Saturday, December 27, 2008

Lessons I inadvertently learned this Christmas season...

...planning to not knit any Christmas gifts and then knitting a couple anyway is an excellent strategy and creates far less stressful than planning to knit them and not getting them done.  

...planning not to bake any cookies and then following through and not baking any cookies seriously relieved about 48% of the stress I feel every December. Who knew? (And we were gifted with enough candy/cookies/etc. from others that it didn't matter.) 

...putting up the bare minimum of decorations -- the tree and a few other favorites -- makes the house feel just as festive as putting every piece of Christmas crap out that I own, keeping the house from feeling cluttered, thus keeping my stress level down by at least 78 points. And no one missed the other stuff.

...having lots of family around for Christmas is nice, but having just us here for Christmas is pretty nice too. And less chaotic. And it doesn't make me a bad person to admit that.

...finishing most of the Christmas shopping early -- like by the end of November -- is good. I used to know this. I learned it again this year. 

...having the planets align such that the children create perfectly reasonable Christmas wish lists makes Christmas shopping so much easier.

...old traditions are nice but the world doesn't stop if you let them go. Doing new things provides a great sense of freedom.

...ham at Christmastime tastes one hundred times better than ham eaten at any other time of year.

1 comment:

pdxknitterati/MicheleLB said...

All good things. I've been living by most of these lessons for a while; I get more minimalist every year. The only thing I really missed this year was Christmas music! I never did get around to it on my iPod or on the piano. But we did sing and play the guitar, so all was not lost.

Now we just need to remember these lessons next year!