I’ve been thinking about Christmas!
Christmas tree last year, over 8 ft of twinkly excessiveness
What would make it perfect?
Spend loads on presents? Have lots of family over for dinner? Go down the pub in the morning? Go for a walk in the afternoon? Have home-made everything? Colour match the baubles? Have enough presents to put under the tree, end of the bed and fill stockings?
Every year I try to do all these things. It’s exhausting!
It’s not as though the children don’t understand budgets, or as if any of our families want dodgy vases or reindeer jumpers. I’ve suggested cutting out buying presents for adults but Hubby doesn’t agree, even though he thinks I spend too much. He also thinks I fret too much about baubles, despite throwing a complete fit if anyone moves anything on his mantlepiece (and he will notice) which is a work of art. Here let me show you…
Lovely isn’t it.
Anyway, I need to cut out the stress and just enjoy Christmas. I need to not fret that Hubby goes down the pub before cooking for fifteen people, serving dinner late and falling asleep at the table. I need to point out that Father Christmas is not willing to wait up until five in the morning so that the adult children can carouse down the pub until the early hours, just in order to hang up stockings and put presents at the ends of their beds. I need to not care that Hubby never joins us to open presents around the tree. I need to put on my coat and go for a walk on my own if I want one. I need to buy pre-prepared Christmas pudding!
In truth I’ve come round to this way of thinking for several years, but I still yearn for that chocolate box Christmas of my childhood.
Now I come to think of it, Dad complained Mum spent too much, Mum spent the whole day in the kitchen, serving dinner late and missing the gift opening, by which time Dad was plastered and Mum was telling him not to drink too much. Everybody complained that my baubles weren’t right (I was very young). We never did manage to get out for that walk after dinner and there were some dodgy jumpers unwrapped.
Heaven!
e1aine 
I think Christmas has gotten out of hand myself. Christmas isn’t about working yourself to the bone in the kitchen all day, nor all the boxes under the tree. Christmas is about Jesus,and spending quality time together with friends and family. Just my thoughts
It was your comment about the shops being full of it already that set me to thinking.
I’ve decided not to do the ‘stress thing’ this year and just remember how lucky we are.
great idea!!!
My husband works shifts and interstate which has for the last few years meant he is not home on the 25th. Christmas is about being with family and friends, and is just as important to us on whatever other day as it is if we celebrate on the 25th. Good luck with this year 🙂
Very true. I’m going to give up stress this year and just enjoy it. My husband may be drunk and asleep in the gravy, but he will be here, so I should think myself lucky.
When we moved here, the owners of the house we rent had just put out their Christmas tree in the driveway. We’ve never been sure how to recycle it, so…it’s still there. It’s brown, the spiders have made a home base in it, but the needles are still hanging on and I’m thinking of bringing it back inside as the ultimate recycling project. Thoughtful of us, no? 🙂
Um… We usually recycle them down the dump in February! Anyway, you can’t make all those spiders homeless, surely.
I always yearn for the chocolate box Christmas just like my childhood too, but with divorced parents and extended family living 33 miles away it is just not practical anymore. This year I want to celebrate Yule in the traditional sense, with adjacent family and friends, just spending quality time together. None of us have very much money, and nobody needs expensive gifts anyway. All we need is each other, some good food, and some nice old-fashioned board games… ; )
You are completely right. Why am I complaining? My family live close and all pitch in, so not much money needs spending and we have the big family feast I enjoy so much.
My mom can make Christmas pretty frightening. She turns into Mrs. Clause and has to buy a gift for everyone. I beg her every year to just do what she likes to do for Christmas, bake and share.
Sounds like a good plan. I should take the advice even if you Mum doesn’t.
Why do we buy all this rubbish? I speak as someone who will almost certainly do it again this year.
He, he. I think Christmas is an opportunity for my mom to express her generosity. I suspect that’s true for a lot of people.