Holidays
Is It Realistic To Simplify Christmas?
Friday, December 01, 2006
Jaimee Rose
The Arizona Republic
This year, we swear, we're simplifying Christmas.
And yet for all our good intentions, for all the gift-wrap organizers we buy and copies of Real Simple that we tote home, it seems we just can't help ourselves. We can't do less. We just keep spending, decorating, and eating more. And now we're going shopping for things to help us simplify Christmas.
This holiday season especially, everyone wants to help us ease Christmas.
You can get your car washed while you shop at the Scottsdale Fashion Square valet station. You can buy pre-decorated trees, pre-frosted gingerbread houses, and pick up a Pottery Barn gift card with the groceries. You can order monogrammed thoughtful presents and photo-laden Christmas cards online during your lunch break. There are people to hire to hang your lights, make your party appetizers, and spend time with your kids while you go buy them presents. There's even a new Holiday De-Stress class at Get Psyched! in Tempe, where you can learn relaxation techniques to help you deal with the happiest time of the year.
This is the new American ideal, some experts say: a holiday with deeper meaning, and a calmed-down, chilled-out Christmas. About 78 percent of Americans wish that the holidays were less materialistic, according to research by the New American Dream, a non-profit group that promotes reduced consumption.
Meanwhile, our lack of self-control is driving us nuts. According to the American Psychological Association, we rank holiday stress causes in this order: lack of money (61 percent), the pressures of gift giving (42 per cent), lack of time (34 per cent) and credit card debt (23 per cent).
But already, holiday spending is up: we're expected to surpass $457.4 billion this year, up 5 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation, with the average American spending $791.10 each. And about 46 percent of Americans are still paying the credit card bills from last Christmas, according to a poll by Consolidated Credit Counseling Services.
It's enough to drive us all straight to the cheesecake and eggnog. (So that we might then stress about squeezing into our cocktail clothes.)
"Over the last two or three decades, we bought into this idea that if the turkey is good and the cookies have all been cut out and the trees all have lights, then happiness and the simple joys of life will follow," says Dan Ho, author of Rescue from Domestic Perfection ($19.99, Bulfinch, 2006) and host of The Dan Ho Show, which premieres Jan. 4 on Discovery Health . "And it's just not the truth. We all know how to do all of that, but we're more restless than ever."
That entire notion of store-bought simplicity is silly, he says. Sure, this month's Real Simple shows us how to get everything you need to decorate for Christmas from the aisles of the grocery store (place cards out of Cheerios, pretzels as ornaments, and bow-tie pasta as package bows.)
But we all already have more ornaments than we could possibly need, and we must resist the urge to try the pretzel trick, even if it gives us an excuse to buy a new plastic storage box to organize the old stuff.
Of course, it's easier to buy discipline than to actually have some. We spent $5.4 billion in 2004 on household organizers, 19 percent more than we did in 2001, according to the most recent research from the International Housewares Association. And think of the store shelves on the day after Christmas, when everything feels overstuffed, and suddenly there's a parade of Rubbermaid, which feels like the answer to everything.
Lisa Sanford of Scottsdale has tried to simplify. She stopped hosting big parties, and instead invites couples over for homemade soup - one pot meals being chapter one in the simplicity scripture. She gave up on handmade Christmas cards, and now dresses up store-bought stationery with ribbon. But still, there's a Christmas tree in every room of her home, three days dedicated to decorating, and cinnamon rolls baked from scratch for the neighbors on Christmas Eve.
I've simplified, but I try not to take the joy out of it," says Sanford, 45. Yet still, she's a total stress case. "I keep saying I want to do something that makes you slow down and really appreciate the season, but how do you do it?"
We don't. And instead of paring down our list of Christmas musts, we sign up for the holiday countdown on OrganizedChristmas.com, a Web site that manages everything you could ever need to do to have a picture-perfect Christmas. Step one is to "designate a Christmas holiday planner: a simple 3-ring notebook stocked with forms and information." That's enough to induce holiday hyperventilation right there.
"Simplicity is a style," says Ho, "and if it's not on the inside, it ain't on the outside, and you can't go out and buy it. You have to stop thinking that you have to go out and get stuff, and take a look at what you've got and simplify from within."
Except there's a sale at Target on Christmas lights, and don't you think it be nice if we ditched the icicle lights for those old-fashioned, simple-seeming big colored bulbs?
At the heart of it, our overdone Christmas is motivated by big-hearted, dear intentions. We have all contracted the Santa complex: an urge to spin magic for our families, to feed the hope that somewhere, someone exists that can make dreams come true. Even if that person is whoever owns Visa.
"People really enjoy giving," says Sarah Roberts, spokeswoman for the New American Dream. "They want to spend a certain amount, and they worry if someone's giving them a big-ticket item, they have to reciprocate. They want to give the perfect gift, they want to make the kids happy, they want to fulfill all those wishes and dreams."
At Kelly McCreary's house in Arcadia, she's tried to simplify, but her family won't have it. They like their overdone Christmas magic.
"Every year, I say, 'Only three presents - if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you.' But no," says McCreary, 46. "About five years ago, I thought I could put the presents out under the tree on Christmas Eve instead of getting up at three in the morning Christmas Day, and the kids went to pieces. So I still get up and haul them in. It's gotta stop."
This year, her husband tried to simplify and put the kibosh on the Christmas lights. Her girls, aged 15 to 24, squawked. And so McCreary decided to do it herself, and made three trips to Target on Tuesday alone for more lights, an 80-foot extension cord, and then even more extension cords after she blew the circuit breaker. And on the way, she was in a rush, hit a curb, and got a flat tire.
"And I keep adding more lights, and the breakers keep breaking, and I'm doing all this for my adult children who don't even live at home anymore, who only come home for the day and yet they're sad if the lights aren't up," she says.
"It's quite humorous, and the whole time, I'm like, 'why am I doing this?'" she says, laughing. "I sound like a nut bag. But I probably wouldn't do this if I didn't realize it made them so happy."
