Changing Tradition

OK, so I said that I wasn't going to stress out this Christmas.
I've got less than a week.  I haven't stockpiled any cookies.  I am not done shopping.  My craft projects are still unfinished.  I still need to take seven kids to do their shopping.  Our second car's transmission bit the dust last week.  Thus, I do not have a car with which to complete these tasks.  I am not going to stress out.  I am talking to myself.  If I was a yoga person, I'd be doing yoga right now.

But I'm not, so here's my plan...



I'm going to talk to myself some more.

Here's what I need to hear...I am not my mother.  I do not have to complete the tasks that she considered non-negotiable.  I will not be a Christmas Nazi.  I will not be a Christmas Nazi.  Again.  I will be nice.  I will lower my standard and do things that make Christmas more fun and meaningful...not perfect.

I am glad that she did things the way that she did them.  I enjoyed the cookies... and gained ten pounds every Christmas break.  It worked for her, I guess.  It was nice.  But...

My family does not need 15 different kinds of cookies to be happy.  I do not have the time, money or will for it.  If they want them that bad, they can bake them.  Besides, my freezer is full of chickens, deer and corn.  

My house is actually being lived in.  Quite lived in.  Therefore the decorations are for our enjoyment, not to impress people.  Some of them are weird and old.  Some of the lights won't work.  It's OK.  I still absolutely loooove the Christmas tree, and all the lights that DO work.

I cannot possibly pull off the Santa thing.  My kids are WITH me 24/7.  I would have to be a compulsive liar to fool them.  So they are going to have to HELP me make Christmas happen...cooperate and help each other out while I'm locked in my room crinkling paper and plastic bags.

I do not need to keep all the gifts "even."  Fair.  Exactly equal.  I don't show favoritism, but my children range in age from 26 to 4, so there's no way that they all have the same monetary value to their interests.  Big kids are just more expensive.   I figure that the last couple of kids will make up the difference once there's not a house full of teenagers eating up all the profits. 

I do not send cards or a Christmas letter.  I would really like to.  I like getting them.  But it seems like there's not enough hours in the day.  At least, not enough QUIET hours.  I think about friends and family often and pray for them and wish them well in my heart.  That's as far as I get.

So now you know what I am NOT doing this Christmas.
Then, what are we up to? 
Stuff like this:

We had a Christmas party at our house last weekend.  It was sortof spur-of-the-moment.  Teens are like that.

It was so nice, though.
 
The house wasn't perfectly clean.  The snacks were pretty pathetic. Except for Hannah's amazing cookies!

 

They baked and decorated some of the ugliest gingerbread men I have ever seen.

But everyone had fun and that's what matters.

There I go again, talking about "what matters."  It's been on my mind a lot lately.  There are so many "traditions" that we struggle and strive to keep, that don't really matter very much.  They just cause us stress.  There are other traditions that matter.  I'm trying to learn how to focus on those things.  Every one of us has to decide what "those things" will be in our own families.  But whatever they are, they are worth the effort.

The rest is just icing on the cookie.