doing it with her family at her home. I take advantage of the fact that I'm single and have no children to make myself my favorite cuppa coffee and curl up with a really good book for several hours on Christmas morning. Mid afternoon I go to one or the other of the sisters houses for Christmas dinner.
This year the Christmas dinner at my sisters house will have almost 40 people there. Not just family at Christmas or Thanksgiving, but we also often have friends who have to work shifts as paramedics, firemen, or in law-enforcement who will swing by at different times for snacks, appetizers, dinner (sometimes which is wrapped up in aluminum foil and taken with them as they go back to their shifts) or for dessert. I love it but it becomes very hectic and quite frankly a very long day especially when you spend four hours in the kitchen helping to prepare everything that people will eat in about 15 minutes.
Christmas Eve has always been at my best friends parents house, since I was about 16–17, where they have an open house and it was the one time of year we knew we could connect other than our birthdays in July as we got older.