I hope you all had a blessed Christmas! Our was very nice... We cooked and baked most of Christmas Eve day, ate a late snack of cheese, crackers, sausage, and veggies, worshipped at the 5:00 PM service, and came home to a big pot of my family's traditional oyster stew (I will be posting the recipe in the near future). In the morning, we ate some overnight breakfast casserole (it was OK; I've yet to find a recipe I love), opened gifts, played with our new toys and, after naps, headed over to my parents' house for a Christmas turkey. It was pretty calm and laid-back... just the way I like it!

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year, but it can also be chaotic and overwhelming. I'm always on the lookout for ways to simplify, focus on Jesus, and not become a slave to the mile-long to-do list that can send even the sanest person into the throes of a panic attack. Here's what I tried this year and how it went:

What Worked For Us

{1} Taking the entire month of December "off" from school.

To be fair, we didn't exactly take the entire month off. Classical Conversations ran through December 12, so we were still working on our memory work and writing Essentials papers through the middle of the month. Shane's online Latin class through Scholé Academy also ran through mid-month, and the two older boys had choir and band, piano, tennis, and AWANA. Oh, AND because I really and truly love learning new things myself and teaching them, we also did Pam Barnhill's Advent Morning Time Plans, where we read lots of great Christmas books, dug into Roman numerals, conducted picture studies of famous artwork, listened to Handel's Messiah, and created art with chalk pastels. So, yeah, I guess we didn't take the entire month off at all. What we did do was take a break from our regular curriculum (mainly, Math-U-See, First Language Lessons, Writing With Ease, All About Spelling, etc.). BUT! The lightening up and change of pace were really refreshing for all of us, and I think I will probably start school early in August next year as well, so we can lighten our load in December.

{2} Not signing up for all the things. 

Early December is usually a whirlwind of pageants, recitals, and concerts, which are quite enough in themselves, but then there are rehearsals for all of these as well. We decided to say "no" to one of them this year, which freed up two of our Saturday afternoons as well as a Sunday afternoon. It also prevented a conflict with the boys' piano recital. I felt 3% guilty about not participating and 97% awesome about it. Do you ever have to remind yourself that you don't have to participate in all the things? I do! I've realized that you can run yourself ragged trying to be perfect and do all the things, or you can just cut yourself (and your family) some slack and say no to some very good things to leave room for the best things.

{3} Opening some Christmas presents early. 

I have a feeling this is going to be a controversial one! It never occurred to me that you could open gifts before Christmas, but I was lurking participating in an online discussion about whether it's OK to open Christmas gifts as they come in from distant relatives or if you have to wait until Christmas morning and then open them all en masse. Maybe it's a little "wrong" of me, but I love the idea of spreading out Christmas gifts! Maybe it's because my children are still relatively little, but it seems like they can only handle opening so many gifts before their eyes start to glaze over and they don't even realize what they're getting or whom the gifts are from anymore. And then when the gift opening is over, we're left with a HUGE mess, mountains of toys, and a very confused mama who is saying, "Wait! Don't run away with that yet! Who was that from, again?" Plus, the kids are just overwhelmed with the sheer number of toys, so the ones that most interest them get played with, while the others get shoved to a pile to be forgotten. And then there's the 18 million thank you notes we have to write. This year, I allowed the boys to open their gifts from one set of relatives on a morning in which they were particularly squirrely. The gift opening was a pleasant diversion, the boys knew exactly whom the gifts were from, I could write down their gifts (for thank you note purposes) in a calm and orderly manner, and the boys happily trotted off to enjoy all their new goodies. Later in the day, I had them write their thank you notes. (My oldest writes a real thank you note including addressing the envelope, my six-year-old fills out a template, and I write the thank you notes for the youngest two.) When the thank you notes were satisfactorily written, I told the boys we could open gifts from another relative the following day. I know it's a bit non-traditional, but I really love this new system.

What Did NOT Work For Us

{1} Assembling a gingerbread house from a kit.

While wandering the aisles of Costco, my eyes fell upon a gingerbread house kit, and my imagination was ignited with all kinds of fantasies about us working together (in a loving, cooperative manner, of course) as we constructed a cozy candy-coated cottage. The actual experience was exactly as I imagined... only the exact opposite of that. The preassembled house was ironically difficult to decorate (you've got gravity working against you as you try to decorate the vertical surfaces), the boys needed lots of reminders about patience and kindness, and they popped candy into their mouths at every opportunity. (Just what they need... more sugar!) I was positive my eyes were crossed in opposite directions by the time we had finished. HOWEVER. It wasn't a total failure because the boys had a blast.

86% of the reason I am writing this is so that I will remember NOT to buy a gingerbread house kit next year. We make cut-out sugar cookies from scratch, including homemade buttercream frosting, and I think that this process more than fulfills our baking and decorating requirement for the Christmas season. If I do ever decide to attempt a gingerbread house again, I will either (a) make the whole shebang from scratch, so we can decorate the pieces on a flat surface and really take ownership of it or (b) have each boy decorate his own individual milk carton gingerbread house. I mean, all they want to do is eat/slather on the candy anyway. 🙂

{2} Scheduling playdates.

A few friends and I made plans to get together during the month of December. In each case, I'm pretty sure I am the one who suggested December. My reasoning was that we were planning on taking off from school (see above), and I thought I would have loads of extra time to catch up with treasured friends. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Although we did switch-up our regular school schedule, our days were still chockful of December-y things. I actually didn't have time for playdates, and I felt a little anxious when I saw them coming up on my calendar. I'm guessing my friends' schedules were just as busy (if not more so) as ours. December was also not the greatest month to schedule playdates because 100% of them were canceled due to illness. The first was canceled because I thought Theo might be getting another ear infection. (We actually ended up avoiding it! See here for how we did it!). The second was canceled because one of my friend's children was throwing up, and the third was canceled because my children were throwing up. Next year, I will remember to schedule playdates either before or after December.

{3} Being sick.

I feel like Logan and Theo have had perpetual colds since September (slight exaggeration), and we had a nasty stomach bug rage through our house in December. Obviously, I did not choose for this to happen, but I definitely feel the need to add it to the list of things that did not work for us this year. On the bright side, we were all cleared of the stomach bug well before Christmas, and we were healthy to celebrate how our Savior humbled himself to be born in a manger.

Click here to read more about how I try to keep Christmas simple as well as my favorite traditions. (#1 is still my all-time favorite tradition!)

Tell me about your Christmas! What are your best ideas for keeping the season manageable?