What have you let go this holiday season?

I could not get motivated to pull out and assemble my artificial tree this year, and seriously considered no tree at all, but we decided on Sunday to get a real tree. From the two boxes of Christmas decorations I have pulled out maybe 20% of the stuff to put around the house. I'm not disappointed with how much faster it was to decorate, or how much easier it will be to pack up.

I was also pretty happy when I realised there will be no team lunch at work this year (my manager left in Nov, no replacement yet) and I'm not back in the office yet which means I don't have to bake cookies for everyone. I didn't realise how much of a chore it had become.

My house is in the middle of renovation hell so that I can downsize in the Spring ... everything is a mess ... it's depressing    

I usually have so many decorations up and lights outside ... not this year!

I got rid of my two big trees and now I have a small 5 foot white tree up that is decorated with my blue, white and silver stuff ... it looks so lonely!    

Next year in my new place will be different    

I put out less than I usually do for decor, mostly because I plan to start packing for our move after our DS and grands leave on January 2nd.

I realized I have downsized my decor by a lot. I'll probably buy some new things next year.

The only thing we put up this year is the tree. I just can't motivate myself to do the rest of it.

We didn't decorate. We are not usually much for decorating but we can usually manage pulling out the little ceramic tree to put on a table with a festive tablecloth and this cute box for cards we receive. Maybe this weekend

I usually have a 8 foot tree all decked out. I went and bought a 4.5 foot and am contemplating getting rid of the big one. I'm the one that does all the set up/take down of it all and it was so nice to take the small tree out of the box, minimal fluffing and done. It used to take me hours to do the big tree. Other than the tree this year the only other thing that is decorated is my hutch in the dining room. So not like me at all. Usually everything is decked out. I'm off the week of Christmas and think I'm actually going to start going through all my Christmas decor and donating/getting rid of stuff. We don't have company ever so it's only for me. Hubby could care less if anything is ever decorated. No present buying at all this year and we'll be spending the day at home. It'll probably just be another day like Thanksgiving was.

Over the past few years we have really purged our holiday decorations and put up less each year. Got rid of my wreaths and buy a fresh one each year. Nothing to store. I've set out two of my nativity sets, as well as some gnomes I bought at Target and IKEA. The Fall/Thanksgiving tablecloth is still on the table and needs to be changed out.

We put 3 small fake trees on the island each. The trees are up and the lights on, but decorations are still in the boxes. In January two of those trees are being tossed and will get a single prelit tree next year. I'm over putting lights on trees.

Haven't done any baking this year and most likely won't. I did make my annual Christmas Trash (chex mix) but that's it. We aren't entertaining at home this year. It's not that I'm not in the holiday spirit, I'm just tired and don't want all the extra busyness that tends to go along with the season.

We put up our new last year fake tree. I only dragged out about a third of the ornaments because they won’t all fit on one tree, and the bottom foot has almost no ornaments on it due to our dog’s whapping tail that sends things in its wake flying. DD cleared all the excess junk off of the fireplace mantel to decorate it, but then just piled all the stuff she cleared off of it onto a shelf next to it instead of actually putting it away elsewhere. 😳🙄 (And in that, I have failed as a mother, LOL. My own mom would have been horrified if I would have “cleaned” that way at that age!)

I bought a live evergreen wreath at Costco after Thanksgiving to at least get an occasional whiff of real pine coming and going. I sent out store bought Christmas cards last weekend. 

My huge plans for holiday baking are all but out the window after injuring a tendon in my left hand on November 30th. After a visit with the hand specialist the next day, now I’m in a splint until the middle of January that prevents me from bending my hand at the knuckles. The splint is supposed to help the tendon heal on its own if it can, but if it doesn’t I’ll need to have hand surgery to correct it next year or the tendon will continue to slip off that knuckle and tear which is excruciating. The doctor said the odds of recovery with the splint are about 70%, but from what I still feel two weeks out, I’m not all that hopeful it’s going to work.

The splint makes life in general more difficult since I have no strength and can’t grip anything tightly with that hand (zippers, buttons, silverware, whatnot; braiding my kid’s hair is mostly a fail). The silver lining is that I’m right hand dominant so at least I can mostly still function one handed, and the splint is removable so I can take it off to shower and wash my hand, etc. A plaster cast would be infinitely worse.

We have not done the Christmas tree or decorating.

They are stuck in the garage and inaccessible because we have tried to stock up for the predicted food shortages , a combination of upcoming supermarket strikes , and Brexit crap - so the new shelves holding emergency groceries are in the way and the tree and decorating boxes are now out of reach.

We did the Christmas cards using our little Robin from the garden , given presents and have way too much festive food.

We also played about on the computer where my husband’s photos of our other garden birds were put altogether and he put little wooly hats on them . I found the hats from a knitting pattern site. They look so cute ! and surprising real,  I spent ages choosing just the right hat for each bird . 
I also did some virtual decorating of our garden fence by choosing a lovely garland for the birds to perch on.

So with a bit of Christmas music , it felt a little bit more Christmassy but without the tree it still doesn’t feel quite right.

I'm still recovering from a bad bout of pneumonia. 3rd time this year. It seems recovery takes longer with each one.
I was so proud of myself for getting the tree up before Thanksgiving. But that's as far as I've gotten. I'm going to put out a few more things today and that's probably about all I'm doing this year.
I'm bummed about it, though. I had these great plans for each room and lots of new decor. Oh, well. There's always next year!

Nothing, I went bigger than ever with the decorations. But I don't really have to "do" anything other than attend a few parties and get stocking items for my coworkers, which I enjoy.

I think I will bake cookies for work. I'm working Christmas Eve and night.

I haven't cut anything out this year. I love the Christmas season so it doesn't feel like a lot of work to me. Of course, it sounds like a lot of peas have a lot more to do than I do so that plays into it.

Edit to add, i forgot to mention that i am skipping christmas with my parents.  Just not comfortable with it.  So there would normally be some shopping involved with that that I have also skipped.  When I posted earlier I was thinking more of things around the house that needed to be done.

Gifts for adults, the Christmas tree, and the big traditional dinner. We are going very low key this year and I couldn’t be happier. I am a little disappointed we couldn’t get a tree this year, we are having renovations done where we place it and there isn’t really any other good spot. Next year we can bring it back.

I thought I could not the tree decorating go this year. The tree we got is just so beautiful by itself.  but, I just couldn't. Instead we decorated with half as much as we usually do. It's nice to see the extra sparkle on the tree.