Suddenly I'm inundated with notices from school requesting donations of canned goods, school dance poster supplies and ugly sweater days. Shutterfly and Snapfish start stalking my email, telling me that I'm running out of time to place my discounted card order {which turns into $200+ worth of cards and postage}. Secret Santa assignments are a plenty and various family members call asking what everyone wants for Christmas {as if it isn't hard enough to come up with my own list}. It occurs to me that both of my children has 4 teachers each for whom I've gotten into the habit of giving gifts to {not to mention the Mailman, Newspaper Delivery Person, Dry Cleaner and Hairdresser who all receive a gift}.
How do I allow this to happen every year? I love to bake and create holiday goodies, I love designing a Christmas card with our girls' photo and I love showering people with gifts. But enough is enough! This year I just didn't do it. Every photo card reminder happily got dumped in the virtual trash bin. We made various food donations in our community, and I happily baked and created sweet treats but on my own time line and for pleasure.
I feel so liberated. I decided to appreciate the teachers, delivery people and such in different ways throughout the year. I decided to focus on the true meaning of all this chaos. For example, would the Mailman appreciate a festive jar of homemade chocolate peppermint bark at Christmas time, or would he prefer cold bottles of water in July? Would my girls' teachers prefer the latest Pinterest Holiday project or some much needed school supplies in February?
In keeping with the idea of year-round appreciation, our family decided to make memory jars for the new year. Any day, any time, we will jot down a note with an event or something we're grateful for and add them to our jars. Next January 1st, we'll sit around and read our memories aloud. I'm hoping this small gesture will help all of us to stop and think about the little things that make our year special. Hopefully, I won't procrastinate and write all my notes in December and hopefully, the notes will say more than "Placed my Shutterfly order" or "Baked treats for the Mailman". I'm hoping to at least have organized my photos, gotten in touch with my childhood friends and cleaned out the fridge!
Let's try to remember what's really important at Christmas time and all the time.
You Can Do It!
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