Should you send a Christmas card this year?
On constraints and our personal Christmas Essentials
From cookie decorating to caroling, concerts to parties, gift wrapping to menu planning, the Christmas season can be a time of anxiety and overwhelm, and even discontent and depression.
Shouldn’t December be a season of joy and rest? Glad tidings of great joy should be infused into every corner of our Christmas festivities, and yet…too often I feel a lurking, simmering sense of panic that I’m behind/not doing enough/not enjoying the season enough.
If we’re too busy and frazzled to enjoy the activities we choose to do, what’s the point?
A few years ago, I sat down and thought very intentionally about what I wanted our family’s Christmas celebrations to include. What do we do around Christmastime that is most significant for us? Which festivities are central to both our family culture and to what we believe about Christmas?
These are our Christmas Essentials.
I find it helpful to remember that I am constrained by very real limitations: I have limited energy, funds, and time to devote to celebrating Christmas, which is perfectly okay. Limitations are very clarifying, because they force me to articulate exactly what is most important.
Remembering that I don’t have time to do everything that all of my friends are doing to celebrate Christmas (or time to do/make every craft/Advent idea/Christmas cookie that strangers online are showing me) is liberating, because it means that I can joyfully celebrate exactly how I’ve decided to, and let go of the rest.
So— what would you eliminate from your Christmas activity/to-do list if you had to strip away the less-meaningful activities?
If sending out Christmas cards is something you do simply because everyone around you sends them—let it go.
There are limited hours to spend leading up to Christmas—fill those hours with the things you and your family values the most.
What is one of your Christmas Essentials?
Christmas Card Tips
If you’re planning to send a Christmas card out this year but always feel overwhelmed by the process, here are my favorite tips that might help you actually enjoy it:
1. Begin collecting addresses early. This is the part of sending cards that I dislike the most. Getting it out of the way early is the biggest hurdle for getting them sent out (for me at least!) and if you keep an address book (physical or digital) all year-round, this task is simplified greatly because most of the addresses you need are already updated and gathered in one place.
2. Pare down your list. Send just a few cards to the people who mean the most to you, and feel free to omit those you don’t have a close relationship with. (No need to send a card to that one friend you knew 12 years ago and have never spoken to since!) I send out cards only to friends and family living far away; if I see someone during the Christmas season in-person, I usually don’t send them a card as well.
3. Chill out about the photo. While I love a photo shoot with a photographer for Christmas card pictures, a candid family pic is still so lovely. Don’t think you need a perfect shot! Sometimes the imperfections are what make a photo more memorable & meaningful.
Any other great tips you love to help make this tradition less of a chore? I’d love to hear them.
Cooking currently
I have been reading Deb Perelman’s blog since 2009(!), and I’ve made many of her recipes so many times that I now make them from memory. So if you’re looking for the very best Rice Krispie treat recipe, look no further. Browning the butter does take a few extra minutes, but the flavor is unmatched. And add a lot of salt. I probably double the salt quantity she lists, and it makes the brown butter absolutely sing.
Keep seeking the virtuous and the lovely,
Shannon
p.s. I enjoyed this poem by Mary Oliver, so here it is for you to enjoy as well.
Mysteries, Yes
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
I am chronically ill and mostly housebound. Letters and Christmas cards are one of my favorite ways to feel connected to all the people I don’t get to see. I tend to make a long list of people I want to send to and start early. I get all my cards from the thrift store throughout the year when I’m able to go out, so they’re all different and it’s inexpensive. I just write a simple message for each person/family. No photo or anything fancy. It’s old fashioned and makes me so happy. I feel festive and get a chance to think of all the people I care about. I spend some of October and November writing my cards and send them out sometime in December.
Some people tell me they are stressed about cards when they see that I hand write notes in all of mine- and I tell them the same thing- let it go! You don’t have to do it! This is something that brings life and connection to me. A way to show love within my limitations. It’s not the same for everyone :)
I love the idea of identifying your Christmas essentials!
I find that Christmas cards work best if we order them early and address them over time. I order them when a good coupon comes out, order stamps or pick some up at the post office, and then print out a list of addresses. Then I keep it all together in a box that is left out for a couple of weeks, and anyone who wants some quiet time doing something festive can address a few, crossing the addresses off the list. It's kind of fun. The younger kids enjoy putting on the stamps and using the return address stamp.
That said, last year we didn't do 'em -- just no room in the budget. And that was fine, too.