Sure, you love the holiday season--but just not so much of it! This year, it's time to simplify your holidays and celebrate the season.
Question is, just how do you do less--and enjoy it more--during the Christmas holiday season?
If you're aiming to simplify Christmas, take time to ponder ways to cut stress, save money and tame over-the-top traditions. Setting simplicity strategies in place now will keep you from being swept up in next month's holiday madness.
Get armed! Try these ten simple strategies to calm holiday chaos and rein in the seasonal overkill this year:
Family ties! The holidays can strain them to the breaking point. Judging from my e-mail, what's the single biggest holiday family conundrum? "Whose home for the holidays?" wins, hands down.
We don't know where we get it, we don't know where it comes from, but lots of us will stumble over this holiday illusion: "There is one right way to celebrate the holiday season!"
This one's sneaky. It comes to us through images, songs and Christmas cards. It rears up between newly married couples, as they try to blend his way and her way and make their own way in the face of competing in-laws.
<The approach of the holidays! Nothing quite like it to turn our hearts toward home.
Literally. The first week in November could be termed "Housing Dissatisfaction Week." It's a little-known seasonal indicator of the coming of winter--and it afflicts most of us as we plan for the coming Christmas holidays
Look around. What do you see? Dirty carpets. Furniture that's seen better days. Mismatched china, cluttered kitchens, drab and bedraggled window coverings. There's nothing like Christmas to bring us face-to-face with the things we find lacking in our home.
In our own defense, it must be pointed out that we are subject to some outside agitation! Notice last Sunday's furniture ads? 95% of them feature a holiday dining room: fireplace, groaning board, shining table. The fact that such a palatial spread won't fit in 99% of American homes? Pish-tush! Why distract our glowing furniture fantasy with cold, hard realities?
They're heeerre! Surrounding supermarket check stands, elbowing aside Mad and House Beautiful at the bookstore, popping up in fabric stores--even lurking quietly in your mailbox.
Christmas magazines! Now, don't get me wrong. I love Christmas magazines. I buy Christmas magazines. I even read Christmas magazines! As a source for recipes, ideas, decorating schemes, gifts, crafts and all-round Christmas cheer, there's nothing like a good Christmas magazine. Don't even think of trying to pry my collection of Better Homes and Gardens' "Holiday Cookies" out of my clutches!
There's only one problem: Christmas magazines suffer from split personality--and it's contagious. Reading Christmas magazines without a quick injection of reality, skepticism and just plain Scroogishness can be hazardous to your holiday health and well-being.
Come all ye who are heavy-laden by the signs of Christmas present, and I will refresh you! Do you cower under trailing tinsel at the supermarket check-stand, trapped between two glossy ranks of Christmas magazines--in September?
Do your teeth clench when you must push aside boxes of gift wrap and ornaments to find school supplies and Halloween treats at your local drugstore? Does your mailbox groan under a daily dose of mail order catalogs, each admonishing you to "order early for Christmas delivery"?
Something is rotten in Denmark--and Alaska, Hawaii and the Lower 48. It's time to take a good, hard, jaundiced look at a major source of holiday stress: the retail industry.
This potent illusion grabs us by the throat sometime in September. It lifts only on the afternoon of December 25, in concert with the 3 p.m. Christmas post-gift letdown.
It's a fancy subscribed to by many well-meaning holiday planners. It sells one heck of a lot of Christmas magazines. To my dismay, it may even have motivated you to join this Countdown!
The culprit? The Ghost of Christmas Perfection. This siren song sings as follows: "It is possible to organize a completely stress-free, hassle-free, calm, serene and spiritual holiday season!"
In a word, nuts. This Web site notwithstanding. Paying heed to the idea of a "perfect Christmas" will clog your planning and cloud your joy--and it's just not possible.
Who knows why? How did it happen? Women--wives and mothers--have come to bear the brunt of holiday preparation.
It's enough to make Barry Manilow sing! Women plan the meals, list the gifts and shop until we drop. We cook, we clean, and we wrap and wrap and wrap.
Our hands cramp from addressing Christmas cards. We go short on sleep to run the sewing machine late into the night. We rise before dawn to anoint the holiday bird and entrust it to the oven. Too often, we stew and mutter in our devastated kitchens as we clean up after yet another holiday meal to the sounds of football festivity in the next room.
Family ties! The holidays can strain them to the breaking point. Judging from my e-mail, what's the single biggest holiday family conundrum? "Whose home for the holidays?" wins, hands down.
We don't know where we get it, we don't know where it comes from, but lots of us will stumble over this holiday illusion: "There is one right way to celebrate the holiday season!"
The approach of the holidays! Nothing quite like it to turn our hearts toward home. 
"Oh, to have a perfect Christmas!"
Who knows why? How did it happen? Women--wives and mothers--have come to bear the brunt of holiday preparation.
