Christmas in July: Choosing a Quiet Christmas, Part 2

Welcome back! Today I want to share some of the things I have done and do every year to make sure we have the quiet Christmas we want. As I said in yesterday's post, these ideas may not work for you exactly like they work for me, but they may help you come up with your own solutions. If you missed yesterday's post, you may want to scroll down and catch up.

The things I do fall into three broad categories that I think cover the main sources of holiday stress.

1) Set boundaries
2) Scale back
3) Shop early

Set boundaries.
Setting boundaries can apply to so many things during the holiday season, but let's face it: one of the main sources of holiday stress is family. I only want to touch on this lightly because it can be a sensitive subject, but I think it's important to admit that the three things that make families go bonkers are weddings, funerals, and... Christmas. There are so many people who dread the holidays because it means a lot of interaction with family members who are not easy to get along with. Let me say up front, I'm not talking about people with legitimate mental or physical health issues. I'm talking about family members who are just plain ornery, as we say in Texas. You know who I'm talking about. Allow me to offer up a couple thoughts.

*You teach people how to treat you. If Aunt Sephronia makes everyone miserable during the holidays, maybe it's because everyone around her has inadvertently taught her that if she's cantankerous enough, she'll get her way. There are many, many people who function this way because it works, and they hold their families hostage to their whims. Don't be a hostage. Don't be rude. Don't be confrontational. Just don't be a hostage.

*Christmas is for you, too. If you're wearing yourself to a shadow to meet the demands of family during the holidays, perhaps it's time to recognize that you get to enjoy Christmas, too. It's okay to say, "No." One of my favorite sayings is, " 'No' is a complete sentence." You don't owe anyone an explanation for declining to do something or go somewhere or make something. And here's a radical idea: Simply not wanting to do something is reason enough not to do it. You don't have to be suffering from pneumonia to have a good reason to decline baking eight dozen cookies for your cousin's kids' school bake sale. You can just not want to. She'll figure it out.

Scale back.
Trust me, scaling back will make you happy. There are oodles of ways to do this (see yesterday's post for a few ideas).  Here are a few more things to consider.

*Organize your Christmas stuff. Really. Go through all of it, keep only the things you love, donate what you don't keep, and store it in an orderly way. This will make your holiday decorating so much easier. Christmas stuff tends to mysteriously accumulate from year to year, and if you're not regularly cleaning it out, you'll find yourself storing more stuff than you're pulling out to display. Remember, "When you keep everything, you honor nothing."

*Go small. Give yourself permission to go small on Christmas decorating now and then, or permanently. I love Christmas and I have... I've lost count of how many trees. I think when they're all up there are... six or seven? A couple are big, a couple are sort of medium-sized, and the rest are little table top ones. When they're all out, wow! But I don't put them all out every year. Some years I just don't want to mess with it. I have what I call "Christmas in a box." I made this up years ago because as a military family, we're not always sure what our holidays are going to look like. It's a small tree, tree skirt, lights, and decorations all stored in the same little box. When I need it, I can pull out one box and set up an adorable Christmas tree in half an hour. You could adapt this idea to include your most treasured decorations, the ones you want to use every year. Store them together so that you don't have to root through all your decorations to find them.

*Let go of "The Perfect Gift." The Perfect Gift was already given, about 2,000 years ago. You're never going to top it. Let go of the idea that every person on your shopping list has to have a gift that will take their breath away. More radical thinking: Maybe not everyone on your shopping list even needs a store-bought gift. Consider a charity donation in their name. Consider taking them out to nice lunch. Consider baking them their favorite cookies. I always laugh at those holiday car commercials where one spouse surprises the other with a new car draped in a giant bow. Who buys a car without talking to their spouse about it?! But it's part of the culture we live in that insists that Christmas gifts be lavish and over-the-top. Let that go. Most of us have so much already.

Shop early.
There is a large and vocal segment of the population that hates seeing Christmas stuff appear in the summer and I am not a part of it! Usually, the first stores to start putting out Christmas items are the big craft stores, for obvious reasons. Holiday craft fairs often start as early as October, and people who make items to sell have to get an early start. My favorite source for supplies, Hobby Lobby, is always the first in my area to begin putting out Christmas, right after 4th of July. I love it because July is when I really start getting going on making things for Christmas, including my annual Christmas Open House here on my blog. There are several good reasons to shop as early as possible.

*You spread expenses out over months instead of weeks. Even if you've scaled back your Christmas giving/spending, there are still always expenses associated with the holidays, especially if you're making things. I know there are people who don't even want to think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but for me, compressing holiday spending (not to mention everything else) into three weeks instead of spreading it out over four or five months is asking for a stressful Christmas. We no longer buy gifts for everyone at Christmas (we now focus on birthdays, instead), but back when we did, I assigned one month of the year to one or two people and shopped for their Christmas gift during that month (example: shop for Grandmother in February, shop for Aunt in March, etc.). By the time December rolled around, there were only one or two gifts left to find. Note: this is much easier to do if you've let go of the idea of The Perfect Gift.

*The selection is great. By December, most Christmas merchandise looks like a tornado has been through it. When you're shopping in the summer or early fall, everything is well-stocked and in good order. Don't fall prey to the idea that you have to wait until December to find all the best stuff. Let gooooo of the idea of The Perfect Gift!

*You have the store to yourself. When I'm shopping for Christmas craft supplies or gifts, I am almost always the only one doing so. Does that sound like a fantasy? The dream can be yours if you shop early, when no one else is paying attention to Christmas stuff. If you've not experienced this type of Christmas shopping, let me assure you, it's a delight. I haven't been caught up in a Christmas shopping crowd or traffic in... at least a decade. Probably longer. I just don't do it. When everyone else is out there battling each other for The Perfect Gift, I'm at home stitching.

*****

I hope some of my thoughts over the last couple of days have been helpful to you on your journey to a quiet Christmas. I'd like to leave you with one final thought that I try to keep in mind all the time, not just at Christmas.

Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

If you're a perfectionist like I am, you know that perfectionism has a critical flaw: it's better to not do something at all rather than do it imperfectly. Don't buy into this idea at Christmas or at any other time. Don't believe that because you can't have a "perfect Christmas" you can't have a good one. Don't believe that because circumstances may have changed, beloved relatives may have passed, you can't have a good Christmas. You can make your Christmas warm and special and quiet and good.

LHN's Winter Sampler from the 2009 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament Issue

(stitching info here)

If you've made it through the last two monster posts... thank you for reading! And come back tomorrow for more Christmas in July (but fewer words)!