Today I thought I’d write about the ‘Perfect Christmas’, as it seemed wise to do this before all the preparations begin.
Christmas is the season of goodwill, a time for sharing, caring and giving. When I think of Christmas I have a warm glow inside, as I imagine happy children, beautiful decorations, a wonderful turkey with all the trimmings, ‘White Christmas’ playing in the background, while family and friends all sit around laughing and chatting with a glass of mulled wine in their hand. What perfection!
In reality, this is all a load of nonsense and never happens. It’s just what magazines and television make us believe. All it actually does, is put people under pressure to achieve this imaginary world and we end up feeling disappointed and disheartened as we fail to live up to these unrealistic expectations.
THIS IS NOT REAL LIFE.
Real life is a Christmas dinner that isn’t ready when you want it to be, kids running round madly as they are over excited and for some people it can even be friends or relatives coming round, who you don’t even like….sound familiar? We put so many pressures on ourselves that no wonder we don’t achieve everything.
I refuse to be drawn into this ‘perfect world’ scenario, as it is my Christmas too and I want to enjoy it. The only way I can do this is to ‘plan’ as much as possible, as early as possible. Here are a couple of examples:
Christmas started for us when they switched the Christmas lights on in Leicester. This happened on Sunday. We went into town early and had a lovely meal at ‘Pizza Express’ using our Tesco Vouchers, so the meal was actually free.
We watched the lights being turned on and had a lovely time together. This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing to do, it was planned.
Also, as I said yesterday, I buy presents all through the year, as it is much more pleasant to buy when the shops aren’t busy and I’m not in a rush. I also manage to buy some things in the sales, which is even better. This just leaves me the wrapping to do nearer Christmas. I don’t think of this as a bind, I put some nice Christmas music on and concentrate on wrapping the presents carefully and have nice thoughts about the people who will receive them. If I had to buy presents at the last minute and wrap them quickly, then it just wouldn’t be enjoyable.
Another thing we do as a family is we all stir the Christmas pudding when I make it. As we stir, we each make a wish that we hope will come true. It wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t have time to make one and I bought a supermarket pudding.
So we do many things leading up to Christmas, but everything is planned and enjoyed. If I don’t plan things then I take on far too much and nothing ever works out. I end up feeling stressed and no one is really happy.
I also try to remember, nothing is ever perfect and things do go wrong. I know it will be unrealistic for my teenage girls not to argue over the Christmas period so I won’t expect this. I’m also sure there will be one present that I have missed, or my Christmas dinner won’t all be ready at the same time, but it doesn’t matter. If everything was perfect, life would be boring. It’s how we deal with the not so perfect things that matter, if we laugh about things and keep them in proportion, they are easier to deal with.
So keep the up and coming Christmas period enjoyable and less stressful with some planning. Keep your expectations realistic and achievable. This way in January, you may look back for the first time and say, it was actually a perfect Christmas.
Thank you for reading my blog today.
not just greenfingers 