Approaching holidays

How the holiday season changes for us as we grow older! When I was a child, Thanksgiving and Christmas were the less stressful times of the year. They were full of family, friends, and fun. My job was to arrive with my parents, not get into trouble, play all day and all night long, and eat and open gifts. Nothing could have been better! Now, the holidays bring forth some of those same feelings, mixed with a feeling of stress! Christmas especially. Clayton and I both come from divorced homes, so that makes 4 sets of just our parents houses to make sure we visit, or visit those parents at SOMEONE'S home. Add grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and friends... and wow! You could really make yourself crazy if you chose to visit everyone. My main form of stress right now is the gift buying. I'm not sure when it became tradition to buy everyone a present... but I sure feel the pressure to. I really wish we could just buy for our children and be done with it to be honest! Well, of course my nephews and neice too... I could never not buy them something. :) I find myself asking our huge families to please not buy us gifts, b/c we then feel the pressure to buy for everyone, and we just can't! Not to mention, with just the kids new toys we always have to overhaul the house to make everything fit! lol So, this year, I really want to stive to have a fairly stress free Christmas. To see it like I did as a child. Just show up, eat, "watch" as the kids open gifts, and enjoy the time with friends and family, rather than worrying about who bought what and who offered to help clean up first and did the most afterwards. (yes, things can get competative with those types of jobs) Hopefully the weather will be good to us so we can all travel to visit, since I know a lot of you will be doing even more driving than we will be. Here's to enjoying Christmas like it's meant to be enjoyed this year!