The 3 Steps Guide for a Relaxing Christmas Season
Dive into the magic of Christmas prep. 🎄✨
Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.
— Peg Bracken
It's the most wonderful time of the year! I absolutely love Christmas 🎄. Perhaps it's because of the cozy atmosphere when the whole family is gathered together, or maybe it's because of the Christmas decorations and the sparkling lights, or it might be because of the Christmas tunes. But most likely is a combination of all of these things that transforms our world into a magical festive wonderland.
However, it can get overwhelming with all the activities happening at this time of the year — shopping, decorating, cooking and baking, gift wrapping, traveling, social events, and many more besides your business as usual. I’m not sure about others, but for us, to prepare for Christmas Day requires at least 24 days, which means an entire Advent Calendar.
We want to keep enjoying the Christmas season and not let it become a nightmare before Christmas (pun intended), so over the years we looked for ways to tackle the most daunting tasks, like gifts and shopping, and make more space for the activities that we enjoy.
Secret Santa with Friends
This year is the 7th edition of our Secret Santa with Friends hangout. Since Christmas is a family holiday, our group of friends decided to meet the weekend before Christmas to spend time together before everyone heads home for the holidays.
I don’t remember how all this started, but it’s tradition now. Every year we become better at it, and even our kids have their own Secret Santa track now 🎅.
It is a great way to make our holiday gatherings less stressful and more meaningful. Firstly, instead of buying gifts for all of your friends, you only need to purchase a gift for one of them. Even if there is no wishlist to guide you, you can still take the time to think about what would make a great present for that friend.
Secondly, it’s both budget-friendly and creatively challenging as we set a budget for ourselves and we must stay within it.
Overall it makes the experience more enjoyable and less overwhelming since we don’t have to worry about too many presents and leaves us more mental space for all the other activities going on. This removes a big burden from our shoulders.
Gift Shopping in November
I’ve swiftly mentioned this in Issue #11, where I talked about shopping for the unavoidable on Black Friday. But I guess gift shopping deserves its dedicated section in this issue.
We start thinking about gifts as early as November — that’s also the time we usually start talking about Secret Santa🎅. We start a list with our family and friends and draft ideas for presents. Most of the shopping happens on Black Friday and the weeks after, as most of the online shops have discounts until the beginning of December.
One thing we do throughout the year is to note down gift ideas as they come up. This way, when we find something somebody might enjoy or like, we can come back to it at the proper time.
This also helps us prepare for our kid’s birthday, as he’s born on Christmas Eve, and gifts have become a complicated topic. We have to come up with a broad list of present ideas: one from Santa, one from the kindergarten, one from his parents, one from my parents, one from my wife’s parents, and some backup present ideas as our friends will mostly ask us what should they buy for his birthday.
Don’t Leave Shopping for Christmas Eve
If November is the best time when you should start shopping for Christmas, then Christmas Eve is the worst time you can do the shopping.
All stores are crowded, most of the things you are looking for are gone, and you spend a lot of time in traffic and at checkout lines. It’s a hell of an experience and it sucks all the Christmas spirit out of you 🎄.
Our approach is, as you might guess, checklists. We create lists with the things we need for Christmas at the beginning of December. Then we try to get them done as soon as possible and leave nothing for Christmas Eve.
For the items that need to be fresh, such as vegetables or fruits, we usually buy them 2 or 3 days before Christmas. And to get rid of the supermarket visits, we take advantage of the grocery delivery services, which for a small fee save you a lot of time.
However, if we still need to buy something on Christmas Eve, then I prefer to wake up early and start shopping at the opening hours, way before the mass of people get out of bed.
—Alex