[POOKIE88]

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[Penney]

I used to want one of the Hallmark holidays as well....

I know my part of the stress is that I used try to make everything just so - looking back a few years - well, I guess you could have called me neurotic about the holidays and not have been too far off the mark.

Now, I don't set the bar quite so high, I remind myself that I don't have to get every little thing perfect. I try to make sure that I get my fun time in and not trying to make everything "Hallmark" perfect for everyone else around me.

Enjoy the holidays - don't let them make you crazy...

[lilybelle]

My tree is up and loaded with presents. My shopping is done and all is wrapped. House is decorated. Now to wait for Christmas and keep my 2 yr. old grandson from opening everything before Christmas. LOL. If anyone doesn't like their gifts, they can take it back themselves. I kept all receipts.

Now to make it through the food part. That's harder. At thanksgiving my MIL made me a Lemon Pie, my favorite. I didn't want to seem ungrateful, so I told her I was full from the turkey and brought it home with me. I threw it away on Thursday and didn't ever eat any of it. I know me, if I had eaten any of it, I'd have eaten the whole pie.

[Penney]

Hi Ladies -

I normally try to have everything done before December - but this year no such luck... too much going on and all of sudden "uh-oh". I have 90% of my shopping done. I don't normally stress eat - but - can snack my way through way too many calories. I was reading some other posts in this section and someone mentioned that with one of her favorite snacks - when she gets it home she automatically divides it up into individual snack sizes. As she put it- she may not realize how much she is eating when it is stratight out of the box - but you CANNOT overlook 10 ziploc baggies. So I am going to try that for my "snacks". I am actually going to start literally measuring things instead of guessing at things. This holiday season - I am not backtracking but moving forward as present to myself.

Besides - if all else fails and I get way too stressed - I can always make myself a nice mixed drink and lock myself in the bedroom!! LOL

[DramaQueenLucy]

No Hallmark Christmas here the kids get me up at 6:00am. We have a relaxing day and I just stopped worring about making it perfect. As a matter of fact this year we are eating out...lol

[Cheryl14]

For years I tried to do it all! About seven years ago I took stock of how much I was doing that really was beyond necessary. Each year since then I have whittled down my TO DO list. It's amazing how people actually didn't even notice that I wasn't doing some things anymore!!! I think I somehow was trying to prove something to myself rather than make things really great for everyone. Once I noticed I was doing that, I became a lot more realistic. I have been much calmer since my revelation seven years ago, and our Christmas is actually better for everyone now.

Instead of lots of gifts, we limit the amount we give one another and instead give to The Salvation Army, the City Mission, and gather things for Goodwill. Instead of doing all the baking myself I enlist everyone in the family, and we make it a Baking Party. We walk to the nursery to cut our tree and walk it back home. To decorate the house I empty out one or two bins a day of Christmas stuff from our crawlspace and decorate a little at a time over the course of a week. I EXPECT my family to help wrap presents instead of doing it all myself. Exercising regularly has given me more energy and more confidence. That confidence has given me the courage to ASK FOR HELP instead of being such a martyr.

I guess it took me a lot of years and a lot of unhappiness with how I was feeling about the holidays to revise my plan. I have not regretted my choices!

This year I decided to donate the money I would spend on cards and stamps and newsletter writing to The Red Cross.

I think that it just takes some thought about ways you can maximize the REAL meaning of the season. I had gotten too caught up in the COMMERCIAL side of the holiday!

Happy Christmas to everyone!


Cheryl