How I made the holiday traditions happen this year
/For those of you who have been following, you know that the holiday traditions from the year prior were a complete bust last year. My plan to mail out the holiday cards, wear our matching Christmas jams and a few other things were a fail. Last year, I thought it was a good idea to wait to buy our Christmas PJs and boy was I disappointed when Target only sent the partial order (Aiden’s PJs) and left out my own. Then came my holiday cards, exceptionally late that is. Shutterfly graciously sent our cards and they were somehow and somewhere lost in the mail. By the time they finally arrived and were sent out, it was late-January/early-February. If you ever wondered what a frustrated mom looked like—it was me and I was she.
This year is different. In my mind I had a plan and so far so good. Now, I must say, I did not keep to my Christmas budget plan, but I will reimplement it for Christmas 2020. Here are some things that went well in planning for the 2019 holiday season:
Holiday PJs - I truly thought they were going to be a bust again this year, but we have two (2) sets! I ordered our jammies on Target.com for delivery after a few failed attempts at getting matching sets after Black Friday. Finally, a pair of pants and a 2-piece set in our sizes was available and arrived today. Hopefully we’ll be able to wear one pair to The Polar Express train ride.
Holiday cards - This time my iPhone did the trick and Walgreens followed up with the assist. As soon as I identified the best shots following our at-home photo shoot on Thanksgiving Day, I submitted my order to Walgreens. Should I mention they had a sale, so I only paid about $16 for 40 cards? I was too excited that the cards were done before 12/1, but they’ll be going out before the end of this week.
Gingerbread House - Courtesy of my mother, the house was purchased and we completed it today. I saw a few houses but find myself getting caught up in the themes of each house. A simple Wonderland Target house did the trick for my child to put a “candy cranberry” up his nose. Don’t worry, he was able to excise it within a few moments.
Christmas tree and decorations - Most decorations went up Thanksgiving weekend, but my lights will join us soon. I’ve been feeling super tired recently, so it hasn’t been a priority. They are coming though
Shopping - I’ll start and finish on Friday this week. I’m leaning towards having them wrapped by the place of purchase without regret.
What I want you to take away from this post is the fact that you need to be kind to yourself. Everything just fell into place this year and I didn’t feel pressured while doing it. When you’re having fun and come across new things to add to your holiday tradition, don’t feel pressured or stressed if it doesn’t work out as intended.
