Five Ways to Embrace More Joy at Christmas
What if we said “no” to Christmas?
Don’t get mad at me! I mean, “no” to the stress and “yes” to the true joy of it all.
Presents, parties, cards, presents, treats, lights, presents, field trips, ornaments, traveling, cleaning, presents… 🤔 notice a pattern? 🎁
How can a new approach to Christmas help us say yes to joy?
It Starts with the Saw and Sled
Last weekend, we drove out to the cutest tree farm ever - one of my favorite traditions with my husband and two kids. We live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are simply love it. This farm is down a pretty tree-lined road, their sign is a fun old-timey pickup truck with a Christmas tree in the bed, and customers park next to a little barn decorated with wreaths, lights, and a fire pit for kids to roast s’mores.
We grabbed a saw and snow sled (yes, we are one of those towns blessed with actual white Christmases) to go pick the 👏 best👏 tree 👏 ever. My daughter is especially invested in this adventure and points to the way back 40 acres of the property.
My son, at thirteen, is all gangly legs in his skinny jeans and too-tall snow boots and is trying unsuccessfully to claim he’s not cold while hunting for critters under every log and rock. My daughter finally decides on the fifth “perfect” tree and we cut it down. To prove his manliness my husband forgoes the snow sled and carries it on his shoulder to the pay-booth then he heartily chucks it into the bed of his manly truck. Nice work, man-of-the-house 🥰.
Finally, my joy is complete while we wander around the sparkly, Christmas-scented gift shop sipping on hot spiced apple cider.
After this wonderful adventure, I made a promise to myself and adopted a new mindset: do each task slowly and joyfully, without rigid timelines. If it couldn't be done with joy, maybe it wasn't essential. Follow along for the steps my husband and I have taken to curate the most joyful Christmas memories with our children.
1. Embrace the Chaos
In the past, I hated the next part: bringing the tree into the house. This year, though, I took on a new mindset: Do each thing slowly and joyfully - do not have a mandatory to-do list that must be accomplished in a set amount of time.
If I can’t do it slowly and joyfully, maybe it doesn’t need to be done. Who cares if we decorate the tree today or decorate the walls and mantle today?
I am proud to say that the rest of the day was super happy even though nothing was perfect. The needles shedded all over the dining room, the lights that I’ve had for 8 years didn’t work, and my daughter made a giant mess of searching for things to decorate her room with.
But I was surprised to realize that I wasn’t mad about any of it.
Because I was moving slowly and joyfully, I decided it was no big deal to run to Target but didn’t have to because we eventually decided to just use other lights we already owned that my daughter had unearthed.
This was a really cool moment in my journey to life and love balance. I can have some rage-y internal temper tantrums. You know the ones: like when the house exploded while you were at a half-hour appointment and you tornado-clean before company comes over. Using my tips and tricks from self-help books like Battlefield of the Mind and Mindful Way helped everyone enjoy the day. The tree was set up, lights added, and we had a lovely time decorating it that night after dinner.
2. Only Decorate with Your Favorites
We have an excessive quantity of Christmas ornaments. My favorite is a little upside-down snowman. My least favorites are the ugly ones I was given when required to be a part of an ornament exchange with people that simply shopped the clearance aisle.
A minimalist approach to decorating helped me fall back in love with all my beautiful and memorable seasonal favorites. Over the last few years, I have been subscribing to a more “minimalist” lifestyle. It all started when my kids' playroom became are mine-field of preschool toys in a matter of a few unsupervised minutes. Something big needed to change and I absolutely loved the results.
For Christmas time, this means loving the things we love and removing the things that don’t enhance our joy. For example, if no one takes a particular ornament out of the tote bin to hang it up, it doesn’t have value. Therefore it migrates to a laundry basket dedicated to donations throughout the year.
Remember to utilize your curbside trash pick-up. Resell stores can’t sell your three-year-old neighbor’s nephew’s pre-k macaroni and yarn framed Santa drawing! And they don’t want to put your ugly Walmart clearance ornament out either.
For fun, let’s take a break and have a college flashback (not that one!🤦). Remember your first opportunity to decorate for Christmas? TJMaxx, anyone 🙋? We had cheap lights that stayed up until April and discount-store towels, rugs, and wall decor.
When you decorate this year, if you still own the flashback Christmas junk, take the leap and take it to the curb. If you’re worried about keeping things for their “memories,” take a picture. Get it out the door asap.
Back to present day: my grandma is an incredibly talented artist. She and my papa created beautiful wooden decor including a massive collection of Christmas that is near and dear to my heart. When she moved, she gave my mother and me all of her decor that wouldn’t fit in her new home. My soul was singing with memories of my childhood. I turn my home into a gorgeous but simple cozy cottage Christmas-themed wonderland every year.
Soon, I realized that I was leaving heaps of things at the bottom of the Christmas bin every year and never decorated with them, not because they were “bad” but because they don’t have as much value as what I own now. Therefore, they took a hike to Goodwill or the curb. I thought I would be sad but I was so relieved to open the bin and only see the things that brought me the most joy.
3. Shorten the Task-List
How, you say?
I loved creating Christmas cards to mail to our families when my kids were little. I stayed home with them so we had time to create digital cards on Shutterfly that showcased my adorable children and the dog, too 🐕. I took my kids on field trips to the post office, we signed the cards in sparkly pens, and I truly enjoyed the whole process.
Because I was totally hooked on my Christmas card tradition, the first year I was working full-time, I did Christmas cards. It was awful. It took so much time, thought, preparation, and bleary-eyed late-night envelope-licking (pre-covid era!).
The following year, I had a queasy feeling in my tummy! How strange that not sending cards would make me genuinely nervous. But, to take better care of myself, I was resolved to not do it. I caved and still bought ten cards to send to the vital family members. But I didn’t send cards to the masses.
To my ultimate surprise, I loved it. I sent texts and created cute social media instead. My text message exchanges ended up being more impactful in some cases!
Cookie making (like six batches!) and cookie delivery were other things that I loved. But that, too, made it to the chopping block. Since I started working, I couldn’t spend multiple afternoons putting cookies into cute little boxes and house-hopping with my kiddos. Now, we make one batch and the four of us eat the whole thing on the first day.
We allow our traditions to change based on our circumstances. We had fun delivering cookies to friends and neighbors during the preschool years and now we bake and eat ‘em ourselves! Think of things on your Christmas list that were once wonderful that no longer serve you. Do you need to remove a volunteer task or take away the extreme light decorating? Remove what is no longer bringing you joy and watch the possibilities open up for things that truly make you smile. No one will notice the loss, I promise.
4. Spending Time Where it Matters Most
I am a very honest. I cannot tell you lies. I haven’t changed and probably won’t change the amount of traveling we do. Curious?
When our kids were about 5 and 7, my husband only had enough vacation time that we couldn’t travel right after Christmas that year like we used to. We drove to my parents house and woke up there on Christmas morning for the first time.
It wasn’t easy - we had to sneak the gifts into bins and hide them in the bed of the very manly pick-up truck. I like the magic of the season so I even went as far as to label the bins with things like “gram’s house” and “donations for St. Mary’s.” Super spy-mode, I know 🕵️
This particular Christmas Eve, my mother was the happiest I’d ever seen her: My brother came over with his family and I was there with mine. She had snacks and treats, and we all exchanged gifts.
Then, on Christmas morning, Santa had come (we did all the santa-y things at 9:30pm when the kids fell asleep). My kids woke up super early of course but I refused to let them open anything until my mom and dad joined us. They wrapped up in blankies by the toasty fireplace and played with the toys from Aunt and Uncle from the night before.
Waiting for grandma and grandpa to come down on Christmas morning. Sharing the magic has been a wonderful gift. The scene was absolutely magical. It brings tears to my eyes now to remember the pure love I felt in their excitement on the happiest day of the year. When my mom joined us, she let her tears fall - the joy she felt couldn’t possibly be contained while the kids opened presents, ate cinnamon rolls, and my husband and I gathered up all the paper.
You see, Christmas isn’t about parents and their kids. My husband and I agreed that the happiness we gifted to my family was astronomical in comparison to the happiness we used to feel just the four of us at home. Christmas is about sharing joy with as many people as possible, as Jesus taught us.
We started ensuring that we saw my husband’s family close to Christmas as well knowing that they had time with other extended families on Christmas day.
If we hadn’t been forced to go visit, I don’t think we could have discovered the magic of the season as we did. Now, I use Amazon and Target to send gifts ahead of time for my mom to wrap (which she loves doing!) and we get excited for the rest and relaxation that comes with sharing the magic and joy.
So long as we have joy to gift to others, Christmastime will contain traveling and I’m glad it does.
5. Presents - Less is More
Minimalism is hard this time of year. Really hard. When my kids were little, choosing toys was easy but as they got older, it got harder. Now we have settled into two or three “big” things that come from their Santa letters and from needs we know are coming around the corner like bikes and skis.
As a mom, I like the look of lots of boxes and things that can be unwrapped. So I printed photos of a hotel we were going to in a box and wrapped it. This accidentally turned into a super silly guessing game while the kids tried to figure out where we were going and when! My parents once put tickets to a performance in my stocking - still my favorite childhood memory.
If you have family that truly loves giving lots of gifts, I finally learned a lesson that I wish I had known sooner. Say thank you with as much genuine love as possible. Your goal is to have more joy this time of year. The fastest way to more happiness is to give others happiness: embrace each person’s love language this time of year.
I highly recommend a few things to eliminate gift-giving stress:
Each year, knock a few more people off the list. Call your family members and decide to stop exchanging gifts - they will be grateful because they don’t want the stress of it either!
For the people you want to give gifts to but can’t always figure out what to give (teenage nieces and nephews!), stock up on basic gift cards like Amazon, Shutterfly, or Visa throughout the year. Many local organizations fundraise by selling gift cards - hop on board with them for a double dose of do-good.
Try to give clutter-free gifts: consumables and event tickets are my favorites to receive but these can also be vacations for your kids that you were planning to take anyway but you can call it a gift! Or plan a trip to visit someone or offer to host a sleepover with a theme of their choosing.
Store up ideas for your kids during the year that you are going to have to buy anyway. Things like sporting equipment (bikes, helmets, skates, jerseys, gear, skis, passes to a favorite sports spot, etc) or clothing fit into this idea. Kids LOVE gifts like this because they are super important to kids' coolness factor.
Journal:
Read this to manifest extra joy when you are feeling overwhelmed by taking care of everything:
Lord, help me to see what you need me to see this Christmas season. Show me sparkle and joy. Show me the things I can let go of. Show me how to get closer to You and Your love so I can remove the unwanted and embrace the goodness. Help me take care of myself so I can take care of all my beautiful blessings.
Write down your vision of your home at Christmas. What would be your dream Christmas decor? What would make you smile every morning when you drink your first cup of coffee? It could be all the things or it could be that you don’t actually like any decor. Design and manifest your true goals with all the Christmas stuff.
Write down all the things you do to “celebrate” Christmas. This includes cookies and cards like I mentioned above but also add all the parties, visits, fundraising, or commitments. Make a green (love doing), yellow (don’t really want to but kinda have to), and red (I don’t want to do this anymore or I don’t know why I have for so long) color key. Start eliminating the things that do not light up your spirit.
Decide who is vital to have on your list of people. Stick to the MAIN closest people that you feel happy to shop for. I cannot even begin to say who this is for you but start writing. Like your task list, make a green (love giving them presents), yellow (probably should give them presents and but might be able to stop eventually), and red (I don’t want to give them presents and don’t know why I have for so long) color key.
Finally, using the info from above, make a Christmas gratitude list. Aim for ten things. Gratitude is the number one identifier of happiness which is super cool because we have the power to create gratitude - we don’t have to wait for this blessing.
