My current conundrum is whether to wait for the baby to be born and do combination Christmas cards/ birth announcements (free from Shutterfly!) or go ahead and do regular Christmas cards.

I am also doing the following: We don’t travel for the holidays anyway because my husband is a retail manager. Our family members live 3 hours, 5 hours, 6 hours, 7 1/2 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours (in 2 different directions) away! Some years my parents visit; most years it is just us for Thanksgiving and Christmas. (My parents are the only ones on either side of the family that have figured out that DH must absolutely work Black Friday, Christmas Eve, and Dec. 26—every year, everyone else asks us what we are doing and who we are visiting and why don’t we visit them, but never take up our offer to visit us since we cannot go anywhere? “Oh, that’s too bad he can’t just ask for it off!”–argghh–sidenote!!). So at least not traveling will be status quo–I usually do a turkey breast in the crock pot with wild rice and craisins, easy enough to do even with a newborn! Then we also do stuffing, green beans, etc. but that can be modified.

Because all of the family is scattered throughout the Eastern seaboard, we usually have to mail most of our gifts anyway. We usually see my parents at some point in Dec. (they are the closest — 3 hours) but everyone else usually gets mailed. I normally try to pick up what I can here and there throughout the year and will go ahead and wrap it and deliver it to family members that I feel are responsible enough to remember where it is at Christmas when I see them earlier in the year—a few select individuals are worth just paying postage on later!! We end up filling in what we don’t already have with on-line purchases in Nov. since we have to pay shipping anyway (so when I can score free shipping on line it is better than me buying it at a store and paying to ship it at the PO). So I may start the online stuff earlier this year and just tell people they will have to save it until Christmas and not lose it because we understandably will be preoccupied! I am also going to wrap up and box up what I have gathered that needs to be mailed and have it addressed and ready so all it will take is an off hours run to the machine at the PO–when there is not line–ha, ha!

We keep things pretty simple even on regular years so I don’t think this will be too much. Our 3 year old gets 3 gifts from Santa (and 500 million from relatives). He gets 3 from Santa since Jesus got three gifts. Last year he got a $40 tricycle, a sippy cup, and a box of books (one of the 3 gifts will always be a basket of books–last year, Santa literally wrapped the books in the barnes and noble box-that was the basket). So this year he has already decided with no input from us that he is getting a big bike and that he will need a helmet — so I guess it will be a bike, a helmet, and a box/basket of books. Keeping things simple helps even on the regular years. I guess I will have to stuff his stocking. Last year the sippy cup took up most of it! I’m thiniking play dough, crayons, again, simple!

My daughter was born on October 27, and I had ALL of our Christmas stuff done before then, too! It is a big help.

My simple advice? Plan for a quiet holiday. And think about what’s most important to you: your baby, your health and your faith traditions.

My game plan—-ALL birthday gifts for Nov. and Dec. and ALL Christmas gifts are to be bought by Nov 1st. Dec. birthdays are going to be family only (those who live in the house plus my Mom).

I plan to keep things as easy as possible.