Surviving the holidays: hacks and confessions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes clueless people needed to be treated like clueless people. Every year my BIL does something super annoying.
--One year he brought a years worth of junk mail to go through and filled all my trashcans. No problem, I just asked him to help me empty them.
--Last year he brought bunch of expired snack foods to our house. Like 200 pieces. I told him just to leave in his car, unless he had some moon pies, which he didn't.
--This year he brought all his laundry. He is 68 years old married to my sister not some young bachelor. I told him, only laundry in the afternoon with so many showers in the morning taxing our smallish hot water heater. He complied. Clueless.

lol. I am kind of fascinated by this guy that brings these chores with him.

Last night during dinner (my 2nd of four huge family dinners I'm hosting), I noticed an old beat up suitcase in our dining room--I asked him why that was there. He said it was full of gifts that needed wrapping. It sat there all night. But I'll give him credit, I left wrapping paper and tape out, and he's wrapping away this morning at 8am.

I’ll be honest: I like your BIL. He plans his time, identifies what chores and tasks he has let slide, and preps so he can take advantage of time off to get things done. Respect to him. He could definitely have worse habits and eccentricities.

I like how the OP handles him. She doesn’t freak out or fight him. She handles his eccentricities as just accepting who he is and tasks him to resolve the situation in the way she prefers. And she repeats the stories kindly. She has either truly accepted him or is just a rock star person to not let these things bother her. Either one is incredibly admirable. 👏👏

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The hack to a wonderful Christmas is the belief that you are as worthy of joy and peace as anybody else in your story. If you have young – – very young – – children, they are your responsibility. Not grandparents, not siblings, not aunts. I stopped hosting people who don’t add to the joy of the day years ago and we have wonderful holidays full of the food and drink we like and the music we like and most importantly 18-20 people who all genuinely want to see and spend time together! So much holiday misery boils down to assigning your own happiness a lesser value.

Wow thank you for this gem, seriously.
I spend so much time thinking about how to make everyone happy that I forget to think about what I actually want (to do, to eat, to drink, to watch, to play, etc etc.)

[Anonymous]

I listened to this Kate Bowler podcast early on in the holiday season and have repeating to myself "connection, not perfection" throughout the last several weeks. It's been a good mantra across many situations big and small and I plan to carry it into the new year.

Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xOMgdn9Cmzifp6e1wrpVz?si=32467ff3a79b419e

[Anonymous]

My husband and I took our dog on 1 hour+ walks every day his family was in our house. Just left. We needed to vent to each other about the insanity of our visitors and deal with our own mental health. Helped tremendously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simplified -
1) Gifts.
- Just a secret Santa with the extended family. Price limit.
- Money to kids
- DH and I buy our own gifts.
2) No cards.
- Send a return card to those who send us cards.
- Or not.
3) Take out food
4) No Christmas Lights. We have put lovely outdoor lights for year round happiness. Lights out at 11 pm.
5) No tree.
6) No jockeying to host. Adult kids ILs want them at their place or take them on a cruise. Go for it. No competition from our side.

Wow, no tree? What a bummer.

No. Not at all. Cannot stand trees being cut for temporary decoration indoors. And I am over artificial ones also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry I don’t know why the above posted, I wasn’t done.
My 7yo said it’s more fun to open a wrapped gift than a gift in a gift bag. So for kids I still use wrapping paper..

She’s totally right! My mom started putting out gifts under the tree in reusable fabric sacks when I was like 8 or 9. “Opening” gifts took about 60 seconds- you just looked inside each already open fabric sack. I always asked her to please wrap mine and she said no. I’ve never once given my kids Christmas presents in anything other than wrapping paper. Even a gift card will be inside a shoebox that’s wrapped up.

I started using fabric bags because they're more eco-friendly, faster, and easier than wrapping paper. I did offer to put presents in generic boxes for anyone who wanted to wrap without spoiling surprises.

No one did. It was just me who was supposed to spend hours on that particular form of Christmas magic