Choosing What Really Matters This Holiday Season
When my kids were little, there was one piece of mail that got them really excited: the Amazon holiday catalog.
One of my boys in particular would grab that thing, take a marker, and go cozy up in his room to peruse and circle all the things he dreamed about getting for Christmas.
And let’s just say that his dreams were big and he circled a LOT of things!
Many of the things he circled were unrealistic—either because of price or practicality (no you can’t have that giant stuffed animal because it won’t even fit in your bedroom).
Some of the things he circled were things he’d never even thought of and probably didn’t really want but in that moment they seemed exciting.
And honestly, if he’d gotten all of the things he circled, he would have been completely overwhelmed and unable to enjoy what he got or already had.
So of course, as his mom, it was my job to help him reign it in and figure out what actually mattered to him.
I’ve been thinking about this recently though, and how similar I can be at Christmas.
For me it’s not toys but the things I think I can squeeze into my holiday season. One more party, one more plate of cookies, one more new tradition.
It’s like I’ve got my own catalog, and I see all the fun and exciting things, and I want everything! I try to “circle” it all. And I really do love a lot of it, so why not include it in my holiday season, right?
But just like with my son and his overzealous circling, my excitement for all the things isn’t always realistic or practical either.
And if I did everything that sounds fun and exciting to me at the holiday season, I’d be overwhelmed and wouldn’t enjoy it all.
So, maybe we aren’t all that different, me and my son.
Maybe, like my son, we all need an outside observer to help us be practical and realistic in what we choose to “circle” for our holiday seasons this year. Maybe we need to take some time to really look and consider what’s going to bring the most joy and what needs to go.
Let me give you just one relatable example of this from my own holiday season from years ago.
When I married into my husband’s family, they had a tradition of a yearly Christmas cookie plate. I grew up with holiday treat traditions including fudge, caramels, and peanut brittle but to be honest, none of those are all that enticing to me.
But cookies are another story. I love them.
My mother-in-law would bake maybe 15 different types of cookies for this cookie plate—peanut butter blossoms, buckeyes, lemon sandwich cookies, coconut balls, chocolate mint cookies, molasses cookies, M&M cookies, Scotcharoos, you name it, it was on the plate. It was amazing!
And just like with the catalog we’ve been talking about, when this plate was placed in front of me, I had a hard time just choosing one or two options and wanted to eat all the things.
I usually set out with good intentions to just eat a couple, but I’d inevitably end up feeling sick from eating too many by the time I was done.
Over the years, I started to implement this tradition too, creating a cookie plate of my own, with many of the same things that my mother-in-law included, and a few of our own family favorites.
In order to pull this off though, you have to start baking really early in the season and freeze a lot of things.
It’s a lot of work.
So, after a while, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law and I started dividing up the baking. We’d each choose a handful of cookies to make and then we’d swap them with each other so that we each had a full variety of cookies on our plate without having to make them all.
But after a few years of this I realized something.
There are so many treats at the holidays that a lot of them end up going to waste. And that was happening with the cookies.
By late December or early January, I’d find myself throwing away frozen cookies that we never got around to eating or we were sick of. I’d spent so much time on them and many just ended up in the trash.
At this point I decided it was time to change this tradition.
Just like the circling everything in the catalog, or me wanting to cram all the traditions and fun into the holiday season, a little cutting back was needed.
Now, instead of making 10-15 different types of cookies at the holidays, I make a few of our family favorites.
I still probably eat too many, but at least it’s focused on the ones that I really like instead of eating everything in front of me.
To do this, I’ve had to consider which cookies matter the most to me and my family, which are our favorites that we are going to prioritize?
And while this is just with cookies, I’ve learned it’s wise to do this with traditions and parties and all the things that can start to cram up my schedule during this busy season.
I need to figure out what matters most to me and my family and just choose those things.
If we try to “circle” everything, we end up overwhelmed and don’t really even enjoy the things we do. It’s too much chaos, too much stimulation, too much exhaustion.
Here’s your permission slip to take a look at your holiday calendar and cut a few things off. To think about your traditions and just pick a few favorites and let the others go.
You don’t need to circle everything to have a good holiday season.
If you tend to find yourself thinking things like:
“I’m exhausted and there’s still so much to do”
“No one notices everything I’m doing”
“Why am I grumpy when I love this season?”
during the holiday season, here are a few things that can help:
🎄 Here’s a Free Guide to Feeling Less Drained this Holiday Season
🎄 Podcast Episode: Feeling the Holiday Magic Yourself This Season