Hey friends!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, as they say. Christmas tunes are playing, lights are a-twinkling and the taste and smell (and unwanted five pounds) of cookies linger everywhere you go.
Am I a Christmas lover? No, I am not. But I don’t dislike Christmas. I just don’t think it’s nearly as great as Thanksgiving, so it’s kind of like going to a disappointing wedding a month after a really, really fun wedding. Sorry everyone who had a wedding right after mine...you’re Christmas in this scenario.
In honor of this wonderful time of the year, I’m here to grace you with some holiday advice that you can use for years to come! The good news about this advice? Many of these recommendations you can “accidentally” put into place due to our current Covid situation and simply roll them over into 2021 for a seamless holiday transition.
You’re welcome! (I know, I know, no one is thanking me because this advice is completely unsolicited. Again, you’re welcome for anticipating your needs.)
Without further ado...
Gifts are overrated.
Call me a grinch, call me cheap (both may be true).
But I am an adult person who buys myself most reasonably priced things when I want them. TBH, I feel like I am doing both of us a disservice by letting you buy me stuff. To you, I am literally scrounging up ideas of anything I could possibly use once a year in order for you to give me a gift that I don't need. I feel like you could do something better with your time and money. For me, I am spending precious minutes trying to come up with gift ideas and filling my home with items I only minimally need.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the kindness and thought, but I would 110% rather us not buy any gifts and spend our money on any of the following (post-covid, of course):
Happy hour (or several)
Brunch or any sort of meal together
Hanging out over a mutual hobby or favorite type of entertainment. Can you say concert, wine and canvas, the world’s most expensive coffee tasting, etc? I think you can say it!!
A trip - do we do really big gifts? YO, let’s go on a vacation instead. I would prefer this 1 million times over.
Chilling at one of our places - want to save money this year and skip gifts and expensive get togethers? Great!! Come over, we’ll split a $6 bottle of barefoot wine and eat cheese from the regular dairy section of the store, not the fancy cheese section. Cheap or expensive, I get the same enjoyment (and same level of heartburn)!
If you are like many people this year and staying home for the holidays, perhaps you could just not buy anyone gifts this year or ever again. I recommend, like, having a discussion about it though or else you will look like an asshole.
Are your families and friend groups filled with gift lovers? I get it. I legit do, I love giving gifts. Just ask Ben who literally never gets any gifts on his birthday, Christmas, etc. because I get too jazzed and give them all to him the second I buy them at the store or they arrive in the mail. Anyway, for the gift lovers in your life, here’s my suggestion.
Why not encourage “just because” gifts, “this reminded me of you” gifts or actual worthwhile occasion gifts (like you got a new job, a new house, a new animal, a new human being, a new life partner, etc.).
I think many of you can agree with me when I say, 1) these types of gifts are usually more thoughtful because they have a purpose and 2) you can spread your costs out because probably not everyone you know will get married and birth a child and buy a house on the same day every year.
Again I say, you’re welcome (and please hold your applause, I know it’s brilliant).
You don’t need to celebrate every holiday with every single family member.
Yes, I’m talking to you people who have seven Christmases or three Thanksgivings and then barf on the ride home because you just couldn’t say no to your overbearing aunt who thinks you need to eat more.
Look, I agree that the idea of spending every holiday with everyone you hold near and dear is nice, but the execution seems to be really not nice for a lot of people.
There’s a few different ways this can go, but I think most of them go poorly.
Way 1: You celebrate Christmas with many different groups of people over an eight week period. What are you doing in December? Sorry, I’m busy, I have Christmases 1-4. January? Sorry, still busy, we’re trying to squeeze 5-7 in before Valentine’s Day. This is a lot and (though I have not done it) I feel fairly confident when I say this leads to Christmas burn out. Don’t do it!!
Way 2: You go to 3+ Christmas celebrations between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This sounds exhausting!! Especially if you have small humans in tow! Have you ever thought about not doing that?
With our current situation, I’m guessing many of you are celebrating without family or having fewer celebrations. What if you just adapted this going forward? Celebrated with your in-laws this year? Why not celebrate with your family next year? Didn’t see your cousin’s cousin’s barber’s girlfriend? Send her a card and move along.
I feel like this is going to be my most contentious suggestion (yes more than cancelling gifts). If you like having seven Christmases, I support you and I am not trying to change you. But if you don’t, I encourage you to think about this nice out you’ve been presented with and consider how you can change your plans moving into Christmas 2021.
Nobody wants your baked goods.
If you feel like I am personally attacking you, I am not. I am personally attacking me because I am very guilty of this.
A little backstory. If you’re thinking, “Lisa, this seems so unlike you. Don’t you hate baking?” ding, ding, you are correct. This is unlike me. I do hate baking. I try to only do it around Christmas. I always have a bad time. When I think back on all of the occasions Ben and I have ever baked anything together, it always has at least one terrible moment.
Sometimes it’s the moment where I accidentally pour flour all over the floor. Sometimes it’s the moment the dough comes out weird and I feel like Ben must have used the mixer wrong. Sometimes it’s when I spill the entire bottle of vanilla (this happens literally almost every time I bake. I don’t know how either). Sometimes it’s when I drop food in the Spud’s fur. Sometimes it’s when I walk away absentmindedly and Rex eats all the treats. So yeah, I hate baking, it’s unlike me, IDK why I subject myself to it either, but I do and I will.
So anyway, because I bake approximately once per year, I try to pack a whole year’s worth of goodies into a few days and so inevitably I bake WAY TOO MUCH. And because I try not to be a wasteful human, I must obviously force everyone I’ve ever met to eat some of my baked goods.
I’m so sorry! I know you probably don’t want them. I know you probably made 317 cookies as well, and we’re just exchanging overflow cookies.
I guess “nobody” is probably a strong term. Some people want your baked goods. Your friend who doesn’t bake wants your baked goods. That college kid you know wants your baked goods. Your mom doesn’t want your baked goods but won’t say no because she’s your mom.
Again, this is the perfect year to get out of giving baked goods. Because you know what’s gross in 2020? Eating something made by someone else, especially if it requires a lot of hands like my cookies certainly did. So nobody will be shocked if they don’t get any of your baked goods this year. They won’t think you just cut them out of your cookie circle. They’ll think, “wow, Lisa is so responsible, trying to keep me and my family safe from her germs.”
And then, when 2021 rolls around, all these people will forget you ever gave them baked goods to begin with and you won’t have to worry about offending them (even though they don’t want your cookies and thus shouldn’t be offended, but they still will be).
If you have a guilty conscience and just have to give them something, an ornament is nice. Wine is nice. So is tequila. I do want those things. Thx.
Your mismatched tree is lovely.
This is very subjective but I just don’t understand the perfect, matching tree thing. I'm sorry if I'm offending you.
A perfect tree has fewer memories. A perfect tree isn’t decorated as a family. A perfect tree doesn’t remind you of that time the dog thought your tree skirt was a dog bed or the cat knocked all your ornaments down or your kids made something personalized for you in preschool.
If a perfect tree is beautiful to you, go for it! But if you are somebody who is on the brink of using all those perfectly imperfect ornaments but think people are judging you, I am with you!! I am not judging you. I love your random ornaments.
I think those perfectly imperfect trees are the most beautiful. Heck, we got a new tree this year which our tree topper didn’t fit on, so we decorated it with a roll of toilet paper and I love it that much more.
The moral of the story here is you do you. But even if “you” is messy, random and mismatched, I’m here for it.
Here are various other holiday opinions which I feel strongly about, but don’t think you need to.
Red is a bad color. I don’t like it. I wish it wasn’t a Christmas color. Or a color anytime.
I do not understand how it is safe to plug lights in outside. I understand that it is a thing and that I am confused, but I just can’t get on board. This seems like a hairdryer meets bathtub situation to the max.
Christmas decorations shouldn't go up until after Thanksgiving. See above for my thoughts on Thanksgiving.
To avoid Christmas overload, hardcore Christmas celebrating (looking at lights, listening to Christmas music, etc.) shouldn’t happen until after December 12th.
Eggnog is gross.
Holiday coffee drinks are delicious.
Wrapping gifts is the worst. It’s a waste of time and a bigger waste of paper. Gift bags are better, but only if you save them year after year.
Reindeer are the cutest part of any Christmas movie. They’re always adorable. I like their faces and their sounds and their bond with Santa and his family.
Linus and Lucy is the best Christmas song.
Fancy Christmas dinners do not make sense to me. I am not opposed to them, I just don’t understand what the point is because it’s not Thanksgiving.
And on that note, Happy Holidays!
I hope you enjoy the holiday season with your families from near or far.
I hope you heed my advice if you want to and ignore me and write me off as a trash opinion-giver if you do not like what I have to say. That is fair and I accept it.
I hope you are safe. I hope your family is safe. I hope you find peace and joy in the holidays.
For those who are struggling this year, I am here for you. Let’s talk.
For all my friends who have read my blog once or many times, thank you!! I think the greatest gift I gave myself this year was this new hobby. So thanks for tuning in, telling me about how you relate, sharing my musings with your friend who doesn’t know me, etc.
I look forward to sharing many more rants with you as we move into 2021. Wow wow, what a year it’s been.
Cheers,
Lisa
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