Christmas time is one of my favorite times of year I love all the family time and the magic of the season. But if we aren’t careful we can miss all the magical moments because we are stressed and trying to get it all done. Each year we try to simplify Christmas so we can enjoy the season with those we love.
How to Simplify Christmas
How each family decides to simplify Christmas will look a little bit different and that’s wonderful because that means there isn’t a “right way to simplify. You can figure out what works best for your family and do it.
Don’t feel like how you simplify Christmas this year is how you will simplify next year. Things change and how we decide to do things change. Each year our family does things a little differently to fit what is going on in our life.
Here are a few ways that you might want to simplify Christmas this year.
1 – Plan Ahead
There are so many things that you can plan ahead to help simplify Christmas. Here are a few different areas that you can easily plan ahead
Travel -If you’re traveling over the Christmas holiday planning your trip ahead of time will save you stress and money.
Gifts – Purchase gifts early in the year to avoid shopping when the stores are really busy. Having your shopping done before December hits will make it a lot easier to enjoy the holidays.
Holiday Gatherings – Do you host a holiday party each year? Plan as much of the event ahead of time as you can to keep the stress from taking away the magic of the holidays.
Meals – Though not necessarily Christmas specific planning a menu for the month can help you avoid grocery shopping more than you need to, save you money and help avoid the daily stress of figuring out what to make for dinner.
2 – Prioritize
The first thing I think of when something is simplified is that something has been eliminated and is missing. I promise that is not the case with simplifying Christmas. To simplify Christmas it’s all about prioritizing.
So for some families, the priority might be to spend more time at home together for others it might mean going to more events. For each family, a simplified Christmas will look different. It just depends on your priorities.
When you’re deciding what Christmas activities you want to do make sure that you prioritize the most important activities and those that don’t make it very high on your priority list might be something you want to consider skipping this year.
3 – Create a Schedule
Once you have prioritized the things you want to do this Christmas make a schedule.
For me, the easiest way to make sure we do all of the fun holiday activities we want to, without stressing and cramming them into the week of Christmas, is by scheduling them into our month.
Our schedule is flexible and the day we do activities often changes. But by having the activities spread across our month we are able to do all the activities we want to without the stress.
Related Post: Printable Christmas Bucket List
Some years we have a couple of activities we want to do each week, other years we don’t feel like doing as many activities so we only have a few things we want to do.
4 – Be Intentional with Traditions
Christmas is the season of Traditions, some we love and some we love to hate!
An easy way to simplify the Christmas season is to be intentional with your traditions. If you don’t like a tradition don’t do it!
Between Jared’s family and my family, we have a whole tone of traditions that we did growing up. Some of those traditions we have incorporated into our family and others we have decided we didn’t like or they aren’t important to us.
There are so many fun Christmas Tradition ideas out there that it’s tempting to try to do them all. But doing that will only stress you out. If you want to try a new tradition pick one or two to new ones try this year.
This year we are doing a book advent and I’m really excited about it.
It might not sound like simplifying but one of my priorities this Christmas is to spend intentional time as a family every day. Doing the book advent means we will spend a few minutes reading together each day throughout the month of December.
So while for some families the Christmas book advent would be an added Christmas stress, for our family this year it’s one way we are being intentional with your time.
5 – Say “NO”
I have a hard time saying no to activities that look and sound so fun, but being able to say no is so important.
I’m so glad that I said no to getting an Elf on the Shelf. It’s a tradition that I know many families look forward to each year. But for me, it’s something that would add so much stress to our holidays. So I said no.
Don’t be afraid to say no, say no to that party you don’t want to go to, say no to purchasing gifts for every acquaintance, say no to the things that add stress and draw away your time from your priorities for the holiday season.
6 – Simplify Christmas Decorating
I know we have all seen the beautiful homes decorated perfectly for Christmas scattered on Pinterest. But let’s be honest life isn’t perfect, so don’t feel like your home has to look like it’s been staged by a professional designer.
Each year it seems the number of decorations we have grows a little bit because one of our favorite things to do leading up to Christmas is crafts.
Doing holiday crafts with the kids is one of my very favorite things so it’s something I make sure to fit into our days as we celebrate the Christmas season.
We don’t spend a lot of money on Christmas decorations and they are far from perfect, but I love how they make the house feel extra special for the holidays.
7 – Simplify Christmas Gifts
For me, one of the things that causes the most stress during the holiday season is gift-giving. I always have a hard time figuring out what to gift people.
I’m more of a practical gift person and so many people in my extended family aren’t, which means it can be extra challenging to figure out what to gift them.
Luckily over the years, I have found a few ways to simplify Christmas Gift Giving.
How to Simplify Christmas Gift Giving
Limit the Number of Gifts you Purchase – don’t feel like you have to purchase gifts for everyone. I’m sure your mom’s great aunt will be fine without a gift from you this year.
Let me clarify, Christmas is a wonderful time to be generous and give to others but if it’s not in your budget don’t do it and don’t feel like you have to buy presents for people you don’t want to.
3 Christmas Gift Challenge – It’s so easy as parents to want to get our kids everything. But giving them everything we didn’t get as kids isn’t doing them any favors.
Sticking with a few more intentional gifts will make it easier to gift your kid’s things they will actually enjoy.
Plus letting your kids save up to buy things they want is a great way to help them learn about money.
Draw Names – Both Jared and I come from large families (8 kids and 6 kids, plus spouses and kids) so if we purchased gifts for everyone it would get crazy really fast.
For the last couple of years, our families have drawn names and I love it! Each year we purchase gifts for different family members and we don’t feel guilty that we didn’t get everyone a gift.
I hope these ideas to simplify Christmas are helpful to your family and that you have a less stressful and more magical Christmas.
Other Ways to Simplify Christmas
A few of my blogging friends are also sharing ways to simplify for Christmas this year. Click on the links below to see their posts.
Whitney | Work It Mommy
Justine |Little Dove
Mary | Live Well Play Together
How do you like to Simplify Christmas?
I love that you emphasized that simplifying looks different for every family, it’s so true! I also think that planning and scheduling is KEY so you don’t feel so rushed and hectic. And we definitely have a simple gifting routine which makes life (and Christmas morning) so much easier. And the kiddos still appreciate and love everything! Thanks so much for your thoughts on this!
Thank you! I loved your post on simplifying Christmas! It’s just so important to figure out what works for your family and not worry about what anyone else is doing.