A Minimalist Guide to the Holidays

The holidays can be a time of overwhelm, when it should be a time to reconnect and reflect with your friends and family.  Somehow it has turned into massive shopping and tons of high-cost activities.  That is basically everything I am trying to avoid in life these days; This is a mostly-minimal guide on how I approach minimalism throughout the holidays.

Quick caveat – I mean no judgement to others and how they might spend their holidays.  I am simply telling you what’s important to me, and how I feel.  We are all unique human beings, and we each live our lives differently and make our own choices… that’s the beauty in this great world we all get to be a part of.

Holiday Cards

• What I don’t do – Printed Holiday Cards – I used to do printed holiday cards many years ago, but I eventually quit as I noticed it was becoming a stressful activity on my to-do list vs. something I enjoyed. And I started asking myself why I was really doing it.  Was I doing it because it added value to my life?  Or was I doing it to impress other people and/or to “keep up with the Jones,” who always send holiday cards every year?  If I was honest for myself, it wasn’t for me… it was for them.  So, I quit doing it, and it feels amazing.
• What I do – Digital DIY holiday card – Instead I now send a digital photo montage via email to friends and family, and I make a donation to charity instead of spending $200-400 on printed cards and stamps. I also post the montage on social media.  And I get a ton of replies back via email and social media every year, which is great and more interactive than the mailed holiday cards ever got me.  I also save time trying to track down people’s mailing addresses; email addresses rarely change and are easier to track down.

Professional Photographs

• What I don’t do – Family Photo Shoot with a Professional Photographer – These photos shoots can be quite expensive, and I’m just not a big fan of them. Yes, the photos are beautiful.  Yes, they look great on social media and get a lot of likes.  I’ve done them once or twice in my life and I’ll likely do one again at some point, but it definitely won’t be every year or multiple times a year.  It’s just not that important to me.  And it’s quite expensive.
• What I do – Take a Family Pajama photo in front of our tree – Every year I do get a photo of all of the kids and us with the kids in front of the tree in their pajamas. Sometimes we just set the camera on a tripod and do it ourselves, sometimes my brother or mom will come over and hit the button for us to save us some time. It’s not even close to the quality of a professional photographer and us dressed in matching outfits in a beautiful field, but it’s real and it’s free and it creates a memory I can look back at every year.

Holiday Decor

• What I don’t do – Buy a ton of new décor for my house – I don’t go shopping for holiday décor for my house. I don’t have Christmas pillows on my couch.  I don’t have holiday knick-knacks around my house.
• What I do –
  • Outdoor Christmas Lights – I really love outdoor Christmas lights and so we put up a good bit outside. Every couple years we replace some strands that are broken, or invest in a new light of some sort.  I try to buy them after the season when things are on sale, but that doesn’t always happen.
  • Decorated Christmas Tree –We also put up an artificial Christmas tree, and decorate it as a family. The kids love putting the ornaments on the tree.  Our ornaments are a mix of ornaments that were my mom’s that were on our tree when we were a kid, and ones we’ve acquired from our travels over the years.  We buy a Christmas ornament from most places we visit, so it’s especially fun to decorate the tree and reminisce about past travels.  I also love seeing ornaments that have been gifted to me, and it usually reminds me to text that person and say hello and send them a picture of their ornament on the tree.
  • A few simple holiday decorations – I have a few simple pieces of holiday décor I own and that I put out every year for about a month, and then they go back into storage for 11 months. Most of these things I have had for many years.  It’s just a few things and they don’t take up a ton of space.  These items currently include a few holiday hand towels (when they wear out I won’t replace them), 2 holiday-themed outdoor welcome mats (I may replace these as they wear out), a small piece of lighted fake garland that I put on a counter in my dining room, and a small silver abstract reindeer.

Gifts

• What I don’t do –
  • Buy our kids a ton of gifts – We don’t buy our kids a lot of gifts. I’ve seen the years of them opening present after present.  Kids can’t deal with an overwhelming number of toys.  They open one gift, and before even using or appreciating it, quickly move on to the next.  We realized we are in control of what they have to open on Christmas day, and so we started reigning it in a few years ago.  And we encourage family members to avoid a bunch of physical gifts too.  One of our grandmas makes a college fund donation, and the other gifts us an annual pass to a local museum/attraction our kids like going to.  And every time we send her pictures of the kids at the museum, she loves it; it’s the gift that keeps giving all year.
  • Buy gifts for family members or each other – Most of my close family members are all adults, and they don’t need or require gifts. So, we agree as a family not to exchange gifts.  I am quite lucky that most of my family agrees to this.  It did take me a few years to convince my mother-in-law that I was serious that I didn’t really need or want anything.  Sometimes she will buy us something we need around the house or take us out to dinner while she’s in town.  We also don’t exchange Christmas gifts with each other.  We might decide to collectively splurge on something we want for the house (like this year it’s a new Apple TV), but we definitely aren’t shopping around looking for things to buy for the other person.
• What I do – Buy a limited amount of thoughtful and useful gifts for our kids – We do buy the kids gifts, but we keep it very limited and focused on things they need/will use vs. too many random toys. If we are buying kids something they need we’ll usually put an exciting spin on it to jazz it up a little.  Last year I bought the kids a new stapler, which they needed for their art projects. But we “splurged” and got them a cool one that was clear and had rose-gold colored staples.  It broke about a week ago, so they’ll be getting another stapler this year for Christmas!  Also, right now they love scotch-tape, and especially if it’s in their own individual container vs. a shared one.  They will each get some scotch tape in their stocking.  I know, this sounds like an exciting Christmas at our house!  But our kids really love crafts and artwork and this stuff makes them happy.  Yes, sometimes we get a groan or two that this is a Christmas present, but they’ve now come to expect it and scotch tape does indeed excite them.  And we mix it up with some sweet treats and a special toy they might be into that year.  This year we will spend about under $200 total on Christmas gifts for 3 kids.  In complete transparency, we are a blended family and so each of our kids also has a Christmas at their other parent’s house and that just adds to the volume of gifts, grandparents, etc.  This situation even further encourages me to minimize their presents, but I wouldn’t really change my approach if our house was their only Christmas.

Pajamas

Yes, pajamas just got its own category.  I can do that.

• What I don’t do – Buy matching family holiday pajamas – My husband and I don’t need new pajamas every year, so we don’t have any sets of matching family pajamas. Yes, I think they are adorable when I see photos of others.  But do I want to spend $100-$200 on matching PJs when the adults don’t need or won’t use new pajamas every year?  No.
• What I do – Buy the kids matching holiday pajamas every year – I do buy the kids matching pajamas every year, and they are sometimes holiday themed and sometimes not. It’s not a Christmas gift, and instead I usually give it to them in November when it’s getting colder so they have some new winter PJs and we can use them in our annual photo in front of the tree.  I also have the choice each year to spend $50 on a pair of fancy pajamas per kid (we have three kids, so that’s $150) or spend $50 total and get some from Target or Old Navy.  Surprise surprise… I opt for the cheaper route.  This year we took advantage of a sale and spent $43 on 3 pairs of super soft llama pajamas from Target.  These kids are growing fast, and any pair of pajamas only lasts a year or so anyways.  So, it’s not worth me investing in anything super expensive or high-quality given how long they’ll use it.

Activities + Traditions

• What I don’t do – Super expensive outings and activities
  • Expensive Santa Photos – Most years we do a Santa photo with a bunch of my best friend’s kids, but we usually do it fairly inexpensive at a local mall or at a Santa event my neighborhood hosts. There are lots of other places we could get Santa photos that would be very expensive, but we avoid those places.
  • Expensive holiday outings and activities – I was just reading a Red Tricycle article about activities in Atlanta this weekend, and half of them involve spending a lot of money, but the other half do not. We tend to lean first towards the ones that are free or inexpensive.  Sometimes we’ll splurge and go to a lights festival or something like that, but most of these events cost our family of five $100+ so we try to limit those activities unless it’s something the kids really want to do.
• What I do – There are tons of free or inexpensive activities and traditions you can start with your family. Kids love traditions, and they remember them.  These are the sorts of things they will remember fondly when they are older, and they won’t remember how much they cost.  They will remember that it was a cool experience where their parents were fun and present.  Your presence is the best present you can give your kids!
  • Elves on the Shelves – Our kids are still young enough that they believe/love to search for the elves every day. The hardest part of our holidays is remembering to move our two elves every night.  I’ve definitely had a failure or two on this, and had to lie my way out of why the elves weren’t able to move last night. 
  • Trader Joes Advent Calendars – This is a great example at how fun traditions don’t have to cost a lot. Every year Trader Joe’s sells advent calendars and they are only 99 cents!  Every day the kids get to open the door for a little piece of chocolate, and they love it.  Last year we were in London for Thanksgiving and we splurged and brought the kids back a Cadbury advent calendar that was a bit pricier and had larger pieces of candy in it.  The point is, every year they get an advent calendar and it’s a tradition they have come to know and love.
  • Decorating the tree as a family – Talked about this above. It’s a free activity and the kids love it.  We put on holiday music and make a fun evening out of it.
  • Putting up outdoor decorations – Also talked about this above. It’s also free and the kids sort of like parts of it. I don’t force them to help, but there is a part that involves climbing a tree to get to some higher up parts and they love helping with this part.
  • Drive around and look at Christmas lights – I got this idea from one of my best friends a few years ago, and the kids like it. There is often a guide in our local paper/online about some of the best houses, or we just drive around our neighborhood to some of the streets and houses that we know go all out with lights.  This usually also involves hot chocolate or ice cream, which helps to make any activity more enjoyable.

Parties + Events

• What I don’t do – Buy new clothes for parties or events – If I do have a work holiday party to go to, I likely wear the same thing or something really similar to whatever I wore last year. And no one notices, or cares.  And if they do, I don’t care, so it’s all good.
• What I do – Limit the events and parties – We actually don’t get invited to too many parties and events each year, which is a good thing considering how busy our lives are. We both have a couple of events that take place at work/in the office, and maybe 1 or 2 outside of the office.  I really try to limit the events I commit to throughout the holidays, so I can really enjoy the holidays.

Shopping

• What I don’t do – Go to malls, random stores, etc. – I really don’t walk into any malls or stores to just look around and shop for Christmas presents throughout the holidays. I avoid these areas during the holidays.  In addition to malls and stores being super crowded, anytime I walk into them I am tempted to buy things I don’t need.  
• What I do – Shop online and/or at a specific store where I know I need something – I do most of my shopping online for the kids. This past week/weekend I bought a few Christmas presents for the kids from various Black Friday sales and took advantage of free shipping.  I will only go to a store if I know of something really specific I need/want to pick-up as a gift.

This is how we spend our holidays.  We try to keep it simple, but meaningful.  As I’ve been trying to simplify my life more and more over the years, I really find the holidays a time when I can make some conscious decisions and choices to keep things simple and not get sucked into the consumerism and overwhelm that is rampant this time of year.  This way of approaching the holidays is a combination of our values, the values we want to create with our kids, and also our FIRE (financial independence retire early) goals.

How do you spend your holidays?  Leave a comment below – I’d love to hear about some of your tips and traditions.

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