There is so much going on around the holidays. We’ve got parties,
dinners, gifts to buy, not to mention the 6 birthdays my family celebrate. Add
that on top of your usual jobs, kids and regularly scheduled programming and
you’ve got enough stress to refill your Xanax prescription. Thankfully you’ve stumbled upon Lazybabymama and I’m ready to share
some tips on how to cut corners and tone it down to have a more relaxing, lazy
holiday. Follow my steps and you’ll have a lazy Christmas worth remembering. This
ain’t no Martha Stewart blog over here so don’t expect lifelong keepsakes or
raves about your baking. But you can expect to make some memories because
holidays are not about stress and anxiety, they’re about having fun and
hopefully getting lazy.
1.
Lower your standards. We can have it all as long as
we are realistic about what “all” means. If you want to survive the holidays
without any additional gray hairs I suggest you cut yourself some slack.
2.
Gingerbread House – Every home needs a gingerbread
house. Not really, no house needs one
but it’s fun to have and fun to make (If you’re into sticky messes). I say cut
them off the list but if your kids are begging you to make one grab a kit. We got a tiny set form the dollar store. It was super-cute but collapsed before we
finished putting the candy on it. It was pretty fun to destroy it,
especially since it took five minutes to make (That may have contributed to its
structural failures). Remember it's not about the house, it’s about the
memoires.
3.
Wrapping Presents – Two words: Gift bags. Okay,
Okay I know that a large pile of gift bags under a tree looks like a terrible, tissue paper nightmare. Alas I have other options: Nesting
Boxes. I have to give credit to my momma for this one. She’s been nesting
since the 90’s. The boxes are cute and you just pop a bow on it and you’re set.
Grab some wire ribbon from the craft store and tie them up. It takes ½ the
amount of time as wrapping, less cutting and no tape. Don’t give me crap
that you can’t tie a bow; if you can tie your shoes you can tie a bow. It will
be worth the ten minutes watching a YouTube video on bows. Also if you cant tie
a bow I’m pretty sure you have trouble wrapping too, so I think my suggestion will
be easier and look better than your crumpled messes under the tree.
4.
Storing the wrappings – I live in a
tiny apartment so I don’t have these “wrapping stations” that are all the rage
these days. Seriously I don’t have any stations – not even a laundry folding
station. If I fold my laundry on the counter you bet that’s where the presents
get wrapped too. Anyway, I store my wrapping stuff in an oversized Macy's gift box
under the tree. All my bows and tissue paper are in there and it looks kind of
cute – maybe there’s a little Martha in me after all?
5.
Cookies – I have plenty of old memories of my family making Christmas cookies and they’re great. There's nothing like sticks of butter
and big 80’s hair to bring me back. Maybe in a few years when the twins are
older we can do it again. In the meantime, we’re buying store bought dough and
that’s that. We grab that "break and bake" stuff, pop them on a tray and throw it
in the oven. We’ve got fresh cookies in 20 minutes. No joke, 20 minutes from
the moment we decide to bake, to the time we are enjoying cookies. Maybe next
year we’ll progress to a dough roll and I’ll let Ali spoon out her own cookies.
But for right now she’s happy simply arranging them on the tray. Maybe this year I’ll tease her bangs before we
bake just for some nostalgia.
6.
Gifts - Full disclosure: my twins don’t go in the
car and they don’t go shopping. If I get a spare hour to myself it’s usually
not enough time to go Christmas shopping. Therefore online shopping is the best
bet. If you’re ordering diapers and k-cups every month, the Amazon
Prime membership is everything. We get free 2-day shipping, a huge bonus come holiday season. Another perk is that I can keep everything in the shipping
boxes, which helps if you have to prevent kids from finding the presents. Another
gift getting secret: Evernote – it’s a note taking app that allows you to sort
your notes. You can keep a gift list all year long. When someone mentions
something you pop it on the list and then grab it. It makes the shopping so
much easier when you know what you need. Simply planning ahead really pays off
here. If all else fails you can give the gift of your Christmas cookies.
7.
Christmas crafts – I hate mess and I hate glue,
but Ali likes crafting. Plus it doesn’t help that I’ve got to be five places at
once, so if scissors and glue are involved I can’t walk away from Ali while she’s’
crafting. I need something she can do for fun without any help. Michaels.com
gets me. It’s like they can see into my soul. They have holiday crafts with age
range, time and messy rating. Because we don’t have time to search the Internet
for these crafts either! So suck it Martha.
8.
Christmas Music – if you spend time curating a Christmas
playlist you’re probably an idiot. Download the Pandora app, search for
Christmas and move on with your life. Maybe take up rock collecting as another
needless, time-consuming activity.
9.
Decorating - Hopefully with all the corners
we’ve cut so far you’ve got some extra time to decorate. Decorating
sucks, but a house that has already been decorated is great. It's the ultimate
catch-22. We have two options: first is to leave the decorations up all year
long! Kidding, it’s not like we left our lights up until we moved last year (I
had twins remember! Priorities). Or you can just keep it simple. No kid looks
back thinking “man I wish mom put up more decorations.” I do however, have a
memory of when my mom put up two trees in the house and it’s more like “remember
that time mom up up two trees? That was overkill.” So take it easy this year. A
pre-lit tree is
always a good call, extra garland and minimal ornaments help too. Also, go for
larger decorating items to take up space, I have snowmen. Ali names them. Her
favorite is Gobie, and mine is Una. - I think she's hinting that she want's
some Bubble Guppies for
Christmas.
10. Desserts –You may be lazy but you’re still a
social human being, which means you will be going to parties. If you know
anything about social graces you’re aware that if you go to a party you bring
something with you. I know you don’t need any of that stress so I’m about to
blow your mind with a super-easy dessert that a blind monkey could make. Step one: make a chocolate box cake – just follow the directions, it doesn’t need to be
pretty. If you burn it, you can cut off the burnt pieces. Next grab an instant chocolate pudding mix,
some Coolwhip and a large clear trifle bowl. (If you don’t have a trifle
bowl, I suggest you invest in one because you’re going to make this dessert
all day, every day.) Next, take your cake and crumble it up with your hands,
that’s right, rip it apart, the uglier and crumby-er the better. Throw half in
the bottom of the bowl; mix up the pudding and before it sets pour it on top of
the cake. Then throw the Coolwhip on top of the pudding then the cake again, more
pudding then finish with Coolwhip. You can add anything you want to the cake,
chocolate chips, cut up some Kit-Kats, throw some Reese’s peanut butter cups, you name it. One time I was feeling energized and I made it with red velvet
cake and I colored the cool whip green – it looked ridiculous, don’t try that.
If I can do most of this with
one-year-old twins and a four year old you can too! Don’t do it all at once and
don’t feel bad for not doing everything. Have a merry Lazybabymama Christmas
and relax like baby Jesus intended.
Please post any of your
favorite holiday short cuts. Ill try to do some of yours and whichever works
out ill post here.
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