Getting Ready For Your Best Christmas EVER

My daughter, she’s seven, and she loves to speak in superlatives.  Everything is the most or the best or the worst or the greatest.  Much of it is probably her age, but she tends to have a flair for the dramatic.

This year as her birthday was approaching I gave her some options and asked her what she might like to do.  She thought about it for a while and decided it didn’t really matter to her.  “We can do any of those things, mom, it doesn’t really matter to me.  But I really just want it to be the best birthday party EVER, okay?  Just the best EVER.”

Uh, okay.  Awesome.  No pressure, right?

Except here is the thing, there really is no pressure.  She is ridiculously excited over small things.  Her expectations really aren’t that high, but mine are. She wants events to be thoughtful, to be pretty and to be fun, but what that looks like in my mind and what that looks in hers are two different things.

Just yesterday she charged out of the pantry and announced she had thought of the one food that would make Thanksgiving absolutely perfect this year.  My mind, well fed on Martha Stewart and Good Housekeeping images, flashed thoughts of Baked Squash with Brussel Sprouts or  Fresh Pear and Cranberry Sauce.  And she produced a box of orange JELLO.  “Orange JELLO, mom!  Wouldn’t that make this the best Thanksgiving EVER?”

And here is where I have to share with you one of my favorite movie lines of all time.

 

There you have it. Crème’ Brule can never be JELLO.  My apologies if I just wasted 2 minutes of your life, but that clip makes me laugh every time.

So here is the deal.  Christmas is coming, friends.  And you may be hating that.  Not Christmas, just the coming.  I get it.  The stores do it too early.  What ever happened to Thanksgiving, anyway?  The marketing onslaught is ridiculous.  I get it, I do.

But here’s the thing, its coming.  Whether you like it or not, the stores are setting up displays, catalogs are arriving in the mail, and candy has already filled the grocery store shelves.  Done.  The only way I know to do Christmas well, do it bravely, is to do it intentionally.

Christmas is sure to take over our lives, our pocketbooks, our televisions and our calendars.  It’s sure to run over our families, leave our kids whiney and wanting and have some of us feeling like our gifts were inadequate, our time was too rushed, our memories too frazzled and that we ultimately aren’t enough.

Is it just me or does this one month – that marketers have now successfully stretched into nearly two – feel like the culmination of much of the hard of motherhood?  A month where we want to be more and do more.  We want to give more and see more.  The expectation to make great memories, do fun things, give great gifts, and serve great meals, all that hard expectation of motherhood wraps up into one grand and glorious month (or two) and can leave any mama looking to run and hide right about now.

This year, I want to do the holidays brave.  I want to set some goals and some limits.  I want to define what is important for my family before a magazine or television commercial does.  Ultimately, I want to be intentional, spending my time and money, making memories and doing this holiday, on purpose.  This season itself, is a gift – full of meaning and tradition, full of opportunities to teach and grow, to abstain and give generously.  All centered around one tiny miracle.

I don’t know about you friends, but I don’t want to miss it.

So in an effort to not let Christmas run us over this year, why not engage the early?  Let’s begin thinking about it now.  I want start throwing out ideas that work – ideas on simplifying and spending our time and money well.  Ideas on owning our calendar and choosing our traditions. There are plenty of ways to do it right, but most of those begin with getting our hearts and minds set from the beginning.

So let’s do just that.  I’ve collected ideas and suggestions, bits and pieces to help you be intentional and truly enjoy your Best Christmas EVER.  Over the next several weeks I’ll be sharing those and I’d love your feedback, comments, ideas and thoughts, so we all can all glean ideas from one another and truly make this one fabulous holiday season.  No pressure, no expectation, just simple ideas to do this season bravely and, of course, have the best Christmas EVER.