If you are anything like me the holidays tend to be really stressful. Starts with the gift buying. You go and get all of the gift buying done and then you realize you forgot someone or you have been invited somewhere and need to take a hostess gift or exchange gift. Your child comes home and wants to get a gift for a couple of friends. You feel guilty because the gift you bought for Sally was more expensive then the one you bought for Mikey so you go and get something else for Mikey....and it goes on and on and on and by the time you are finished making all of the gift purchases you have exceeded your budget by hundreds. Now to wrap them all, tag them all and distribute them all. Humphh.
Then if your family is like mine, it is big and crazy! You have your family (you, husband, child(ren)) to celebrate with, your Fathers family (your siblings & children), Mothers family, Husbands family, then with your Fathers side of the family (your Aunts, Uncles, Cousins), Mothers side of the family and so on and so on and so on. By the time you are done, you have cooked 15 different things to take to the gatherings, spent more time in your car then time with the family traveling to each of these places all to get home and be completely exhausted. And good golly if you miss one of the events because then you will be cornered and told how you spend time with one side of the family more or how you never get together with this side and you should make more of an effort. Don't even think about leaving early either. You better plan on a full day for each because to leave one event for another....I don't think so. Now mind you this traveling does not include the school functions, holiday concerts, parties and social gatherings. Those are all in addition. Ughh, really some of us have all of these things to do too. Crazy I know.
So now that you have survived but barely, you sit back sometime after the new year and reminisce on the events of the last few weeks. You look at your bank account and/or credit card bills and say "holy bat crap I spent that much?" You have exceed your budget, your bank account is looking like you may be living on Top Ramen (that you get on sale 12/$1.00) until the next pay day and just think of the interest you will pay on the charges you made to your credit card. Now that $10 ITunes card you bought for Mikey is going to cost you $50 by the time you pay it off. You still try to find the bright side and think about all the happy faces you saw opening the gifts you purchased. Well, they were really happy faces while ripping the wrapping off, then those gifts you put a lot of thought into are now thrown under the tree only to be looked at when they have to be packed up to take home and probably not used, played with or appreciated in the future. Money well spent, again.
But hey it was all worth it. You got to spend more than you had, spent so much time in your car traveling that you now need another oil change and you just had that done before the holidays hit and try to appease everyone for everything. No stress in any of that.
So........after the last 15 years of this same "tradition" I have decided to try something new this year. No holiday stress! None! Nope, not gonna do it! I said NO! Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more!
How am I doing this? I thought you would never ask! Well easy. The only gift we are buying is for our son. I have allotted $25 for my husband and $25 for myself to buy each other stocking stuffers. $25 is not much when our stockings usually cost around $100 each (ridiculous I know). Now we have to be creative. We have told our families that we will not be traveling all over and making all gatherings this year and that we will not be giving gifts. We explained that we would really love to take the commercialism out of the holidays and just enjoy each others company, talking, laughing, playing games, eating snacks and watching football (for the guys). I'm taking the "no worries, it's all good" attitude.
What I decided to do was have a nice dinner for our family (those that were close enough to drive and not everyone decided to attend) and a few of our closest friends. There ended up being 12 of us total (14 if you count the two that showed up after dinner). I prepared a big meal, naturally. Do I ever really do anything small? Uhhh, no, seriously? I will tell you all about the meal in another post. We had a wonderful time, enjoyed a great meal and I even did it with a limited budget. We got to spend time with most of the "most important" people to us and created another wonderful memory without any stress (well except for my husbands 5 minute freak out - but he got over it and we moved on).
"Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays" I say. I love my family & friends and could not have been happier nor could I think of a better way to spend the evening (well except in Tahiti maybe).
