It is just three days until Christmas, and I am not stressed. One reason is that I do not have to cook. We have a ritual that I write about in my family recipe blog. To make the story short, I will simply explain that instead of figuring out what to serve our 20+ guests on Christmas Day, my husband makes a very large pot of chili, rice or pasta, and cornbread. People can arrive whenever they want, and if the others do not eat too much, the chili will be available and hot. All I do is bake cornbread a day in advance and one of my sisters in law brings cornbread too. He does the rest. I finished the shopping weeks ago. I gave up sending Christmas cards two years ago. Last year, I tackled the Christmas tree and posted about that. Decorating the tree is no longer a chore.
It is now just three days till the big event and I am relaxed. I also took off a couple of days from work. For the first time–after cutting down on some of the things I used to do–I realize that there is nothing to be stressed about. I think this is coming from the fact that I actually planned in advance and did not wait until the last minute to buy all the gifts or even to do all the cleaning. I usually like to get the house in order as best as I can, but this year, I started early, and asked myself: does that really need to be done now? If not, I didn’t do it. If I felt like reorganizing a closet, I did it, but I did not do it under duress. I only organized or cleaned what I wanted and what I felt I had time for. I wanted to paint the front door, for example, but was it really necessary to do right now? No, I had too many other things to do. It will wait.
I did not worry about giving the perfect gift. I simply bought what I thought I wanted to give, and asked for gift receipts. If they don’t like it, they can take it back. Again, cutting out rituals I no longer enjoyed (like sending cards) was eliminated. With just three days until the day, is there anything you can eliminate?
If you are searching for that perfect gift still, can you go out and just get gift cards instead? If you are washing your curtains or cleaning out the closet in the guest room, is this something that can be put off? Eliminating what you despise, or changing your perspective–something I had to do to decorate the tree without angst–can make the next few days actually enjoyable. Savor the days ahead. Read a book. Take a bubble bath. Do your nails. Take care of yourself and you will be ready for Christmas!