S.I.M.P.L.E.

A simple Christmas.

A simple Christmas break.

A simple ringing of the New Year to come.

No muss. No fuss. And I feel so at peace!!

The hustle and bustle of the holidays can make even the strongest woman fall to her knees. There is all of the preparation, expectation, and then usually desperation when things don't go as planned. If there's no real plan, there's no reason to get upset. As long as your little family is happy, isn't that all that matters? The rush and hush makes everybody miserable in the long run.

And mom spends so much of her time and energy trying to make the holiday special for her family. But where is mom in it all? Mom should be happy, too. Because, if Mom is happy then everyone else is happy. And we all know that is right and true.

Even last year when I SET OUT for us to have a simple old-fashioned Christmas, it was two-weeks of work to make it happen. Not so simple in the long run.

Have you stopped recently to ask your family what they really want for Christmas (or for their birthdays, New Year's celebration, etc.)?? We all know the scenario ... WE have in our minds what WE think Christmas (or insert other holiday here) should LOOK like. We stress all day (or sometimes for several days) to make it HAPPEN, while in the meantime everybody is miserable because mom is freaking because nobody is cooperating and things aren't working out to the PERFECTION in her mind.

Not this year. I've looked at my family. I've paid attention to their true wants and desires. And I have done my best to deliver the Christmas THEY want instead. (And guess what?? It was a WHOLE LOT LESS WORK than I would have done under my vision!) Really, my family just wants to be home, enjoying each other and their new stuff.

On Christmas Eve I asked Rick if we should get out our Christmas china or our Mexican Fiesta-ware (since we were having Mexican with his sister's family) for our dinner. He said, "Neither." He wanted to keep it simple. Who were we trying to impress anyway? So, we just used our regular dinner plates. That kept us from having to locate the special dinnerware, wash it, use it, wash it again, and then repack it to put it away. No tablescape. No hoopla. Just dinner. And good dinner, too.

On Christmas Day? You read about that yesterday. Nothing but jammies, playing, and eating whatever we felt like. Nobody wanted to get up at o'dark:thirty to open presents when we could do it at 9 a.m. Nobody wanted the big fancy dinner. Nobody wanted a Christmas production. They just wanted to have fun and relax. Delivered. And mom was SO MUCH LESS STRESSED!! So, everybody was less stressed. I even let Dawson spend the night at his best friend's house ... GADS!!! ... on Christmas!  He was happy. So I was happy.

No, we didn't travel to see family. There are sacrifices that have to be made to carry out the simple plan sometimes. Ricks family, with the exception of his sister, all live in Reno, Nevada, so seeing them for a holiday is not possible unless we want to travel a loooooong way on Christmas. And we don't. And now my family has a house in Pensacola, Florida, where they are for Christmas. To see them we would have had to travel a loooooong way in the other direction, and we would have been on the road at about 4 a.m. this morning. So, we decided not to go. There were several times yesterday that I was thankful I wasn't spending my Christmas Day getting us prepared for a week-long trip. Talk about miserable mommy and miserable family. I do hate it that we don't have BIG FAMILY traditional get-togethers anymore. But to have the SIMPLE holidays, those are sacrifices we have to make. I am a homebody, true, but I have learned that so are my kids.

I have spent way too many holidays, vacations, even ordinary days, trying to get my family to live up to an expectation I have set in my mind. I think I'm starting to really GET IT now. I have read my family and realized that it's not about me and what I want. Yeah, I still got EVERYTHING I wanted! But I didn't have to work to get it. I got the love of my family. I got the tears from the kids when they opened gifts that they had wanted really, really, bad. I got the loving phone calls. I got comfy clothes, blankets and good books. I got a good day and a happy family.

Simple joy for all.