Make Your Christmas Perfect, Not Perfection
We are smack dab in the middle of the Christmas season which includes excitement as well as stress, as you all know. I have been talking to a lot of young busy moms lately and am reminded very well of how crazy this time of the year can get. I remember many years of staying up til the wee hours just to get the following day’s essentials completed, and then again the same, day after day until Christmas arrived, when I was to look my best and glow with peace and joy while conversing with everyone I meet. All I really needed at that point was a good Christmas movie, a blanket, and a latte.
Young mother friends (and fathers), I am feeling for you and want to teach you from my mistakes how to truly have a perfect Christmas.
1. Traditions are great but you do not have to do every single tradition every single year. Maybe the zoo lights can wait until next year, and in place drive or walk your neighborhood, appreciating their lights. If even that seems overwhelming, enjoy your own lights.
2. You don’t have to make 13 kinds of Christmas cookies. One kind is fine. Or none. Have you ever gone to a party where they ran out of cookies?My daughter wanted to make cutouts the other day and she started at noon after homework and finished at 9 pm! (Her cute little display is in the photo above.) She enjoyed it, but if you don’t enjoy it don’t do it! It is time consuming. Or if your little ones really love decorating cookies it is ok to buy them along with already made frosting and let them go to town!
3. Your home does not need to look like your Pinterest page. Remember those homes are staged for photos, and heaven forbid if one of their tots try to live during the photo shoot.
4. Decorate only with what makes you happy. If you keep and put out all your decorations just because you always have, stop the guilt. (Make sure you check with your family first to see if there’s something truly meaningful to them.)
5. Do not feel obligated to go to every party you are invited to. It’s ok to say that you have other plans, which may be staying home and having a game night with your family.
6. Don’t feel like you must go shopping for all new clothes for the entire family. Check closets and wear some of those cute items you’ve been savig for special occasions.
7. Have all the children pitch in. Remember perfect is not perfection. A perfect evening could be working together to clean a room while making a game of it and laughing through it. (Perfection might be you trying to do everything just so, all by yourself, while being angry at anyone who messes it up.) Another perfect evening could be a wrapping night. Pop some corn, put on the Christmas tunes, and everyone dig in. Complement each other and don’t correct the little ones’ wrappings.
8. Remember just who’s birthday it is. We worry so much about buying gifts for everyone we love when the Guy who is actually having the birthday just wants our time for His gift. O Come Let Us Adore Him.