It is 2 days before Christmas! Where did the time go? Are you berating yourself because the Christmas letter didn't get written up? The cards haven't been mailed yet? You wanted to give homemade cookies to your kids' favorite teachers and awesome neighbors, but school is out for break, and you just didn't have time to get the cookies made?
Are you feeling frazzled, unorganized, and more like Scrooge than you ever have before?
Well, you know what? It's okay to not be perfect, to not have everything you hoped to accomplish done. It really is.
Does that surprise you coming from a Professional Organizer? Well, it shouldn't. Let me be the first to tell you we are not perfect, either.
Yes, we all have those ideal goals of what our Christmas "should" look like, but it is okay if we don't get everything done on our lists. Give yourself, and your family, permission to not get everything done. You will feel a great weight lifted off your shoulders.
Christmas is a time of being joyful, thankful, and expressing our love and gratefulness to those we hold most dear. So, it's okay to slow down, pick and choose what you can realistically do, and truly enjoy the season.
As for me? My husband and I both come from very large families, spread all over the U.S. Every year for the last 20 years we have created a Christmas letter that we send out the 2nd week of December (so if we have an incorrect address and a letter gets returned, we can send a new, updated one before Christmas). It has just been an extra busy few months for us, sending over 100 letter is very expensive and time-consuming, and I just wasn't in the Christmas spirit, so I decided not to send a letter this year. Now, most years, we don't get cards back from everyone, so I felt even more justified. And then a few cards arrived. As I said, we don't receive as many as we send, but I still felt guilty. So, one day I wrote a nice short letter, added a few pictures of my kids, and boom, it was done. I had received 7 cards, so I printed out 7 letters on my home printer and mailed them out. Yes, I kind of feel Scrooge-like doing it this way, and perhaps next year we will crank out our usual list, but this is what worked for me this year, and I am okay with that. And those who took the time to write to us will get a reply.
And maybe the neighbors and teachers will get some baked-with-love New Year's cookies (since all of their Christmas cookies will be gone by then) or a heart-felt note of how much they mean to us written on my nice stationary I don't normally take the time to use.
So, I have given myself some slack this year. Please, know it is okay for you to do the same.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Pam
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