Christmas 2010

Chris and I decided we weren't going to do gifts this year. Before you decide I'm a Scrooge let me interject that Elsie was an exception, receiving one large gift from us, an IKEA play kitchen because she loves to pretend she's making dinner.

Don't get me wrong, I find Christmas spirit contagious and I really love to spoil the ones I love but I have to say that making this pact before the madness had begun made the holidays take on new meaning. There are far too many of us that get ourselves worked into a frenzy over gift giving. This year, Chris and I have made many attempts at simplifying our lives, downsizing our belongings, and trying to adopt a minimalist attitude. It's difficult to think about giving and receiving Christmas gifts when you've spent months pouring over which of your belongings you don't actually need. In the end Chris broke down and bought bottles of wine for our parents, locally brewed beer for the guys and Starbuck's cards for the girls. Yes we bent the rules a bit but it felt really good to give things that could be used up entirely rather than buying more stuff, we all have enough "stuff" don't we?

I hope that you and yours had a really wonderful Christmas this year.