Things I will NOT do this Holiday Season

Hello Love and Laundry Readers!

As Christmas and Hannukah draw near, I would like to share a brief list of Holiday Resolutions. This is my way of providing authorization, just in case you feel like you need it, to skip without guilt all those tasks which the world (well, Pinterest and Instagram) tell us are vitally important for a joyous holiday season.

Things I will NOT do this Holiday Season

I will NOT open the first Christmas card of the season featuring a beautiful family on the beach in the Outer Banks at sunset in matching blue outfits and then panic-Google local photographers to see if it's possible to schedule a family photo in time for Christmas. Because it is not possible. And I will once again end up hunting through all the photos on my phone searching for that one time my family was gathered together at the same time in the same place wearing something other than the clothes we slept in, and call that our Holiday Portrait.

I will not attempt to "elevate my gift-wrapping game" as suggested by an article in the Washington Post. I will not embrace the Japanese tradition of furoshiki and spend hours watching YouTube videos to learn how to artfully wrap my gifts in silk, linen and cotton fabric. I will not spend hours ironing paper bags to create rustic and environmentally friendly wrapping paper. I will not attach festive candy canes to the outside of each package so my dog can eat them and get sick. Instead I will continue to cover gifts in paper from the eternal roll of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer jumbo wrap I purchased five years ago at Target, and which still has not run out, probably because it is so ugly.

I will not forage in my backyard for magnolia leaves, then staple them to a board, then hunt through the bins at Michaels for wired ribbon and fake holly berries to create festive Bundles of Joy to adorn my window boxes, which I do not even have, for the holiday season.

I will not watch as Sarah Whitby, a vicar's wife from a place with a name like Berwick-Upon-Tweed somewhere in England, makes a gingerbread nativity for her Showstopper on the Great British Baking Show, complete with cattle that low and angels that herald, and then tell myself that surely I can do the same, because she makes it look so easy. Because it is not easy, and I cannot do the same because I am terrible at baking. I know this now. And this holiday season, I will not be fooled into thinking otherwise.

I will not feel guilty about the fact that in our family we email each other Amazon links, and then we click on the links and buy the items, and then we wrap them, and then we call this exchange of presents we've all chosen for ourselves the sharing of meaningful gifts from the heart. It works, and I will not feel bad about it any longer.

I will not put lone electric candles in each window because I have accepted that I am not smart enough to figure out how to set the complicated timing devices that turn the candles on at dusk. Instead I turn them on once, forget about them, then run down the batteries, causing their light to die approximately two days before Christmas. And this year, I am okay with it.

So this holiday season, please accept my heartfelt wishes for the peace that comes from accepting our limitations, and the joy that comes from being who we really are.

In 2025, I hope you travel to new places with old friends. I hope you sit before a warming fire with purring cats and sleeping dogs. I hope you spend more time reading good books and less time scrolling through bad news. I hope you have days filled with hope and moments of deep joy.

All my love,

Christine