1. Going to Walmart during the next seven days. For anything.
2. Making cookies from scratch. Sorry. Pillsbury sugar cookie dough is good and my kids don’t care anyway.
3. Making gingerbread houses. I don’t think I can handle the stress of having five children cry because the walls won’t stay up. Maybe when they’re older. Like 30.
4. Worrying if my son inadvertently wore his only red plaid “Christmas” shirt today instead of waiting until Christmas like I wanted. Oh well. It’s a shirt, for crying out loud!
5. Stressing out. (Serenity Now!)
6. Fretting because my children won’t be just like the children in the Southern Living feature article about the family in the ultra-Christmas-decorated antebellum house. I’d be willing to bet those children started whacking each other with foam swords as soon as the photographers left. (And that the master bedroom closet was a disaster area.)
7. Diving at children with a brush and comb before they head out to the tree Christmas morning so they’ll look “nice” in the photographs. You should see some of the pictures of me as a child. (Well, no you shouldn’t.)Â Why deprive my children of the same pleasure?
8. Feeling guilty because I find out some other family has children who “gave all of their presents to the poor and spent Christmas day at the soup kitchen.” Good for them.
9. Going caroling.
10. Losing my peace because things aren’t “good enough”, “cheerful enough”, “handmade enough”, “peaceful enough”, etc. I will be grateful for what I have. I will be happy in the moment and content. No one knows what another day brings.
Praying With My Feet 
Gingerbread houses are also just too big. We started making flat ones a few years ago — sometime in January, not right at Nativity. Each kid gets a big lump of dough to roll out, cut, and embellish in whatever house shape they want. Then they get to frost the baked house and cover it with candy. That's where all the fun is — designing and decorating and eating up the decorations while you work. Even though these are 1/6 the size of a 3D house with roof, we always have leftovers when Lent comes around, and have to throw them out.
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Maria, that is a fantastic idea. It never occured to me to do a flat one. Thank you SO MUCH for the suggestion!
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That seems like a very sensible list. Btw, I'm a strong believer in store-bought cookie dough.
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I love your list. 🙂 I don't like baking Christmas cookies, either, although I usually blame it on my small kitchen. 😉
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reading your blog brings me great joy 🙂 I made a big gingerbread house last year for the kids as a gift and a lot of it was wasted and thrown out – I love the idea of making flat ones! I will be going to Wal-mart tomorrow, but God-willing, that will be the only time this week (we need to get our snow tires put on there anyhow). Thanks for reminding me to be content with whatever I get (isn't that what we all try to teach our kids at Christmas anyhow?) 🙂
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when I was little we used to use graham crackers to make simplified “gingerbread” houses, plus if I recall we used milk cartons (the small school sized ones) on the inside to make sure the walls stood up 🙂
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I must say I had great Christmas I think because my Mom knew me too well to think I would make it through pictures with neat hair… 🙂 hehheheee. My poor Mother… !!
anyway… we never made gingerbread houses but I sure remember all my Christmases as a child as beautiful with the Christmas tree and the excitement of a stocking to open Christmas morning. Actually to be honest when I was a teen I was still excited and my younger sister had to tell me not to wake her up early just to open our stockings! LOL. 🙂
sigh. 🙂
good list. Love to you. HUGS too.
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Great list, Matushka!
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Regarding #1 – I WISH! I have to depend on Wal-Mart for groceries. My strategy is to get there very, very early.
Regarding #6 – I have given up looking at Southern Living as it encourages dissatisfaction with the reality of my own life.
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Just made some “gingerbread” houses with a school group using milk cartons and graham crackers. They do well enough. I also used egg white powder for the royal frosting. I hated to use real eggs and it worked fine.
one more thing shredded wheat for the roofs work well–can break and stick on.
Reading from the Bible daily about the prophecies of the Christ child mean much to everyone and have a calming effect.
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I know we used to save the milk cartons from school, but we don't have any (not being at school). If I started saving early enough I could probably save little containers of 1/2 and 1/2. I like the shredded wheat idea, by the way. IF we do it at all this year we'll probably do the flat ones. Today we have pomander balls on the agenda. Fortunatly I found whole cloves on sale a few weeks ago. I wasn't able to get many, but it should be enough for a few.
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Great list! Thanks for reminding us to cultivate contentment during this hectic season.
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…like your list- I totally agree with no Walmart (trying not to shop much at all)
We will be caroling & making cookies- but on the 3rd day of Christmas! The feast is as long as the fast!
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