Ah yes, it’s early December. It’s cold. We survived Thanksgiving. This can only mean one thing…
The holidays are here!
Some people love the holidays. They count down all year, like their Superbowl! They take Black Friday shopping by storm and relish the challenge of finding that perfect gift for everyone on their list. And oh, when is it time to start playing Christmas music, and put the tree up?! Don’t forget the holiday baking!
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. … We are not those people.
I know, I know… it can be hard for some to accept.
Many years ago we dreaded the holidays. However, in the last couple years we’ve progressed from dread to general acceptance about the holidays. How did we make this transition? More on that below!
Our general issue is the mountain of expectations and “shoulds” that come along with this time of the year:
- Everyone is happy, cheerful, and loves this time of year (not always true)
- Family gatherings are loving, non-judgmental, stress-free, and everyone is so happy to be together (don’t know about your family, but not always)
- Everyone needs a gift and we all have the money to pay for said gifts (they don’t)
- Everyone wants their space to reflect a winter wonderland of decorations (not this gal)
- Holiday cheer will fix everything (please, just stop)
Frankly, a lot of the supposed holiday magic isn’t the actual experience for many.
If it is for you, I’m very happy for you and glad the expectations align with your experience. Please, keep rocking the holidays!
However, for some of us this time of year may trigger a bit of survival mode.
Don’t worry, boo! We got you covered with a holiday survival guide, to help you move from dreading the holidays to feeling more at peace with them.
And, we share some personal stories of how we’ve done this along the way!
The Holiday Survival Guide
Reclaim the Holidays As Your Own
I hereby give you permission to reclaim the holidays as your own. No more “we have to…” or, “we should…” or, “{Insert Name} will be so disappointed if we don’t…”
Nope, nope, nope.
To reclaim the holidays you have two approaches you can take:
Option 1: Do you remember Marie Kondo and her question “Does it bring you joy?” when deciding to keep or get rid of something? I want to you Marie Kondo the heck out of the holidays. What brings you joy when it comes to the holidays?
Not your horribly dry, tasteless turkey dinner, Aunt Carol.
Keep what brings you joy, and unabashedly get rid of the rest.
Option 2: Maybe you’re more the type who read The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck (or maybe you want to). To survive the holidays, you must decide how to use your f*ck bank, or the things you care about and want to do. Then, give zero f*cks to everything else because it’s not worth you time, energy, or mental space.
I can you hear you saying, “But what about my mo-….”
Look, I’m not saying it’s easy to reclaim the holidays. There is SO. MUCH pressure around the holidays based on our cultural expectations, our family expectations and traditions, let alone what corporate America tells us we need to celebrate the “right” way.
But, I can tell you once you start reclaiming the holidays it only gets easier from there. Do you need some examples? Of course you do.
Personal Example: Holiday Decorating
Once upon a time (10 years ago to date, actually), I wanted a refresh on our holiday decorating; mainly our Christmas tree, our living room area, and guest bath. I’ve never been a good decorator. So I paid (this was before our FI journey, hah!) a friend, who was very into home decor, to purchase some low maintenance, modern decorations.
She came over and basically helped me put everything together, and I was very pleased with her choices. I think the total cost was around $300, including what I paid her. We enjoyed the decor, and then post Christmas we put it away. Fast forward a year later, and it was time to put up the tree. Neither of us were excited to drag everything out and take the time to decorate.
Guess what… We didn’t decorate an inch of our house that year. I know, I know!! But guess what…
No one died! Not one single person died because we didn’t decorate.
Decorating didn’t bring us joy. We didn’t have enough f*cks in our bank to decorate. So we didn’t.
Now yes, when our families would pop over for a visit, they would ask about our missing Christmas tree.
Admittedly it was awkward. For the first year we blew off the question and said we’d eventually get to it. But, then another year came around and we didn’t decorate. Still, no one died. And another year, etc., etc. Eventually we explained that we didn’t enjoy decorating. We didn’t make a big deal out of it, and eventually the questions stopped.
And to be clear, we’re not anti-holiday decorating. I love Christmas decor and the whimsy nature of it. But it doesn’t bring us enough joy to take the time to decorate our house.
To finally release this holiday expectation was a breathe of fresh air. Since we didn’t decorate, we had more time to do what we actually enjoy around the holidays; spend time with people we love!
It got easier to reclaim this part of the holidays.
This is the purpose of the holiday survival guide: do what brings you joy and let go of the rest!
Personal Example: Holiday Get Togethers with Family
Do you have a family member who can’t bare a holiday pass without getting together? And maybe they even take it a step further by requiring the get together to be ON the actual holiday?
God knows it doesn’t count if it’s not on the actual holiday.
My guess is it’s your mother. Regardless of who it is, we’ve lived this reality for years. To protect the parties involved, let’s just say one side of our immediate family strongly prefers to get together on the actual holiday. Meanwhile, the other side flies by the seat of their pants more; sometimes they like to mix it up with brunch vs dinner. Sometimes they don’t even make a big deal about getting together.
Then throw in an extended family, fixed holiday meal where you only see these people on Easter and Christmas. Always on the holiday, and always at 1:00pm with a huge spread of food to feed 50+ people. And, it’s over an hour drive away.
This combination often requires us to eat two large meals on the holiday, as well as travel a fair amount. In addition to that, we’re a bit rushed with both sides, and usually exhausted by the time the second meal rolls around.
Before you think I’m complaining, let me interject that we are very lucky to have family alive and well enough on each side to gather and have these types of meals.
Where am I going with this? While it doesn’t bring us joy particularly to rush around on the holidays, it does bring us joy knowing our presence brings both sides of the family an immense amount of joy.
It’s important to really zero in on what brings you joy.
Maybe you don’t like the expectation of showing up, or want to partake in two large holiday meals the same day while traveling.
But, maybe the joy it brings your family brings you enough joy that it’s worth a little inconvenience. That’s the case for us, anyway, since spending time with family is something that we do treasure during the holidays.
Yes mother, for you we’ll eat two back-to-back Thanksgiving turkey dinners…
A Different Approach to Gift Giving
Let’s move on to the gift giving part of our holiday survival guide…
What’s the most stressful part of the holidays? If we were playing Family Feud, my guess is family might be a top stressor, as well as gifting or shopping for gifts.
And again, if gift-giving lights you up, is your jam– you go for it! Few things are better than receiving a fantastic gift.
But for many gift giving is a huge source of stress. It’s just a lot, between the amount of gifts, deciding who to buy for, what to buy, not to mention the money to buy them.
Personal Story: Experiences & Time Over Gifts
Many moons ago we realized that Christmas was really just a swap of money. No one on either side of the family was particularly into gift giving, wrapping, etc. We buy my brother a $50 gift card, and surprise, he gifted us a gift card around the same amount!
Same phenomenon on the other side of the family–an exchange of gift cards.
So we had an intervention with one side of the family. It went a little something like this:
Us: So we noticed for Christmas we’re kind of just swapping money with the gift-cards.
Family A: Oh, do you not like giftcards?
Us: Oh, we do. But, instead of just swapping gift cards, why don’t we collectively put the money towards doing something together. Like, a nice dinner. Or, we could even save up our money and put that towards a family trip next year.
Family A: Well, yes I guess we could try that…
And thus we began focusing on experiences and time together instead of gifts.
Side note: Since 2016 we have traveled with his family every other year to Florida over Christmas, which has been really nice. We’re actually preparing to leave again, as we speak!
We had a similar conversation with the other side of the family, and they were thrilled to give up the gift card swap-a-roo. So, you may inadvertently make the holidays more enjoyable for others in the process!
Suggestions for More Enjoyment When Gifting
I understand in some families this may not be acceptable or even desirable, or for those who have young children. My brother is the only one in our immediate families with young children, so I know that is a big reason our families were open to the idea of spending time together over gifts.
And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with buying gifts for kids or anyone, for that matter!
You may receive more enjoyment though being more intentional in what or how you gift, or even using boundaries around gift-giving.
Do I buy my niece and nephews gifts? Each year I ask my brother for ideas of what they want, but often he has no suggestions. In this situation we typically give him cash to use at his discretion throughout the year.
And let’s be honest… They receive tons of gifts from other people; they don’t miss ours. This also feels better to us since we’re not adding extra toys to their already endless pile.
It brings us joy to gift more responsibly and focus on experiences and time spent together.
This holiday season consider how you could receive more enjoyment out of the gift giving experience if you exercise more intentionality around it.
Do you need a gift giving cheat sheet?! Yup, gotcha covered. Here are common gift giving conundrums and potential solutions.
| Gifting Conundrum | Potential Solution |
| Your finances don’t support buying as many gifts as you normally do this year. OR, You don’t want to buy the number of gifts you normally do. | Talk to the friend(s) or family ahead of time and say something like, “I need to cut back on gifts this year due to my personal finances. I wanted to let you know ahead of time.” Reminder: You don’t owe anyone any explanations. |
| You don’t know what to get a friend or family member but you really want to do something for them. | Consider potential experiences the person would enjoy, or an experience you could do together. Maybe have them over for a nice meal, go out for a nice meal, get massages together, or gift tickets to a show they want to see, etc. |
| You have to buy gifts for so many people and you just can’t handle it. You want to cut back this year. | Talk to the friend(s) or family ahead of time and simply say, “Hey, can we agree no gifts this year?” Reminder: You don’t owe anyone any explanations. OR, Talk to your friends/family about how to minimize the amount of gifts each person must buy. “It feels overwhelming to buy everyone a gift. This year could we do a “Secret Santa” where buy for one person instead of everyone?” Additionally, put a limit on the gift amount. |
| Your kids do not need any new toys, clothes, etc. OR, Your home cannot accommodate additional toys, etc. | Head off new toys by reaching out to friends and family and say something like, “Jack and Ella don’t need any new toys. Maybe you could choose an activity to do with them, or take them to, instead? I know they’d love to spend time with you.” |
| You do not want gifts for whatever reason. | Head off unwanted gifts by telling friends and family, “I don’t particularly need or want anything this year. How about we spend time together, instead?” OR, If they insist, ask friends or family to make a donation in your honor to a charity of your or their choice. |
At the end of the day, the gesture of gift giving is showing the person you care about them, appreciate them, etc.
But it’s important to remember we can show appreciation and care in ways other than the purchase of an item. And in fact, alternatives may turn out to be more meaningful and enjoyable for everyone involved.
TLDR: Holiday Survival Guide
The gist of this holiday survival guide: reclaim the holidays as your own!
Give thought to what truly brings you joy and what you care about this time of the year. Relish and delight in those, and take small steps to decrease the parts that detract from your overall holiday experience.
Understand that friends and family may be surprised or even upset as you try to make changes or use boundaries. This is a process, but trust that over time it gets easier. Plus, your peace of mind will be well worth it.
When it comes to gift giving, which can be stressful for a number of reasons, use boundaries and be more intentional. Remember, experiences and spending time together are often more meaningful than a physical gift. This has truly been our experience!
I hope this holiday survival guide at least gave you a chuckle, and maybe even an idea or two that could improve your holiday experience. This time of the year can be so heavy and stressful. But there are tweaks you can make to actually enjoy the holidays, not just survive.
What does our holiday season look like? We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family. Now we are preparing to depart for Florida in one week! We will spend the week before Christmas camping in Fort DeSoto, and then will join his family on Anna Maria Island in a home rental for Christmas week.
Afterwards we camp our way throughout Florida in various locations, hitting Camp FI right after the new year, and the Tampa RV Supershow in mid-January!
I’ve still got more Alaska content to share with you, and an update on his job status (!!). Oh and yes, I know I’m behind on Croatia content! Lots of good stuff coming your way.
We hope you take care of yourself this holiday season, regardless of if, what, or how you celebrate.
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I’m one of those holiday cheer people (listening to the Christmas music as we speak), AND I agree with every word of this. As frequent (and now full time) travelers I think it was easier for us to pick and choose the parts we wanted to honor and the parts we wanted to ditch, since we were often physically separated from the bulk of expectations and “shoulds”. So we kept the music, and a little decorating, and an intentional meal – and gave up gifts completely years ago. I’m pretty sure my family still loves me anyway. lol
I can imagine full time travel would make holidays a bit trickier. Honoring the things you enjoy though sounds like a great way to handle it! I agree regarding family–making adjustments may weird them out for a bit, but they usually come around.