Simplifying Christmas: Part One - Introduction

My husband and I ventured out this past Saturday to take my wedding band for its “once every 6-months” inspection at the jewelry store. We dropped it off to be rhodium-plated, and they said it wouldn’t be ready for another 2 hours...

The jewelry store is located at the Town Center Mall, so while waiting on it, we decided to walk around. It’s a really nice outdoor, upscale mall that we have here in town. It’s always fun and romantic to stroll around there. (Actually, we went to a restaurant at the Town Center the night we got engaged). So, we grabbed a cup of coffee, walked around, enjoyed the Christmas lights and music, and just talked about life together. It was nice.

After we picked up my ring at the jewelry store and got back in the car, I let out a huge sigh and said to my husband, “Well...that’s the only dose of consumerism Christmas I needed for this season! That sure reminded me how happy I am to not be rushing out on Black Friday this year.”

Nothing against Black Friday or shopping for gifts for your loved ones...it’s just overwhelming to me. (Especially when you wait all night long in the freezing cold for an awesome deal on a computer for 10 hours, only to get cut in line one hour prior to the opening, which in effect causes you to walk away empty-handed and disappointed...true story from last year!). On Saturday, People were rude, mean, and in terrible moods from being so stressed out. Isn’t this supposed to be a season of love? I drove away from the Town Center thinking that I needed a million things that I don’t need at all! I just wanted them, because the stores told me that I needed them to be of any value or worth. I came away less thankful for all of my many blessings and things that I already have that enable me to live in luxury compared to the rest of the world. This is what I mean by overwhelming.

Anyways (why do I have to be so wordy?), if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time now, you probably know that one thing I am an advocate for is simplicity. What is simplicity, exactly, and how did we come to love it so much? Well, that’s another blog series for another month.

This month, I just want to focus on simplifying Christmas. A grand series of events in our first year of marriage led up to me and my husband having a very simple Christmas last year. And the results??? It was the best Christmas either one of us had ever had. We were able to focus on God, people, love, presence (rather than presents), spending time together, giving more to the needy, and just enjoying the season apart from all the hustle and bustle. Without all of the stressful shopping, extravagant gift-buying, and debt-inducing impulse buying...we found that we were not distracted from the true meaning of Christmas.

To be continued in Part 2 (What is the true meaning?)...I will be sharing a video that had a huge impact on me and my husband last year, and inspired us to re-think Christmas...