Christmas is my favorite time of year! I love shopping and giving. I love being with my family. I enjoy seeing lights and decorations and listening to all the Christmas songs. However, the things that I love about Christmas can also make it the cause of much stress. For many introverts, too many sounds, lights, or external pressures can make us exhausted and irritable. I’ve learned some things that have helped me enjoy the busy Christmas season with less stress. I want to share those things with you here in my guide to a meaningful Christmas.
Because I love Christmas, I thought I had to keep up with what everyone else around me was doing for the holidays. That meant decorating, baking, giving, and shopping to the last minute for the perfect gift. But I couldn’t keep up with my own vision of what Christmas should look like.
Standing up baking in the kitchen all day? Not my jam. Waiting until the last minute to buy a gift while waiting for inspiration to strike? Too stressful. Putting all the decorations back in the attic at the end of it all? I’m. Too. Tired.
And then I had kids.
I remember the year my mindset changed. It was the first Christmas when I read a She Reads Truth Advent study. By spending every morning in Scripture and journaling my own thoughts, my focus shifted from the temporary things that don’t matter so much to the eternal things that do matter.
I didn’t feel the need to keep up with anyone else OR to keep up with the idea of what I thought I should be doing. I learned the lesson then that I still know is true now: The more I read and meditate on Scripture, the more confident I am to just be myself—the set apart self that loves to please God over people.
Christmas in 2020 is already bound to be a little different than in previous years. Why not use these “unprecedented times” to decide what you really want out of this season. Maybe you want all the blinking lights and treat baking you can cram into a month. And that’s ok if you have the desire, the time, and the energy for those things. But if Christmas is overwhelming to you, here are some tips to help you do what is best for you in this season.
1. Read a Bible Study
This is always my first advice, but I don’t just throw this out there offhandedly. I say it because I have lived as a Christian who didn’t read her Bible daily and as one who does read it daily. I’ve seen the benefit of connecting with God each day and I want to share that with others.
You don’t have to choose an Advent study. But choose something that you can break into bite-sized pieces to give yourself time for reflection, meditating, and processing. Read your Bible to understand and engage with it, not just to check it off your list.
For 2020, I’m reading this. There are online options if you’d like to follow an Advent study and it’s too late to order a book. She Reads Truth posts their daily devotional with Scripture reading on their site each day.
2. Claim Your Vibe
Come up with some adjectives to describe the atmosphere you desire in your home this season. Do you want it to be calm, reflective, cheerful, exciting, hopeful, loving, or relaxing? Choose your vibe, then come up with some ideas of how you can make that happen.
This is #1 on my 31 Christmas journaling prompts for a calm season. Go see that post here.
3. Stop Looking for the Perfect Gift
My Christmas shopping life got so much easier when I stopped searching for the perfect gift and went with my first instinct. I quit looking through gift guides, overwhelming myself with all the awesome choices, and trusted my own feelings more. So far, this has served me well. Just remember, there is no such thing as the perfect gift.
Also, give yourself a deadline for Christmas shopping so that you have plenty of time for wrapping and shipping if necessary. This year, shipping times will take longer, more people will be ordering online and/or shipping gifts, so give yourself a good window of time so that you’re not feeling the stress last minute to get things done. My deadline this year is December first. I’m not sure I’ll have everything bought by then, but I’ll be mostly done so that I can enjoy December as the calm and reflective time that I desire it to be.
4. Choose Your Traditions
This year is the perfect time to reevaluate what is important to you and changing things up a bit, if you desire. Set aside traditions that bring out the worst in you and start new ones that feel important to you. Never liked sending Christmas cards? Don’t do it, everyone is on Facebook anyway. You want to share treats with your neighbors but don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen? Find some simple recipes to share instead of the beautifully decorated cookies in Christmas tree shapes.
This year will be the first year my family is lighting candles in an Advent wreath each day to create the calm atmosphere I crave. And here are two of my favorite quick and easy recipes to share at Christmas time: chocolate peppermint chex mix and graham cracker toffee.
5. Give yourself Grace
No matter how much planning and intention you put into making a meaningful Christmas for your family, something will fall short of your ideal dream. It’s ok if you miss a day or a few of your Advent study. Christmas day still comes even if you forget to watch your favorite Christmas movie that you’ve watched every year since you’ve been married. Even if your cookies don’t look as nice as your neighbor’s perfectly decorated gingerbread men, you can still be proud of yourself for sharing love with someone.
God doesn’t want your offering to look like your neighbor’s offering. He wants you looking to Him and following where He leads you. And He doesn’t expect you to do it perfectly, because if you were perfect then you wouldn’t need Jesus.
When I read the Bible, I read a whole lot about God’s grace and nothing about how much or how little I should decorate/bake/buy for Christmas.
God sees your heart. He knows you better than your closest friend knows you. Don’t make anyone else’s (or even your own) expectations of you higher than what God expects of you. To feel rushed and stressed out all for the sake of pleasing others? That is not His purpose for you. But resting in His grace is.
Here is a quote from “How to Break Busy for the Holidays” from The Alli Worthington Show:
“When we purposely follow Jesus instead of blindly following tradition or succumbing to our own or someone else’s expectations for us, we’re gonna find peace and purpose even in the midst of a crazy world.”
Find the episode here.
If you need some relaxing Christmas music this year, listen to my Spotify playlist, Acoustic Christmas.
Do you like journaling? Here are 31 Christmas Journal Prompts to help you reflect on the type of Christmas season you’d like to enjoy.
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Featured photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
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