Wow! Hard to believe it's the Christmas season again. I always look forward to Christmas. It has always been a good time for me. No sad holidays yet that I can remember anyway. However this year seems to be extremely stressful. I'm not sure why but it seems that the workload has doubled in every way. We added a Christmas party (for our worship team at church) to our schedule this month. You'd think that a simple Christmas party would not come this that much stress but my goodness! My motivation is slipping away and I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to finish getting ready (the way that I wanted to at least). For next year I need to prune way down the amount of things I try to accomplish for Christmas. It's not the things I do for my family. It's all the things I try to do for everyone else. I need to do less baking for one thing. I enjoy it so much but now it's becoming a burdensome tradition that I can't keep up with. I am also making several homemade Christmas gifts, which I also love to do, however, more time and more stress. Hmmmm, there seems to be a pattern here. It seems that I am putting too much expectation on myself and that I need to do less than that.You know why Christmas was so fun and exciting as a kid? It's because everyone else did all the work and we just got to enjoy it all. We were the recipients of all the hard work.
So the question is...........do we, as the adults now do what our parents did to make Christmas so special in so many ways to make it equally as special for our kids. Or do we do less and set our kids up for success when they grow up with a whole lot less expectations???
I guess it all goes back to the real meaning of Christmas..............and it's certainly not the snowman in the picture above!
I am curious to hear what you all will have to say.
2 comments:
i can totally feel your pain. i have been making way too many of our christmas gifts this year and it is very stressful. i am hoping to wrap it up by this weekend though, so the week before christmas will be a little less stressful. good luck with your christmas party, i am sure if you are in charge it will be amazing!
Our family spoiled us kids so much that to this day, I expect a mound of gifts. I get emotionally wrecked if I'm not spoiled. I hide it pretty well, but seriously... they gave me a total complex. We've changed to gift thing to be fewer and more special things and focus on all we are thankful for, and the "reason for the season." I only make the sugar cookies, so the baking is a memory from childhood. My mom went overboard with that sometimes too! I also have fun shopping all year long for gifts for friends and family. If I see something that reminds me of someone, I get it and keep it in a box in the closet all year. That way, there is no shopping stress. Chris told me last night that he's glad to be married to me because I take care of all that crap. ;)
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