The Mom's Side of Tips and Tricks for a Relaxed Christmastide

Last week I shared my December liturgical year calendar that I am using with my kids this year. But how to make those celebrations and traditions happen without feeling frazzled, stressed, and resentful? Here's what works for me!

Start with your easy thing

Everyone has their go to first thing when starting a new tradition. It typically falls along the lines of food, craft, activity, book.
I am a food person. I will almost always start a new celebration with food. Crafts will typically fall last in that list of things to add to celebrations for me. My ranking would probably go: food, activity, book, song, craft. I have learned this about myself and I take it into account when considering how to celebrate a particular feast, liturgical season, or other holiday. It puts my chances of success in a good place if I start with something I will probably enjoy!

Write it down

I'm a big believer in lists and charts, but even if you are a free form essay or graphic doodler kind of person, you should write down your ideas! Write down your plans, write down what worked and what didn't, write down what you want to change.
Nothing happens without a plan - you just need to figure out your best method of planning.

I start with free form lists. Lists of holidays, things to cook, movies to watch, books to read, activities to choose from - whatever I might want to consider for inclusion in our celebrations.

Then I map it out on a calendar. I see when each holiday falls, I write in when I would want to make different things, and I make sure I've left myself enough time to only have 1-2 extra things a day (max) to do. I prefer to have scheduled day to-dos instead of a giant list of holiday to-dos.

I make a log so I can jot down what we do each of the days, and review the results in free form after the holiday season. Then I close the book and move on. Don't dwell too hard on anything that didn't go as you envisioned!

Baking week

I started doing this last year, and I loved it! It let me get all of the massive baking done for a church fundraiser AND stock the freezer with cookie dough for Christmastide. Win!
The big secret is I take an entire week to do my baking. It's a process. That's what makes it work well.

Monday - I mix the dry ingredients for each cookie type and put it in a labeled gallon baggie.

Tuesday - Begin mixing the wet ingredients into 2-3 of the types. Split in half. Wrap each half in plastic wrap, stack, and place back in the baggie that it was in for dry ingredients, place in the fridge.

Wednesday - Mix the remaining cookie types into dough. Bake half of the dough from the types that chilled overnight in the fridge. The unbaked half of the dough gets left in it's labeled gallon baggie and put in the freezer for Christmastide.

Thursday - Bake the cookie types mixed on Wednesday. Save those halves of the dough in the freezer.

Friday - Deliver cookies. Enjoy that my dough mixing is done before December!

I can make a massive amount of cookies with this method with minimal stress.
I highly recommend figuring out how much of each ingredient you will need and stocking up in November. The sales are great right now for baking!

Work earlier than you think is necessary

That baking week? It's done the last week of November. That seems crazy early, but I have learned it is almost always better to work earlier rather than later if your goal is a relaxed Advent.

Outsource 

That baking that I do the night before the holiday? The St. Lucia buns and St. Nicholas day cinnamon rolls? Those are homemade, but I don't do most of the work. I use the bread machine to do most of it. Most of our favorite foods during this holiday season are things I can dump in a crockpot. If I didn't enjoy doing the cooking and baking I would probably just buy the roll from the store.

My husband does all of the grocery shopping, and most of the meal planning.

My kids help me with a lot of the Ember Days cleaning tasks.

I buy a lot of gifts off Etsy and Amazon, and make sure to include the cost of my time when considering if I should make something, buy it, or do without it.

Use technology and the gifts of others when offered. No one wants a frazzled mom for Christmas. They just want you.

Aim for free and use what you have

You know what my official craft is on Christmas? Cutting up our wrapping paper that just came off of gifts and making a giant wrapping paper chain. It's a cheap, re-use, project and provides for fun decorations through to Epiphany.

We wrap up 12 Christmas books, that we already own, every year. One gets unwrapped on each of the 12 Days of Christmas.

Look around your home and see what could become a tradition out of things you already have. That means you can have traditions that don't require extra shopping, and may even save you time and effort!

Make the journey the experience

We do a little bit one day and wait.
A little bit another day and wait.
That waiting is part of the beauty of Advent, and I think it's the true secret to a low stress Advent and restful Christmas season.

How do you keep your Advent low stress and Christmas restful? Do you do any of these tips or is it something radically different in your home? What are you changing this year?