So last time we talked about making a Plan.
A conscious decision on what and how we plan on celebrating during the upcoming Holiday Season.
Cutting back and just partaking in those rituals and activities that we have the time and money to afford, and that we truly enjoy.
Here is my Prioritized List.
Traveling to visit with Family.
Sending a few Holiday Cards.
Shopping for and exchanging gifts with family.
Cooking Christmas dinner.
Charity.
Baking cookies and pies.
Christmas Tree.
A Christmas eve meal and show or movie.
*Our actual plans(if we are traveling or not mostly)are still up in the air at this point in time but to me, the being with family & friends at Christmas is most important.
*So I will reach out via cards this year to those I can't physically be with during the Season.
*While we aren't all about the getting stuff, we do exchange gifts and I, er...I mean "Santa" fills everyone's stocking with goodies.
*If we don't travel, I'll cook Christmas dinner and host the meal...if we travel I'll help whoever is cooking or provide edibles for the meal.
*We'll donate time/money through some organization as we do every year and hopefully we can get the kids involved since they are in more need of a life lesson than us grownups. ;-)
*The baking will be a multi-person activity and not just me thundering around the kitchen complaining about all this work and that no one is offering to help me.
*The tree will be put up but the extent of 'bling' also strewn about the house will depend on how the travel plans mesh out and if anyone else here is interested in helping out with that.
*On Christmas eve we have a tradition of a meal out together and then a family activity.....going to a show of some kind or a Holiday movie. If we can't find something to agree on we'll sit home with some of the cookies we baked and didn't give away and watch a Holiday movie on the tv/dvd player.
I don't have young children, so there are no additional activities like Taking them to Talk to Santa, school/friend's/organizations kid parties, buying teacher/classmate gifts and such. Not having to contend with all that sure cuts down on the time/energy/money commitments at the Holidays.
And I don't work outside the home so I don't have office parties, gift exchanges, etc. vying for my time/money.
Add in that we aren't big party throwing people either and we don't have church affiliated activities to contend with.
The list I end up with is a pretty modest one of stuff to get done by Dec. 25th and I can easily fit it all into my regular weekly "To Do" list without driving myself insane with the added work and stress if I plan ahead and work it all in to the next 7 weeks a little bit at a time.
So are you motivated to make a "To Do" list and make it a reasonable length?
If you find you have just too much to accomplish and not enough time/energy/money, try cutting down or cutting out just one thing that you have to do this Holiday Season.
What would you cut out of your "To Do" List this year and why?
Speaking of stress, next time we'll talk about the Cost of the Holidays and ideas on how to lower the expenses that pile up during this Season.
Sluggy
