Simplify Your Christmas

By Anne Mistretta
I have been thinking about a statement my 4 year old made to my husband and how it could apply to this time of year. The statement was “Dad you are NOT perfect! Jesus is perfect!” (The conversation went from there but this is the part that struck me.)

I look and listen to so many people stressing over making every single bit of the holidays perfect – from shopping to gatherings to decorations to food, etc. So I got to thinking... we aren’t perfect and what does it really mean to me and my family to have a wonderful holiday season? Not perfect, but what is it that we enjoy?

Then I read a short idea in the book Simplify Your Christmas by Elaine St. James that I found worth sharing. Here's what she says: “If you take a poll, be open to changes you don’t expect. Several years ago my friend Henriette sat down with her husband and their four kids the first weekend in December. Each family member made a list of five things they liked and five things they didn’t like about last year’s celebrations. Then they each read their lists aloud to the family.
Henriette was shocked. Not one member of the family liked her plum pudding. Every Christmas for the past sixteen years she dutifully prepared her mother’s plum pudding recipe. It took weeks to assemble and was full of hard to find ingredients. Each year she made frantic trips to the butcher for the suet. Then she had to find a bank for the shilling, and a specialty store for the miniature airplanes, cars, rings, and other symbolic trinkets that were carefully hidden in the pudding.

She prepared it with such love, remembering all the while what a treat her mother’s plum pudding had been when she was growing up. But her kids can’t stand plum pudding. For years they mushed the steaming mound on their plates pretending to eat it, often not even bothering to look for the lucky shilling that supposedly would bring them wealth, or the miniature airplane that meant travel and adventure in the coming year. And somehow she’d never allowed herself to notice.

Now that the truth was out, however, she realized that even though no one liked it, she didn’t want to give up a tradition that was so dear to her. So she and the family reached a compromise. She would order plum pudding from the bakery. When they didn’t eat it, she wouldn’t feel offended – it wasn’t her love they were rejecting. And she got plum pudding without having to go through all the trouble of making it. Mom’s plum pudding is now the family’s holiday joke, but at least no one has to pretend to eat it.

Another family I heard from found out from their poll that the kids were tired of seeing The Nutcracker Suite every year. It was fine the first time or two, but then it got to be old hat. They wanted something different. Last year, they all went to a neighborhood theater production of Arsenic and Old Lace. It was fresh and new to the kids. The tickets were only fifteen dollars instead of fifty dollars, and they didn’t have to put on dress-up clothes and drive all the way into the city. With the money they saved, they had a family dinner beforehand at a nearby restaurant.”

So in keeping with St. James' sage advice, this year I made some changes that have completely simplified and relaxed me and the family. I have never enjoyed the decorating part so we only put up a minimal amount this year and are really enjoying it tremendously. We have not planned to do any of the 8 trillion things that are available at the holidays – instead we have spent time at home playing games, reading, sitting by the tree light and relaxing – we are all happier with less. We even missed church last Sunday--which I am not recommending–but there was something so peaceful in our extra slowness and togetherness that I know Jesus was present in our home during this time. My challenge to you all is find out what it is that really makes your nuclear family enjoy this time of year and do away with the guilt of all the rest.