After several years of more often than not spending literally weeks upon weeks decorating the house with an extensive collection of lights, decorations and trees, I knew that I wanted to try doing things in a less stress inducing fashion at Christmas that year.
Christmas in a much simpler, less busy fashion? That meant trying to do a number of typical things quite differently as a household, and perhaps not even at all.
The result was that the weariness that regularly turned up around and post-Christmas Day each year, in years past, was so much better avoided.
We got to see as a household firsthand that less was indeed more, when celebrating Christmas and other such seasonal celebrations. We got to perhaps more closely experience what Christmas surely was meant to be about.
Christmas, as we experienced it in 2018, was a lot less full of busyness and activities that typically would all tear into time, energy and finances quite significantly.
Over at The Household Logistics Youtube Channel, I shared around Christmas last year a video I put together about having a simpler, yet still stylish Christmas. The link to that video is here for those who might like to see it.
This Christmas, with our house being currently on the market we have no decorations, not even a tree, up and around our home. Christmas preparations have this year been even more simplified and made even more straight forward yet again......................and somehow it all feels perfectly okay and just right.
Sometimes the busyness of preparations can actually swallow us up for days, weeks, even months ahead of the 25th December each year. I have personally started to really want to step back more and more, and determine what really is most appropriate time-wise, health-wise, budget-wise and stress-wise to take onboard for each and every holiday season.
I have now come to think perhaps a lot of what we have thought in the past was deemed to be part & parcel of Christmas was actually just a big distraction, from what was really important.
As I have observed others these past weeks frantically shopping in stores and running to and fro 'doing Christmas,' I have personally been very relieved this year to have not got caught up in a lot of additonal stress & busyness at the end of a very busy schooling and working year.
It is funny how your perspective changes when you take on the role of observer, compared to being participator.
In past years it has taken sometimes hours upon hours to put together Christmas displays around our home and property. I loved the specialness it created for us all and the wonder lights and decorations added to commemorating the day.
Yet this year, after another busy year of work and commitments, all those extra elements just seemed to require energy and effort that I could not produce going into the Christmas season.
Over at the Household Logistics Youtube Channel, I have shared a video of how I have gone about organizing a range of Christmas decor in the past. The link to that video is here also, for those who might find it helpful to view.
It is certainly nice to know that should we choose to go down the track of celebrating Christmas again with decorations about the house, they will be easy to locate due to the organization previously put in to storing them safely and appropriately.
I am however personally looking forward to not having days locked up, post-Christmas, in putting away additional decor and items this year. Keeping things very simple and less busy is very appealing.
Making our experience of Christmas even a whole lot more simpler this year, has not only been extremely appealing so far, it has also been very refreshing for our household as well.
Over at the Household Logistics Youtube Channel, I previously shared a video about how I went about setting up a drawer of gift wrapping supplies and the link to that video is here.
With a good proportion of our household items currently packed up in storage, we have had to make gift wrapping also something that was carried out extremely simply this year, and I have to say that has also worked well. Simplicity can be embraced in so many facets and ways.
Can Christmas be less commercial, less like what it is marketed to be, and still somehow be special and uniquely Christmas?
Can Christmas be experienced and commemorated with less tinsel and superfluous home decor fuss?
Can it feel real and be honoured without elaborate special foods, multiple special symbols and trinkets and less traditional activity? I think we have discovered as a household it can.
This year we have planned as a household to pack a picnic and go on a short tramping walk on the 25th December. Somehow it just appealed to us all: to get outdoors, keep things extremely simple and be out amongst nature being reflective on Christmas Day.
May you also experience and enjoy the peace of Christmas this year, no matter where you are, who you are with, and how you go about commemorating the day. Christmas...... we have found it can be a experienced a whole lot simpler, yet still be very special.
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