Christmas is coming! The goose is getting fat!

Please tell me you were forced to sing that awful song in elementary school, too. Like kids know what a ha'penny is! Like a grown person born in the 1970s does either!

I think what Elizabeth said last year bears repeating: that you can't really expect Christmas to happen ORGANICALLY. You can't just wake up one morning with Christmas traditions already intact; you can't just dream up a perfect Christmas, sit back and expect it to happen.

You know what? I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with this sentiment. You can certainly have a lovely Christmas season without trying too hard – of course, in that respect, it certainly helps that other people put out decorations and radio stations play Christmas music and everything seems festive and bright. You can just be a TOTAL BYSTANDER at Christmas and still come out feeling like you've enjoyed a good measure of holiday cheer. But if you're expecting anything more, if you're expecting to make it special or memorable or meaningful, you've got to do more than just soak it in and hope the feeling rubs off on you. You've got to be INTENTIONAL about enjoying Christmas.

This bothers some people (my husband being one of them), but I really think that if you assume that Christmas is one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kinds of things, and that as long as you participate in the basics (tree decorating, Christmas Eve service, Santa, gifts) that everything will turn out SUPER GREAT, I think you run a greater risk of being disappointed by the whole thing, and perhaps you will pull a ME and find yourself sobbing underneath the tree on Christmas morning while your ungrateful two-year-old throws a tantrum.

Of course, you can absolutely get away with the basics and have a perfectly happy and merry experience provided you don't participate in any kind of social networking, because if you can get away with never looking at Pinterest to choose from 47,000 decorating scheme options or finding out what everyone you know is baking on Facebook, THEN YOU'RE GOLDEN. No outside pressure to create the perfect, storybook Christmas because you live in a little, black, Internetless hole? Your kids are going to LOVE those Zsu Zsu Pets you got them this year!

(HA HA HA HA ZSU ZSU PETS WERE SO LAST YEAR, HOLE DWELLERS.)

Anyway. This is very applicable to me this year, as I tend to get swallowed up in Preparation for Disney Stuff (do you guys KNOW how hard it is for me to leave the suitcases in the attic, even 25 days out?) and in all the excitement, I've practically forgotten about the Christmas season, which WILL NOT DO, as Christmas lasts approximately 40 days or something (day after Thanksgiving until the kids go back to school on January 3) and we'll only be at Disney for five of them. In other words, I need a plan. And I have A'Dell and the aforementioned Elizabeth to thank for this, because without their posts this week, I would never have gotten my butt in gear. So here are the three things I am making an effort on this season.

THE ADVENT CALENDAR
Last year's Advent Calendar was super successful. The kids enjoyed it, but TECHNICALLY it was much more for me – it helped me move through the season day by day, it gave me something to plan for, and it got me in the Christmas spirit early. It also gave me something to hype to the kids, which was a fantastic way to end tantrums and encourage good behavior. This year I'm going to do it again, though I'm not going to blog it every day (HA HA HA no), and there will be five days right there in the middle where we are on vacation, so how hard could it be, anyway? The nice thing about the Advent Calendar is that by involving the children and making a COMMITMENT to doing these things, I can't skip them... so really, this is just an easy way of making a To Do List, and then dragging the kids along with me, while masking it all as “fun.” I am going to make our list of activities and plan them out in the next week (am happy to share them here if you want me to).

LESS CRAP
The other thing I'm trying to focus on is not buying the kids a ton of crap. This is SUPER hard for me, as I am a gift giver by nature. I really enjoy it, and I can spend hours browsing and hemming and hawing over the PERFECT GIFT and let's be honest, I do not HAVE THAT KIND OF TIME. Less presents = less hemming, hawing. (Also, less money.) The other thing is, I realized that in the last few years, I have made Christmas a bit of a... shall we say, competition. My parents and my in-laws spoil my kids, and buy them heaps of presents, and I always felt like as their MOTHER, that I should be... I don't know, OUTDOING the grandparents, or else I wasn't doing Christmas RIGHT. I don't know why this felt like it mattered for so long. Every Christmas, I was dying to buy the kids their FAVORITE gift, in an effort to try and make my gift more memorable. Either that or I was trying to buy MORE stuff, so that the experiences they had at gift openings at other people's houses would pale in comparison. Guess what? THIS IS A STUPID IDEA. You know what I realized? Right now, my kids are little. They don't understand much about money, or gifts, nor do they truly care WHO the gifts come from. Is Lucy thinking, “Wow, my mom is so awesome for giving me this doll stroller I love to push around!” every time she gets it out of the closet? Is Asher appreciating the time and effort I put into picking out the Lego train he plays with? The answer here is no. They can certainly REMEMBER who gave them what; but they don't associate APPRECIATION with it.

Now, when my kids are older and less fun to buy for and the grandparents have to resort to things like sweaters and socks and maybe a video game or two? This is when I plan to swoop in and be AWESOME MOM, BUYER OF THE BEST GIFTS IN THE WORLD. And they will RECOGNIZE IT. This year, though, WE BE ON A BUDGET.

CONTINUE FAVORITE TRADITIONS
My favorite tradition – beyond anything involving gifts or music or lights or kids on a major sugar high – is the Christmas date that Dave and I have every year. We make cheese fondue, and we spread out a blanket in the living room, and we eat terribly fattening food and watch Love Actually and then Elf, if we can stay awake long enough. We turn out the lights and just hang out together and there is something about being in the room with a lit Christmas tree that makes it so much more special. This is one of my favorite nights of the year, and not just because there is melted cheese. I know that Christmas tends to favor the kids and all that we can do for and with the kids, but I like making time for the adults in the family, too. ADULTS ARE PEOPLE TOO.

Comments

[HereWeGoAJen]

When we lived in England, we had a gravel driveway. And I used to find honest-to-goodness ha'pennies in the gravel, dropped when they used to use those things. (I ought to ask my parents how old that house was.)

I made about half of the Advent calendar today. And then Elizabeth (the internet one, not the one who lives in my house) emailed me and I realized that I have been working on the Christmas activities to put in the calendar since JULY. Yes, JULY. We need an intervention. But I will happily share my list. I probably ought to put it up on the internet again. Perhaps tomorrow.

[Jaime]

My husband and I have a date every Christmas to watch Love Actually, too, though without the melted cheese. That sounds like an excellent addition.

[Stacie]

A girl after my own heart! I LOVE a room lit by just the Christmas Tree. LOVE IT. Also LOVE LOVE LOVE Love Actually and Elf. Perhaps my two favorite Christmas movies. Those movies make me smile and feel good. I may be stealing your date idea.

[Jenn]

Our Christmas traditions are kind of blown all to hell this year. We won't be able to have a Christmas tree because our gigantic dog will knock it over (lest you think I exaggerate, he weighs 110 pounds and people often make smart ass comments about him being a pony) and eat the ornaments. We are going to be away for part of the season, and not for anything fun, it's so my husband go WORK. My address book was in my computer that died and I don't have a backup. I am not going to have the time to decorate the house like I usually do. But it is what it is and we will make the most of it.

On a related note, I never really got into Advent calendars. Every year, my poor mom got us the kind that had the little chocolate bear inside and then was treated to my sister and I bickering over who got the bear. MAGICAL CHRISTMAS MEMORIES.

[Jesabes]

I'm the opposite about kids' gifts. Grandparents buying you 12 gifts apiece? Then you don't need anything from mom & dad! I'm trying to see how many years I can get away with getting them almost nothing.

[Carmen]

Oh please please share your advent calendar ideas! I've only got about 15 good ones, and then I'm sputtering a bit. Please inspire me!

I agree wholeheartedly: Christmas is what you make it. I am trying to figure out what things our little family would like to incorporate and turn into traditions. There have been a few things that just didn't work out, but several that we will do each year.

Last year I decided to follow Devan from All D's gift giving method. So the kids get 3 gifts from us: something to read, something to play with and something to wear. The grandparents can go to town if they want, but that's it except of course that Santa delivers stockings and one present.

[Karen]

Christmas is always hard for me. Not just because I suck at giving gifts (ask my husband), but because my brother passed away on the 21st a while back and so that kind of has always colored the festivities for me. However, we've found that the season is done right for US if we hold off on putting the tree up until December 24th. Yep. My husband gets a live, potted tree, brings it in on Christmas Eve, and because it's small, the kids can all decorate it. It's the kids' job, and I do my best to not direct their ornament placement. We do gifts on St Nicholas Day, and Epiphany, but just stockings on Christmas Day proper. It stretches the season out and we don't have a glut of presents on one day.

[auntie]

I love this post! As I was reading I realized that as a kid, you don't think about all the effort your parents put into MAKING! CHRISTMAS! MAGICAL!!!! And as an adult, since I'm not married and don't have children, I think I've still been expecting Christmas to just...happen. And then I wonder why it's stressful and I'm crying intermittently, and then it's over. And it's never what I wanted it to be. I spend time with my family and we do Christmas-y things, but I feel like most of the time it's all out of control. And my boyfriend isn't a "Christmas person" (his words, ugh) so if any holiday cheer is going to happen, it's coming from me. So, thank you thank you thank you for sharing this today - I didn't realize it but I really needed to read it!!

[Karen]

I forgot to say in my last commment, Emily, that thanks to you I made some calls and found a pregnancy crisis center in town that accepts diapers that are not in their packages--i.e. the ones my baby decided to outgrow after I bought a large packet of them. As long as you can label them with the size, they will take them. So my boys and I dropped those off today. I think we may try to do something like this often during Advent; on St Nicholas Day we go around the neighborhood and hang bags of gold chocolate coins on doorknobs (anonymously), but maybe we should be buying diapers for babies instead.

[Leigh]

Like Carmen said above, I figure the more gifts the grandparents buy, the less I have to buy, and I even put a limit on grandparents. My daughter is the oldest grandchild, and for her first Christmas she received over 20 gifts from my side of the family alone. It was ridiculous. So now, grandparents are limited to three gifts, we give three gifts (and one of those is pj's on Xmas Eve), and Santa brings one big present and a stocking.

I'm like you: I LOVE buying gifts, and cutting back like this is hard for me. But I think it's better for the kids not to get so much all at once, and it allows room in my budget to buy little gifts throughout the year just for good report cards or whatever.

[Suzannah]

Along the lines of LESS CRAP, we do something I read in Real Simple years ago. Our kids get 4 gifts - something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read. DONE. Helps our shopping be more purposeful and in check. The "want" is the biggish gift (this year, a dollhouse for one and a bike for the other). That and the stockings are from Santa, the rest are from Mom and Dad. For our 5 year old, she's getting a dollhouse (want), new markers (need), a pair of boots (wear) and a Christmas book (read, obviously). We also get them an ornament that represents what they were into this past year.

[Laura Diniwilk]

YES, YES, YES on the "Less Crap" section. I used to get pissed that my mom has this need to get the most and best gifts ever, and that she bought SO MUCH stuff that it seemed stupid for me to get anything. I am finally at a place where I will take the back seat during Christmas and birthdays, and then get an awesome gift during one of the OTHER 10 months of the year, because I saved my money. Plus? They are TWO and 3 MONTHS. So WHAT if they don't have my dream toy selection and wardrobe?

And Suzannah is my new hero - want, need, wear, read = genius.

[Lissa]

Couple things:

I had the "ideal" Christmas traditions as a child: Christmas eve dinner at my grandparents on my mom's side followed by presents(one or two by grandparents for each granchild and one from each aunt/uncle). Then over to my mom's side great-grandma for soup and present (she made ceramics and everyone got one). Christmas morning presents under the tree...one or two from santa (plus stocking) and one or two from Mom/Dad (number depended on finances that year). Then to the grandparents on Dad's side for Christmas lunch and then presents (one from each grandparent/aunt/uncle).
It was such an orderly tradition that when our parent's divorce/we got older/various aunt/uncles/cousins didn't make it to every Christmas event it was a huge "issue" in my world. It's about 12 years later since this tradition changed and I am still a little shell-shocked. I moved across the country 10 years ago and have STILL not adjusted. I work in 24-hour ER veterinary clinics so work a lot of holidays - thank goodness! Otherwise, honestly, I would probaby just be crying in corners from being bereft of my Christmas traditions. I CANNOT wait to have a family of my own to renew them with. And I DON'T CARE what my future husband tries to tell me is tradition for his family. Mine was perfect.

[Maggie]

Hmmm, P Cheung needs to be informed about the Christmas Date. I will tell him he can copy your idea as long as he swaps out the cheese for chocolate.

[Cj DeAndrea]

I still sing this song...but my husband had never heard it til I sang it...I'm from CA, he's from NJ..maybe it was a west coast thing....LOL!

[Ellen]

OMG, I never thought to do a date with hubs under the Christmas tree.... I love that idea. LOVE it. We will have to implement it this year. Thanks for sharing!