Dumping Your Christmas To-Do List On Your Family
Too many years I’ve dreamed and come up with an enormous list of things that our family should do over the holidays.
Things like baking, sharing, checking out the neighborhood lights, visiting Santa and the shut-ins, making our own ornaments and stringing popcorn, playing games all day on Christmas Day, hosting parties, attending church services, chopping our tree in the great outdoors, hosting an open house, having the entire family help with Christmas cards (yah, right), you name it …. I wanted to do it.
It’s wonderful to be enthusiastic over the holidays, but now that my kids are teens, and I’ve learned a good, hard lesson about life during December, I want to share a few insights.
-Make a list of your dreams.
-Share it with your family in November (the last day – today!)
-Decide what’s important for your entire family.
-Decide what you want to keep as a tradition.
-Cross off the things that don’t get the “votes.”
-You may need to narrow it down even further.
-Agree that you won’t have hurt feelings.
As a mom, I know that I get very excited over the holidays, but I can also carry my over-exhuberance over to the family. I can put my expectations in their laps, so they inherit my “to do” list when they are wanting “simple.”
I’ve learned that every year I start off with good intentions, but I can get off track.
This year I’m going to create my list, keep my list, and keep checking my list … so that I stay on track.
Do you get swayed into doing too much during the holidays?
How do you rate yourself when it comes to dumping your “to-do” list on the family?
On a scale from 1-5:
1 – you keep your agenda to yourself
5 – you put expectations on your familyI can’t wait to hear your answers. They may even be a little giveaway for the best answer. Be real, friends. And if you have good tips, let’s share them and help each other out.
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I’m Sandy—lover of food, family, cooking, THE BIG BOARD, travel, and bringing people together. Through great recipes and connection around the table, we become better, stronger, and more courageous people. Feasting on Life is real, and every time we do it, we grow a little more. Read more...
For years I was a retail manager, and had to “finish” Christmas by November 12 or it simply would not happen with my work schedule. I would have my cards ready to be mailed, dinner and cookies in the freezer, gifts purchased, wrapped and tucked away.
Honestly, that wasn’t much fun but it took a big load of stress off.
Then I switched careers and my current holiday schedule is my easiest time of the year at work. So I started adding more and more “things to do” to my christmas list because I felt like I had been missing out all these years.
It got so stressfull to complete it all, I wasn’t enjoying it any longer – and neither was my family! So this year I decided to pare down the deco’s and not put up all of the tchochkies, simple wreaths and a spotlight for outdoor decos. I’m hosting a cookie swap to combine my need to entertain for the holidays and make the baking easier, and have carefully planned my “family fun day” with my neices and nephew.
We have kept our most treasured traditions and both the house and my head feel “cleaner”.
I guess I wasn’t really missing out on much all those years before!
Hi Sandy,
What a timely post!
On your scale I am probably a 1. Now. Not because I keep my list to myself but more because over the years I’ve really gotten away from making any list at all. I know that it will be my responsibility to do the cooking and have our extended families over for Christmas dinner (I have an easy menu and keep things simple) but much of the planning of what else we’ll do over the Christmas break is actually scheduled by my husband and son with the occasional idea thrown in by me for good measure. :-) And truth be told – now that I’m older – I love being the one who just gets to go along for the ride! :-) And the things they plan are all very family centered – such as touring the lights through the Hill Country or putting together food baskets for the hungry at our church – and not high pressure or over-planned – so it’s fun and to a certain extent (dare I say) relaxing.
But actually, I have learned a lot from my husband about learning how to relax during the holidays. When our son was young, I would walk into the living room where my husband and son would be nestled under the Christmas tree together playing with action figures and giggling. They were both so happy. I would come in, turn the over head lights on and start re-arranging ornaments on the tree that they had moved during their play time together. Can you imagine! Was I the ultimate party-pooper or what?
I was such a horrible control freak worrying and fussing about how everything needed to be perfect every minute of the holiday season. I would rush around here and there pushing myself to exhaustion. And then one day I woke up and realized that my son was getting older and my husband was dreading having folks over…I realized that everyone else HAD been happy and having a good time until I came on the scene. In my desire to have a great holiday season, I was actually creating a miserable one.
When we would look at photos together as a family from past Christmases, my son would say things like “Oh remember how mom had been fussing at us to clean-up right before this picture.” And my husband would respond with, “Oh I remember alright…I can’t stand having to clean-up before folks come over.”
I was mortified that this was how my family had remembered Christmas! Right then and there I had an epiphany! I thought “Oh no, I really don’t want my son to grow up remembering mom re-hanging every single ornament he hung on the tree and my husband (who loves the holidays) to grow to hate the holidays! What the heck am I doing???” It wasn’t easy but over time I learned to start letting go (I prayed A LOT!) and just started learning to enjoy life (outside of the holidays as well!) – even with ornaments here and there, the house a bit cluttered, and my menu not perfect (it’s OK if I don’t have the apricots from Hunza! LOL!! – Can you imagine???)
And what a surprise! Once I started to let go and just enjoy the time with my family, I was really happy. During the Christmas break, my husband is usually off from work for about two weeks so he and our son really enjoy planning on what we’ll do during that time. We’ve usually already purchased our tree (the day after Thanksgiving) and decorated it. And speaking of decorating – it’s something we do as a family – – – and boy does that make it much easier. My husband and son haul it in from off of the top of the car and set it up. Next they add the lights. I’m usually putting on Christmas music and making hot chocolate while this heavy lifting is going on. Truth be told, I just try to sequester myself in the kitchen so as to avoid being pulled into any heavy lifting! LOL!!!
Once the lights are on, we all hang ornaments together and put just a few decorations around the living room – the manger and some fireplace mantel lights. For the outside, I hang some lights on our fence and my husband and son set up the illuminated manger – again, I leave the heavy lifting to them! :-) All of this takes us a few hours to do and then we’re done and free to enjoy the tree and decorations…and my husband and son – who is a young teen now – still nestle under the tree and play!…and now I join them too!
So, not sure if this is a “tip” in the traditional sense but what I have learned over the years (which I guess may sound a bit corny but it took me a long time to learn!) is that learning to focus on PEOPLE by being self-less and loving others – from family to friends to strangers who may need our help – will make the holiday season much more enjoyable and memorable (in a good way) than if I had spent my time focusing…and fussing…on “STUFF”.
Hope you’re having a great week!
Love,
Mary
PS – So sorry my dog pic showed up on your Facebook. I thought it would go into the comment I wrote regarding your adorable dog. I LOVE dogs and sometimes get a bit overzealous! :-)
I’m probably a 4 if I am to be honest!! I am, thanks to all of your series on entertaining and what that really means, am trying to just do the things that are worth it. Just relaxing and enjoying this special time with my family and friends. I have 3 kids in college, and still 2 younger ones at home, so I feel I still have to do with the younger ones what I did with the older ones.
My family is still young, so I hope to learn a few things along the years to make the holidays less a burden. Many things I’ve gleamed onto from my childhood and would like to see passed along. So I’m going to rate myself a 2-3, more close to 2. The holidays get staged mainly at my timing, no set time frame other than the week before Thanksgiving. The holidays quickly become a blur so I give half and half to Fall and Winter agendas. Easier for me to feel a head start in both directions, cleanup and setting up. Whenever my children take an interest to start baking, I get a batch started. Growing up my Mom and I ALWAYS baked for the holidays, and LOTS of varieties. I like to keep it in smaller quanitities and let one be their fun choice. Every year they look forward to finding a new one. Holidays should be fun and if we have the energy, an inpromptu gathering with close friends, and family if they are in town…
I think I’m pretty happy with how I do things. I decided years ago that I can’t do it all, so I only really do a couple of things in a big way. My big Christmas thing is dipping chocolates (which I’m in the middle of right now!). I go through 20 lbs. of chocolate. I don’t do much baking (sometimes the kids convince me to do a gingerbread house), I don’t do a lot of decorating that I’m no good at anyway, I try to just do a few things well. Only the children in the extended family get gifts (and our parents), and I sew most of those things. Almost everyone else in the world gets chocolate.
Well, to start, this year I went through the myriad of boxes pulled down from the attic and just started purging those un-used Christmas decorations and boxing them up for Goodwill. Tired of hanging on to them because ‘so and so’ gave it to us, etc. I am pretty sure that someone could literally decorate an entire house in what i gave away LOL.
As for the delegating, i have handed off everything but the meat and drinks to the family for Christmas Eve dinner. I did almost everything last year and didn’t enjoy it, ran late, nothing came out on time warm and it just plain stressed me out – not this year. If you want green bean, i suggest your bring them – otherwise there will be just a lot of prime rib and sweet tea. :)
Every year I say “last year was too much, you need to simplify” and every year I seem to get caught up in the “must do, must see, must have” of the season. This year is definitely different because we’ve moved away from family, I’ve retired from a very busy job (retail at Christmas -yikes) and the kids are all on their own now. So anything we do, we are going to be doing for us. Church on Christmas Eve -you bet. Cards for all the neighbours – nope.
I’m probably a 2 on your scale – the to do list is mostly mine, but my wonderful husband will step in when I cry for help (usually around the 20th of December from under a pile of unwrapped gifts).
Since there are only two of us here it hardly seems fair to answer your question, LOL! DH would willing ignore the whole holiday so whatever I want is fine with him. We do keep it to a small scale for the most part but Christmas Dinner for the entire family is at our house so I pull out all the stops for that. DH is a great cook so he’s always as excited about hosting the dinner as I am.
Darla
Now that my kids are teens, they are in charge of decorating the Xmas tree. They love going through each ornament as they hang them on the tree; I love sitting in the living room and watching the festivities!
I think I’m pretty balanced – maybe a 2 or 3 on your scale.
Lots of things have changed around here in recent years, and I have learned to LOWER my expectations. That sounds terrible — but you know what I mean. I realized that I “did” Christmas cards because everyone else expected me to — which wasn’t a good use of my time. If I’m in the mood, I’ll send some. Otherwise, I’ve learned that just because it’s everybody else’s “thing”, it doesn’t have to be mine.
The tree was always such an effort for me. Loved the result, got frustrated over the process. My daughter on the other hand LOVES to put it up. So, when she was about 11, she started taking on that responsibility. I’ve “let the tree go.” That’s her department, and I am appreciative when the job is done.
AND, shocker of all shockers… I don’t necessarily put up every decoration and ornament any more. I don’t pull out every Christmas dish. Some years I “feel” it, and so it’s worth it to me, other years not so much.
I’ve learned to go with the flow more around here, and overall, I’d have to say that that puts fewer expectations on my family as well as myself. With less “extra” stuff to do, we can relax and enjoy the Christmas Season, and remember it’s TRUE REASON. ~Sally