May your days be merry and light

So the Christmas season is here again.

In years that have long gone by, it was a far more complicated time.

Black Friday was just a grand finale to shopping that had commenced a couple of months before.

I had purchased Christmas cards in October and already had a couple of stacks ready to be mailed out in December.

Before I took dozens of boxes of decorations out of storage, I began holiday cleaning that went far beyond just house cleaning basics. I saddled myself with washing walls, cleaning draperies and polishing floors.

The tree was at least a three day production with close to three hundred carefully placed ornaments. After that, I decorated every room in the house. In a fourteen room house, that’s a lot of decorating. And when it was completed, the outside got decorated as well.

What was next? Christmas baking, of course. Much of it was used as small gifts for neighbors and acquaintances, so the process also included finding or making seasonal containers, filling them and adding festive bows.

Then I was off to the stores again to pick up all the food for holiday meals and a few last gifts. The rest is a bit of a blur, but I know that I was racing to assemble toys, finish wrapping, cooking the meal and cleaning up all the mess that ensued from the cooking and decorating.

I did look forward to Christmas, but only because it meant the end of an insane holiday rush that had literally lasted for months. I’m not sure what insanity prompted me to repeat this scenario year after year, but it was a long time before I was able to let go of this exhausting ritual.

Simplifying Christmas is the best gift I have ever given myself. We have a lovely, if smaller, tree. I enjoy listening to seasonal music and holiday shopping that is limited to a gift for Calico and Muffin. Each year we pick a couple of favorite holiday foods to enjoy and leave the rest for another year. Our meal is satisfying, but no one gets stuffed. I greet the New Year without the extra pounds that come from holiday excess or the exhaustion that follows weeks of trying to do too much.

As I see parking lots fill and frantic shoppers race through stores, I truly know that less is more.