Sometimes I call myself a recovering people pleaser because for a long time I had a hard time saying no to anybody and anything. I think some may have called it FOMO and that may have been a part of it, however at the root it was a greater issue where I wanted to avoid conflict and did not want to have to upset people by saying no. A couple of years ago God really opened my eyes to see how much those choices were effecting my marriage and my kids. Because it was not just me saying yes to everything but it was also forcing my husband and kids to say yes to everything with me. There was a Christmas season about six years ago where I just though to myself “we are going to be so busy the next few days and it will be miserable but since we know that’s how it will be we can prepare for it and it won’t be as bad” My husband looked at me and said “why would we do that? It doesn’t need to be that way”
I am so grateful that God helped me understand that by saying yes to everything outside my home I was also saying no to so many things inside my home. When we are out doing too many things, we don’t have the ability to create memories or celebrate in our own way at home. Last week I shared about having a busy week and that helped me realize how important a day to catch up is, I also shared about the little things we have our kids do to make school mornings run smoother but honestly I have found myself in another season where I have been saying yes to too many things. It got to a point last week where I felt like I was not doing anything well because I was just trying to keep up. I would rather say yes to less and do well than say yes to too much and feel like I am drowning. I think that God is revealing this to me before the Christmas season so that I do not find myself in a place where we are doing too much to actually enjoy the holiday. I don’t want to wake up in five years and realize that we didn’t do things to celebrate with our kids because we were so busy doing other things and lost these years. All that to be said, here are three things that I am very excited to do with our kids this Christmas season. We are making a decision to say no to more so that we can say yes to things within our four walls and build core memories with our kids.
- Driving around looking at Christmas lights: all of our kids love decorations for any holiday, but Christmas decorations are always so fun to look at. Elizabeth, one of our four year old twins, really loves Christmas lights and when she sees them its so cute to hear her say “Miss miss lights!!!” She actually thinks that any lights on a house (at any time of the year) are “miss miss lights” and I just love hearing her little voice in the back seat yell that out. It was a way to make a normal drive more fun and last year we would take a longer route through a neighborhood to see lights but this year I want to take intentional drives just to look at Christmas lights with the kids.
- Baking Christmas Cookies: when I was a young girl my Nana would have us over to bake Christmas cookies. She would make the dough ahead of time so we could bake them and decorate and I still hold those memories with me today. My grandma passed when I was in high school and I’m grateful to have many memories of things we did together. I love baking on a normal day so it is sad to me that in the past I have not taken a day to do this with my girls and Jack. They have plenty of days off school but it takes being intentional with our time and even budget to make sure we plan out getting all of the ingredients and make the time to do this. I think in the past we have tried planning a day with grandmas or family members but when it does’t work out for everyone sometimes the day doesn’t happen at all. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying, if we are able to plan the day with grandma or extended family that would be wonderful. What I don’t want to happen is allowing another year to go by where I do not make sure it happens with my and the kids no matter what.
- Decorating our Christmas Tree: this is something that we already are great at doing and that makes me excited for this year. We take the kids to go pick out a live tree and last year we set it up the day after Thanksgiving. We have some ornaments that are sentimental and keep over the years but not many and what we usually do is go go the dollar store and pick up some very affordable ornaments. Doing it this way means the kids get to have tons of fun with the tree. I am not stressed they will drop and break an ornament and I do not worry too much how the tree will look because I know there are a handful of these years where they’re young and the ornaments will all be clumped in one area. Something else we learned early on is that they like to move the ornaments so even if I did have them put the ornaments on in a certain way, they will not stay on that way for very long.
- I know I said three things but I just remembered a fourth! We always pick out a kid friendly advent activity to do and I am very excited for that again. Last year we used the bundle from Daily Grace Co and it includes card stock ornaments. The kids loved getting a turn to put the ornament on the tree each day and it’s a wonderful reminder of what our Christmas season is truly about.
If you struggle with saying yes to too many things like I do, I pray that God will provide opportunities to slow down this season. And I pray for all of us to have the strength to say no to things so that we can slow down to enjoy this time with our family and friends. I pray as we go into this holiday season that if you have strained relationships; you will feel God’s presence and feel comfort from the Holy Spirit as you navigate those situations. I look forward to sharing how these things go as we do them with our kids and share other ways we are celebrating the Christmas season this year. What are some of your favorite things to do for Christmas with your kids? Let me know in the comments below!
