"Are you ready for Christmas?"
People keep asking me that question when I'm out and about.
And I'm sorry to say that as of this moment, the answer is no.
And I thought that if you are in the same boat, you might be encouraged to see where I'm at.
I have presents purchased, but exactly ZERO of them are wrapped.
I spent all day yesterday making pajama pants with Sonia, Zoe, and their cousin, so my floors are sprinkled with fuzz and thread.
The pants turned out super cute though. 🙂
My kitchen counters are all pretty cluttered and my fridge is basically a tragedy inside.
And I accidentally didn't finish my grocery shopping for today's and tomorrow's meals, so I have to go to Costco today. Ha.
But.
It's 9:30 am.
I totally have time, right?
Thanks for the honesty, Kristen! My Christmas theme this year is MESS! So grateful God came to us in our mess to give us a Savior and a Hope! Merry Messy Christmas to your family !
Nope. I didn't get any cards out either. That's several years in a row. I still have gifts to wrap, and a gift to purchase on the way to the gift exchange this afternoon. I need to vacuum, wash dishes and make my food for my family get together tonight. Oh, and shower too. Merry Christmas!
Nope. Food lion was out of their own gift cards, so I have to have my husband stop on his way home from work at another location. Like you, I still have unopened boxes with gifts inside, still have to do a deep cleaning for company tomorrow, and have to stuff stockings. Hopefully I’ll get motivated very soon. On the couch watching reruns of The Office. I might work for an hour after every episode. Thanks for keeping it real! Merry Christmas!
Thank you ! I’m totally in the same boat. Presents not wrapped and crafted gifts for tomorrow not done ! This is one of those times i wish I could clone myself. Merry Christmas !
We did Christmas with our daughters & families last Saturday. Had a great time, grands all played well together & son-in-laws went and picked up & installed a new hot water heater as the other one died Friday night. Was thankful for running water but having hot water is the bomb.
This question irritates me a bit, but I know that people, mostly shop clerks, as looking to make conversation in a positive way. But we have a very low key Christmas and my son, who came a long distance, got really sick. So it is going to be a really quiet Christmas. But not what most people are envisioning.
You gave those girls (and yourself) a gift of togetherness and memory. That means much more than a tidy kitchen. Groceries - that's important. Thanks for sharing.
No, and I'm trying hard not to panic. Anxiety is killing me, for no reason really but I can't help it.
Also I think you should get a dog. Cats are a gateway drug to dogs, and the PJs are a subliminal sign.
Haha, NOPE. No dog happening here. The dog fabric was what my niece chose (she has a dog).
I am flexible on a great many things for my children's sake, but I know myself better than to think that I would be ok being a dog owner. Cats are SO much less responsibility and mess, as a rule, so I can handle a cat.
Me and neighbor have decided no one actually wraps the kids presents before 9pm on Christmas eve.
So true. I would start wrapping after the kids were asleep and pray they stay asleep.
Why yes, I am. You know why? Because I have such low standards you couldn't even limbo under them. I wrapped presents last night. Four of them, in brown paper that came from the boxes a Walmart order shipped in. The others went into re-usable gift bags from previous years. My house is a mess, but we aren't having any guests and I'm planning on making my children do a pretty thorough pick-up tonight by telling them that we have to clear room for presents. 🙂
I am currently cooking some beef ribs because I'm going to attempt making tamales for dinner tomorrow, but that's my idea of fun, so no stress there.
My only anxiety is coming from the fact that our church service is at 7 p.m. tonight, which is the youngest's bedtime, so there is a high probably of meltdowns. We'll just pretend that she's channeling the baby Jesus, who I'm sure wailed plenty at his birth. Not that anyone will confuse a toddler's temper tantrum with a newborn's soft cries, but whatever.
Merry Christmas to all! I wish you all peace and joy, whatever form that takes.
7 pm is definitely a hard time to have a church service when you are under the age of five!
My church's service is at 7:30 PM and is followed by cookies and sweets. Personally, it means I stay up too late on Christmas eve and of course, eat way too much sweet stuff.
Costco on Christmas Eve . Thank you for always keeping it real. I remind myself this year that the first Christmas wasn’t perfect and yet it was a perfect blessing. So, whatever we end up doing, we are blessed to do it together. (which includes your cinnamon rolls again-thank you for that) I hope you have a wonderful celebration!
Cinnamon rolls happening here too!
I'm as ready as I can be. Several of my gifts got stuck in FedEx and won't arrive until Saturday so those people won't get them until later. My house is also not all that tidy and I need to bag up my cans and bottles to go back to the store for recycling.
On top of that, my mother decided to cancel family Christmas and postpone it to a later date so we're left without anywhere to go on Christmas night. I decided to make the best of the situation and splurged on some steaks for Christmas dinner.
So yeah, I'm not ready but I guess it will have to do.
I hope your Christmas night at home with the three of you (and steak!) is good. <3
That's really frustrating. Personally, I like being alone or with just a few people on Christmas; I find it helps reduce the Holiday Crazies.
Enjoy the steaks, they should wonderful.
The pants are adorable!!! And Merry Christmas to you and yours!!
I still need to make Christmas cookies with my kids! We need to do it today so we have something to leave for Santa. They were sick the past two weeks (first one, then the other) with a high fever and terrible cough, so I didn’t want them infecting the cookies. I managed to get to Aldi last night for some food, but need to get to another store today for soy milk. Our house is also a total disaster, so we will be picking up today so “Santa doesn’t have an accident” when he’s sneaking around tonight. I also have two gifts that got lost during shipping and never arrived. They company resent them for me, but they will not be here for Christmas. Regardless, we are all relatively healthy and will be together, so I am grateful 🙂
I think spending time making pajama pants was more important. I bet you can get help with the wrapping. As someone said, the first Christmas wasn't perfect (conditions wise).
I need to finish a few cat toys and prep some food for hosting lunch tomorrow. We have simplified Christmas over the years. Also, I did not get all the cards out. We don't do local cards but I do send them to distant relatives and friends scattered around the country.
I switched to New Year's cards a few years ago. Less stress. 😉
A friend of ours sends a Thanksgiving card/photo. Clever!
It'll be fine! Christmas Day is going to be complex and unsettled do family reasons so we're having Christmas tonight just the two of us. That's the only reason I feel a bit more sorted, because we're sort of a day ahead. Still have most of the presents to wrap but thankfully no kids and no company so whatever I say is good enough in the house in terms of cleanliness is good enough
And there will be wine, which will take the untidiness out of focus!
Yes but I buy very few gifts. My family likes cash! I did mail a package to the grandkids in California- cost me $59 to mail and that wasn’t express delivery either. I was at Publix this AM when they opened at 7 to buy a baguette my sis requested and egg nog ice cream. I host tomorrow- house is fairly clean and I have time to scrub the bathrooms. Tonight we go to Sis’ s house after 3 o’clock church for food and dice game. We quit exchanging gifts 10 years ago. When I did buy gifts for the kids, I wrapped as I bought since I really hate wrapping. Just be sure and label as you wrap lol. Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it.
I wish you well today as you finish up. Breathe! And have the Merriest Christmas!!
I have to finish wrapping and bake more cookies and one bar. Dust, vacuum, bathrooms and then we can relax. Looking forward to family and friends and laughter. And good baking!
Chy
Ha Costco on Christmas Eve sounds like a fun challenge 😉
I’m as ready as I will be. We have last minute ordered items to pick up (roast, a pie...) and another pie to make and I definitely haven’t done any stocking shopping for my husband. We’re picking up family at the airport though and have church at 4 (because, toddler) so I think we’ll get it done, it just might be tonight after church!
I also have a dying cat though, who I’m just grateful has made it to Christmas so honestly, everything else has been pushed to the side as we’ve tried to manage her health so I’m just happy I got done what I have done at this point.
Costco was surprisingly good, I'm happy to say!
I'm so sorry about your cat. <3
"He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming! It came!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling. "How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes, or bags!"
*******************************************************
I like to remember this quote from The Grinch when I feel behind at Christmas or that I am not doing "enough." I don't send cards, rarely bake, and decorate minimally. Right now, it's 12:30 p.m. Our house is a wreck, and I haven't wrapped anything. I just got back from a supposedly "quick" trip to the drug store, which also turned into a trip to the grocery store because the drugstore didn't have any Reese's peanut butter trees. (Anyone else having trouble finding the regular ones this year?)
And I have to work from 4-10. Am I panicking? No, because Christmas will come whether I am ready or not.
(Disclaimer: we only have one kid and he's 19, and we are not hosting people tomorrow.)
I tear up whenever I get to the part of the Grinch story (Call me a softy if you want :)). All five of us are sick with a cold this year, and we just started an antibiotic that may or may not work to help kill an infection my daughter has on top of the cold. Plans changed so we aren't celebrating with family like we thought we'd be. Even with all this, Christmas will still be beautifully wonderful.
This sounds like our Christmas. Our first came down with some nasty virus 2 weeks ago. My last one just came down with it yesterday which means I (and the 2 youngest who were up half of last night) will stay home with him. The rest will be blessing everybody in church with the sounds of their residual cough. The really stinky part of all of it is that my father (because of the sickness) couldn't come stay with us as planned for our first Christmas after the death of my mother. 🙁 But Christmas is still indeed beautifully wonderful!
The pajama pants look great and there's such value in making those fun family memories!
I'm pretty much ready... I'm on the hunt for the lime sherbet that's necessary to make Grandma's Christmas punch and there's apparently none in my entire city, so we're on our way to my brother's church an hour and a half away and going to stop at a slightly larger city on the way to see if we can find any. I just put a reminder on my phone calendar to start looking in November next year! But we stayed up late last night to wrap presents and the cake part of Jesus' birthday cake is done, just not the frosting. My final Christmas cards went out yesterday... I ran out of cards so there are a few people not getting them this year, but overall I'm calling it a win. I even got just enough laundry done for everyone to have clean clothes today. Whoo hoo!!! 🙂
I hope you and your family have a very merry Christmas and make some wonderful memories of being together.
I still need to finish some snacks for this evening, clean up kitchen & vacuum but pretty much everything else is done. This is a good year for me
Those pj pants are cute
Thank you for sharing the messy reality. I’m also not ready. Church moved the family service from 4pm to 11 am which has screwed up the flow of the day. I have laundry piled in the living room, at least it’s clean. I forgot to get a sitter to do a stocking stuffer run with hubby so we are going this afternoon since my parents arrived about noon. The baby is cutting teeth and thinks napping is for the birds.
I stayed up way to late last night making a birthday cake for my mom. Just looked at my parents and said I’m not ready for dinner but we have cake.
I need to remember that my parents don’t care, my kids don’t care and hubby really doesn’t care either. I’m trying to let go of the shoulds and need to’s but it’s hard. I have a very small sliver of perfectionist that likes to show up at holidays.
I’m trying. to let it go. My kids just want my time. They are happy eating oatmeal and staying in pjs all day. They are 6,3 and 7monrhs and it will be magic no matter what. Right?
Love your post! The pajama pants are so cute. Do you have a pattern you love, that you could share a link to?
Thanks for sharing how we are feeling during this holiday season.
Merry Christmas!
Sorry Anna-Catherine that was meant as a general question.
Happy holidays.
Sure, here's the one we used: https://amzn.to/2stpY7c
There's also one that's sizes L/XL: https://amzn.to/2QszhfR
It's a really easy pattern to use, even for beginners.
I mailed out my gifts on Dec 23. I haven't yet done any cards, but I'll send them out in between Christmas and New Years. They will get there when they get there. I bought a frozen turkey yesterday. If it's thawed, I'll cook it, if not, I'll make something else. What I did do though, is make YOUR sugar cookie recipe last night with my daughters and we had a great time, listening to Christmas music, exercising our creative muscles and munching. Love your blog, it is a gift! Merry Christmas Kristen, Zoe, Sonia, Lisey, Josh & Mr FG
Instead of "It's the most wonderful time of the year" I think the song should be "It's the most cluttery time of the year". It always feels like there is stuff everywhere and I can't quite get it tidied up. So, to cope, I took my son to a movie. Ha.
I'm overall ready (don't hate me .... ) but in order for my son and me to attend the only showing of the movie (Midway--it's really good, FYI) it meant that hubby was in charge of the final cinnamon roll rising and baking. Looks like he didn't let them rise enough and overbaked them. Sigh. I'm hoping lots of icing fixes that problem.
I always sing "It's the most stressful time of the year" when that song is on. I try to simplify every year, but every year it does me in.
Oh my, I am wishing you the very, very, very best with regard to Costco. We went to the mall yesterday to use some bonus bucks that were expiring and it was so crazy is was about enough to make me lose my holiday spirit. ☹️
I just wrapped my presents today, am still in my pj’s, and watching Christmas movies instead of cleaning my house. The food situation is good, so there is that.
Merry Christmas to you and your’s, Kristen, and thank you for all you do here!
Heck no...
but I refuse to stress (my christmas gift to myself along with a bottle of champagne for timorrow) i figure the holiday will work itself out just fine even if it's not post worthy
Besides...its about being together and having fun in simple way.s...Chevy chases christmas vacation is a hoot...we also walk at dusk to see all the christmas lights...hot cocoa by the river is a tradition to...those are what's important to me...hanging out and laughing...and rescuing stuck kittens out of the tree...lol...much hilarity there
I'm good with it not being perfect by other people's standards
Everybody have a simply merry little christmas and hug the heck out of your loved ones...
We were ready extra early because we left Saturday morning to go to my parents house 2 hours away. We've had 2 of our 3 celebrations already. The last one tomorrow is with my husband's family.
I just sent the husband and kids to Costco so I could wrap gifts. The reality was I ended up on work calls nearly the entire time. C’est la vie, right??
Oh man! I hope you got some wrapping time in.
Keepin it real......love it
The only reason I'm ready is that I'm doing almost nothing this year.
There are decorations and the tree is up because someone else wanted it enough to do it. (I do like the tree; the rest I can take or leave.)
I'm not hosting anyone and no one's asked me over; this year that's fine by me.
I'm ready for Saturday's Supper Club only because most of the food is coming from my freezer stash.
I wrapped gifts are 4 pm today.
It is 11 am in my corner of Australia. To avoid in law issues we decided to have a European style gathering on Christmas Eve. Because my grand daughter is 27 months we had huge fun watching her antics. She insisted on sharing her gifts with one and all.
We have had some storms bringing much needed rain. Now we will sit back and enjoy a quiet day. My son is working until 1 pm so we will have a little meal for him when he finishes.
I hope you got caught up, or at least to a place you could stop and relax! Merry Christmas!!
Wish I'd seen this yesterday! We had to make an out-of-town trip, which stretched out four days longer than planned. On the eight-hour drive home, we decided to stop at a grocery store and buy groceries for Christmas Dinner. We got to the store at 11:00pm and shopped in twenty minutes. Of course, we went to an expensive store, because they were both open late and stocked fresh, not frozen, turkeys. Frugal fail, but we got what we needed.
We have no decorations up, and no presents wrapped. However, we have invited two people over and by three o'clock, we will be sitting down to break bread together.
Oh, and we did a Costco run late yesterday afternoon, because we were out of gas. We braved the store, grabbed a few things and a pizza for dinner last night. Wasn't bad at all. Probably because most people had planned better than we did, lol.
I agree that the best present was your presence.
Merry Christmas to you and those you love, Kristen!
I'm reading this on Boxing Day but my answer would have been NO I was absolutely not ready and you know what, it didn't matter. This year I didn't panic like I usually do and I didn't run out to the stores at the last minute and it turned out to be OKAY. I actually used up some food from my freezer because I didn't go get the few things I needed. You would have been sooo proud of me Kristen! I stayed home and made bread for all my neighbours instead and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. I took bread to a neighbour that I don't usually visit very much and we had a lovely chat. I really learned a valuable lesson this Christmas from NOT being ready and I won't panic on Christmas Eve again and instead I will do what is truly important and that's sharing and caring. Sounds a little/lot corny but it sure did ring true for me. Happy New Year Kristen and thanks for making such a tremendous difference in my life since I found your blog many moons ago!!
Aww, great job at using up food from your freezer, especially on a holiday!
As usual your willingness to show us real, messy life is refreshing. My life is messy in every way, with healing happening and messes still being figured out. We all have messes and it helps to share! Our Christmas this year was quiet. We have a family rule that Christmas Day is for our immediate family only (just the five of us: Me, hubby, and three little kids). So we have no visitors or obligation of going anywhere, which I LOVE. Somehow this year, we had the best Christmas we've had in years. It was so pleasant and happy and free from squabbles or stress. My children played extremely well with their gifts and with each other, and the day was just so splendidly joyous in a simple, quiet way. Eggnog, Christmas movies in the background, simple yummy food, Christmas lights, staying in jammies all day. But that isn't because I know how to perfectly make that happen. It was a combination of learning from our mistakes in past years, and also the stars sort of aligning. And honestly I wonder if it was a "fluke" that it went so well.:-( I did manage to get my presents wrapped, BUT it was literally only because I stayed up half the night on three nights in a row in order to do it. So yes, they got wrapped but I'm not sure staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning is a good choice because then I'm a zombie and that isn't good for my family.
I did have several things I wanted to do that I Never Got To, though. I had to find the serenity to let go of some things on my list that I wanted to do. They can wait till next year. My children are happy about the things we did do. They don't even know about the things we DIDN'T do, so they can't be unhappy about not doing them. And we certainly didn't do anything big or complicated! There were no professional photos taken, no complicated crafts, no fancy meals. We decorated our tree as a family, decorated our house with our hodgepodge of old and handmade decorations, made gingerbread houses from a dollar store kit, strung some cranberries on thread, attended church services and a school party, made sugar cookies (from a mix) with grandma, etc, etc. Simple easy stuff. And it happened over a few weeks so I certainly didn't get it all done quickly. ALL my gifts were bought online, because I've reconciled myself to the fact that I can't think well in a store environment. Online works better for me and I end up buying less, actually. And I'm proud of myself this year that I actually stuck to my guns about getting my kids gifts that encourage creativity, instead of the latest stuff (another great thing about not having TV- no commercials so they can't ask for the latest popular toys :))
Hope everyone is enjoying their Day After Christmas!
I was ready for Christmas because wrapped presents, a clean and clutter free house, perfect meal, etc are not requirements for commemorating the birth of Jesus! I've yet to hear a Christian sermon that says any of these things are required for Christmas! Was my house ready for a glamour shot for a Christmas article? No. I spent most of Christmas Eve morning consoling a friend who had lost a loved one. I'm not wasting any time stressing on things that aren't really that important. Remember the reason for the season.
I totally related to this post but I was so behind on my Christmas I didn’t have time to reply! Lol!!! On Christmas I still had no presents wrapped or cookies baked. Somehow most everything got done and what didn’t get done No one noticed!
Patricia- I'm with you. I work in retail and never ask this question because we're all at different places in time and this time of year isn't good for many. So, I start conversations in other ways with customers....
I'm a planner by nature and everything was done in advance. It helped that I didn't put up a tree, tho. DH raided the wrapping stash and I knew that I didn't have any paper left but he didn't know that. And he didn't want to buy any, so my gift was wrapped in birthday paper. Well, it's someone's birthday, right?