We’re not doing a 2023 Christmas Card this year, but if we were, the following photo would be it. Why? Because I’m trying to remove easy-out stressors in my life.
Removing Simple Stressors
I intentionally missed Blogmas the past two days. I had a long Wednesday and didn’t get done with my last meeting until 8:30pm and had to be physically at work by 8am again yesterday, which was also long, so I just didn’t feel like pushing myself and adding extra unnecessary stress. Eric and our friend Brian made cheesecake and we played Libertalia instead. But tonight, I’m back on. Next week, I have required 12+ hour day onsites so I will likely miss a day or two then, too. I’m not about that “grind” anymore. What a funny thing, “the grind,” that we put on ourselves under the false narrative that overworking ourselves and looking busy would get us anywhere. It’s actually smart thinking and strategic movement that gets us anywhere. Burning myself out was so 2018-2023.
Which is also why we’re not doing a Christmas card for the second year in a row. It takes a lot of time and money! I’ll reconsider next year. I’m always looking for ways to lessen the load, and this is one of them.
As a reminder, you don’t owe anyone things like this. Sure, it’s tradition to send Christmas cards (and I do LOVE Christmas cards), but if you’re in a spot where it’s overly stressful to do it, just eliminate it! Even temporarily. The same can be said about almost anything in your life – your mental and physical wellbeing must come before everything else.
If you are doing a Christmas card this year, do you typically take special photos for the sake of using in your Christmas card, or do you choose photos taken from throughout the year? If you use photos taken throughout the year, I’m begging you to share the stories behind them! It’s so important that we share stories of importance to us.
Ours has a small story behind it. The photo above, our digital Christmas card photo, was taken this year in Willow River State Park just across the border in Wisconsin.
I’d been trying to get there for quite a while, so it was exciting when we had a random Friday night available to camp there. This photo brings me a lot of joy, but also a lot of eye rolling thoughts haha.
Archie is a mediocre camping dog. He doesn’t mind camping in the RV, but wakes up every couple of hours to bork and boof (yeah, use of onomatopoeia!) at the animals passing by or every creepy sound he hears. But don’t worry, he’s quiet enough to where the campground neighbors probably don’t even notice. We sure do though. His lack of sleep creates our lack of sleep and therefore a semi-undesirable camping experience. He also spreads his tiny body out throughout and takes up about 1/3 of the tent space, which is incredibly limited when you’re sharing a 31 square foot 2-person backpacking tent with two humans and a medium-sized dog. But we still love him. He loves being outside and smelling all of the smells possible, so we do bring him camping when possible.
Here are a couple of ideas of potential stressors you could try to eliminate this season:
- Do a digital Christmas card
- Limit gifting to 2-3 items per person
- Recycle and toss spam mail into the proper bins and only bring real mail into the house
- Create a list of 2 easy tasks to complete each day and 1 tougher task, and start with the tougher task
- If you’re hosting, don’t over clean. Visitors only care about the cleanliness of the bathroom and eating surfaces.
- Get fresh air as many times as possible throughout the day.
What are your ideas?
P.S. This post is part of the 2023 Blogmas series. Check out the other posts here.