This year I felt like I took on board two absolutely obvious Christmas lessons that apparently I have to keep learning again and again:

1. Christmas doesn’t always have to be the same. What seems DELIGHTFUL and IMPORTANT one year can be totally different than what seems delightful and important the next year.

2. It’s a good idea to have a few little good-for-anyone gifts around.

I kept feeling like Something Was Wrong because we weren’t watching as many Christmas movies, or because this year I couldn’t find A Book for Each Stocking the way I have in the past—but we don’t have to do it the same every year, and in fact if the past few years have taught me anything it’s that FLEXIBILITY IS VALUABLE: if it isn’t a set-in-stone tradition that we absolutely must have chocolate oranges every year, then it is not so upsetting if chocolate oranges are not available. And just in general: there is no reason to waste time and effort and money on things we don’t even want, just because we used to want them, or think we ought to want them.

You can do new-Christmas-pajamas-on-Christmas-Eve OCCASIONALLY if you want: it doesn’t have to be EVERY SINGLE YEAR until every bureau drawer in the house is filled with nothing but Christmas pajamas. You can do an expensive and work-intensive customized advent calendar ONCE if you want, or ONLY when you have the time/inspiration, and do $2 cheap-chocolate-a-day calendars on other years. You can set up a card table and put out a Christmas puzzle just on the years when you feel like it. You can buy books only for the kids who like books, without having to make everyone’s presents match, or make everyone’s presents fit a little rhyme. You can buy tickets for an expensive Christmas performance ONCE, without having to do it every single year. Etc.

And you can do it this way EVEN IF other people in your household express disappointment that you are not putting in all the time and money and effort to make these things happen for them every single year! You can say merrily “Oh, yes, wasn’t that fun, the year we did that? Maybe we’ll do that again another year!” Or, if you are speaking to another adult in your household, you can say merrily “Oh, yes, wasn’t that fun? It’s not on my to-do list for this year, but you can go ahead if you think it would be fun to do again!”

As for the supply of little general-purpose gifties, this wasn’t something I would have done in our poorer years, because I think it only works if you’re fine with having some of the things unused. But this year by accident I overbought and/or overreceived a few things that happened to be perfect for this: a box of chocolate-covered mint marshmallows from Trader Joe’s; a bag of Lindt truffles; extra candy and extra individual Milano cookie packets from the stockings. I had put those things aside in a bag to Figure Out What To Do With Later. Also into the Figure Out Later bag I’d dropped some miscellaneous things: the too-pretty-to-throw-out-OR-ARE-THEY? golden net bags the Trader Joe’s chocolate coins came in; some pretty tissue paper from received gift bags; etc.

So then when I was putting out the gift card for the mail carrier, my eye fell upon the Figure Out Later bag and I added one of the little pretty golden net bags filled with a packet of Milano cookies and some of the Lindt truffles and extra stocking candy. And when I was putting together the gift bag for my workplace Secret Santa assignment, I added a handful of Lindt truffles just for flair. It didn’t feel NECESSARY in any way, so it’s not something I’d recommend if money is tight; but it did feel FESTIVE and FUN. (And, if money IS tight, I’ll mention that about half of my Figure Out Later bag was made up of things I was given / couldn’t use, and things-that-came-free-with-other-things like the Trader Joe’s coin bags, and things that were extra after I divided things up for stockings.)

If you have any shopping left in you, and would like to order yourself a nice little package to arrive after Christmas, may I strongly recommend these wee snowflake plates and wee snowflake bowls? They look so bland in their listing, but I am finding them hugely pleasing in usage—and I am happy to think of being able to continue to use them as Winter Dishes even after I put the Christmas Dishes away (always a sad day).

They are quite small. The bowls are like the berry bowls from my grandmother’s china set; do china sets still have berry bowls? You might use them for a side of jello salad, or for M&Ms, or for giving your kids some cut-up fruit. The plates are the size called “appetizer.” We use them for a couple of cookies, or for a square of cake, or for a dinner roll and some butter.

Anyway I just love them and I use them all the time. I normally tend toward bright!! colorful!! things, and these non-bright non-colorful dishes are making me doubt all my decisions. The way the glaze has settled into the embossed designs does something soothing to my brain. I wish there were a matching mug.

I will warn you that my first order of bowls arrived broken. Target immediately replaced them, and the second set arrived fine—but if you feel you might not be emotionally up to receiving a box of broken ceramic in January, and then perhaps finding out they’re sold out and there will be no replacement, well, it’s something to take into account.

I was thinking maybe next year I’d track all the hours I spent shopping for and wrapping presents, writing and sending Christmas cards, etc. Almost immediately I thought NO LET’S NOT. First of all: probably we don’t wish to know, especially if we might then be tempted to tally up the hours spent on Christmas preparation by the OTHER adult member of the household. Second of all: a large portion of it is HAPPY BUSYNESS, and we do not make a tally of our happy busyness as if it were a work timesheet. This is also why I don’t want my phone telling me how many hours I spent playing Love Nikki Dress-Up Queen this year.

But gosh it is a lot of time and a lot of aforethought. I didn’t have work today, and I DO have work tomorrow, Friday, and Christmas Eve, so after the kids were off to school I went directly to the grocery store, where I did our last Big Shop before Christmas; I’ll do one more small run-in probably on Friday, maybe Saturday, but I want that to be brisk and Essentials Only. Then I came home and wrapped presents. This involved NUMEROUS side-quests of various kinds: writing explanatory notes to go with a couple of peculiar gifts (I got someone the Ennui Duck); wrapping a candy bar with a print-out of the item that is arriving late; opening more packages that arrived while I was wrapping. I also sorted all the stocking stuff into piles, and then bagged them so they’ll be ready for putting into stockings.

The main issue this year, I think, is that I took on a LOT more fun Christmas activities all at once, most of them gift-related (a workplace Secret Santa; workplace Yankee Swap; little co-worker gift bags; items for a local gift drive; etc.), and I would definitely want to do all those things again next year, because they were all exactly the kind of fun I like—but I need to make sure I budget the extra time and energy for them, because this year I did not, and there were several moments where I experienced fleeting feelings that were not entirely festive.

Well. OVERALL it HAS been festive if a little frantic, and now that I am in the last eddying whirls of preparation, I am starting to have more time to enjoy reading Christmas stories by the light of the Christmas tree; gazing appreciatively at the Christmas cards up on the wall around a door frame; gazing appreciatively at the Christmas ornaments; making sure I have used all of my Christmas mugs at least once.

Christmas card update: BY FAR the most cards arrived yesterday, the 16th. I now have a nice border around part of a doorway.

Some Christmases involve a lot of quiet reading of Christmas books by the lovely light of the Christmas tree, and other Christmases involve roadrunner legs spinning somewhat less than merrily, and for me this Christmas has been one of the latter kind. I am trying to enjoy it for what it is, instead of feeling as if Christmas is not as good and/or will always be like this. This year maybe it’s hard to fit in the lovely-light readings of the Christmas books; so what? Next year those books will be fresher for having had a rest year. This year maybe I didn’t do much baking; so what? Other years have been big baking years, and that was fun but it doesn’t have to be like that every single year. This year maybe we haven’t watched as many Christmas movies; so what? Last year we watched a ton of them, so maybe last year was a Christmas-Movie Christmas and this one just isn’t, and that’s fine! A few things are arriving late, so I will have to wrap little slips of paper. Who cares? So what? Christmas is not ruined! It’s fine!

This year maybe I’ve had to pay the Christmas Tax a few times: spending more for gifts/shipping because I put things off too long and then needed to fix it with money. So what? Most years I don’t have to do that; most years I save money on sales and deals; most years I ship in plenty of time. The money saved those years helps cover this year.

This year I dropped the ball a couple of times, or else a shipper did, and I had to make silly inefficient drives just to get one single thing—like driving 40 minutes each way to buy a gift card in person, because I’d ordered it online on November 20th and it still hadn’t arrived or even shipped, and the online retailer was like “Huh, weird!” and their only proposed solution was to give me a refund. But listen, it got FIXED! It may have been silly, it may have been a waste of time, it may have been frustrating—but now it’s DONE and I have the gift card.

This year I made more than the usual number of decisions to do things in a non-preferred way, in order to save time and/or mental energy. Normally I prefer to spend a lot of time carefully choosing gifts for Paul’s sister, and then have them shipped here so I can wrap them festively and tuck them into a box with little festive treats tucked into the gaps. This year I opted to have some less-personally-chosen things shipped directly, because I couldn’t seem to get it together, and because I was feeling stressed about it instead of the usual excited. That’s fine! It’s fine! I cared a little to miss out on doing that, but I didn’t care a LOT, and if she cares at all she probably doesn’t care a lot either; and the relief of crossing that entire set of tasks (ordering! wrapping! box-finding! festive-treat-tucking! taking the whole thing to UPS and standing in line!) off of my To Do list was considerable.

And so on. I am trying to focus on the things I am Getting!! Done!!, because that’s a good feeling, and better than the feeling that I am LATE, I’m LATE, it’s all so LATE!! Today I mailed Rob’s Christmas box, which was not as extensive a box as I’d planned, and was more expensive than I’d intended because one of the items was on the bulky side; but that’s okay because Done is better than Perfect, and because probably the relative simplicity is what he would in fact prefer, and because larger things just cost more to ship and that’s all there is to it. If it doesn’t get there by Christmas I will be very, very stressed and sorry, but let’s just focus on the fact that NOW it is out of my hands and on its way. Also, I had some other miscellaneous stocking things shipped directly, so at least he’ll have THOSE. And probably the package WILL arrive in time.

WALL CALENDAR TIME.

It is a much shorter post this year. I think it must be that fewer and fewer people use wall calendars, so there are fewer options: I kept getting search results that looked good but turned out to be calendars from previous years. And I find I am more willing, at least this year, to Pick Something without spending as much time on it.

 

Esté MacLeode calendar. I saw that there was a new one of these, and if I hadn’t had this post to write, I probably would have just put it in the cart and checked out. It was a few years ago that I dithered too long and missed it, and two years ago that I bought one, and I would be really happy having one by this artist again. Just nice and cheery and pretty.

 

Feline calendar (Terry Runyan). This is another one I’ve had before and could be happy just re-buying.

 

Redouté calendar. I consider this one each year. This year’s images would go particularly well with (1) the color of my kitchen walls and (2) my resolution for the new year to finally choose a botanical tattoo and actually acquire it.

 

Art Deco Fairytales calendar. This is more emotional intensity than I want first thing in the morning in the kitchen with my coffee, but it caught my eye.

 

Nathalie L’ete Woodland Dreams calendar. I LOVE THIS. I LOVE THIS. I LOVE EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT THIS (except maybe September; what is happening with September) and was in fact about to go ahead and buy it before even finishing this post—but I double-checked the squares, and they’re less than half of the calendar. I really, really need the squares space.

 

Floral Ink calendar. This seems refreshingly simple, and restful for the eyes.

 

Joyful Landscapes calendar. I was braced for cheesy, and/or perky sayings, but it looks pretty and colorful.

 

Klimt landscapes calendar. I had this one for 2022; I don’t want it a second year in a row, but would consider again another year. It was pleasing to look at. A lot of green.

 

This Is My Bookstore calendar. I need a better look at some sample pages.

 

Cats and Books calendar. This is relevant to my interests. I wish they hadn’t sacrificed square-size to make the name of the month so huge: I (usually) KNOW what MONTH it is.

 

As usual, I would be interested to know what YOU are going with for a wall calendar this year, if you use a wall calendar.

Elizabeth has “page-a-day calendar” on her Christmas wish list, and I need a new one for my desk. When I first started buying these for myself, it was mostly just for a fun little daily desk activity; but now I find them extremely useful—not just to tell me what day it is, but also I use the backs of the old pages as scrap paper (usually for Wordle and for to-do lists), and I also flip ahead to future pages to write reminders-I-need-to-see-while-at-my-computer (“renew library books,” “choose contest winner,” “happy birthday email to Melissa”).

Elizabeth specifies for her calendar: “something like art or poems, NOT quotes.” I too like art and prefer to avoid quotes, but also I don’t think I’d like poems. Well, there are at least a couple of art options to choose from!

Workman Art page-a-day Gallery calendar:

 

The Met 365 Days of Masterpieces day-to-day calendar:

 

A couple of times I’ve had an art-a-day calendar where the pages were double-sided, which is very nice for paper conservation and not as nice for scratch paper.

 

Thoughts of Dog day-to-day calendar. I like this Twitter account, but I don’t like it as much with that font and those drawings:

 

We Rate Dogs day-to-day calendar. I follow this Twitter account, too, and I like the look of this calendar a lot more:

 

Cartoons from The New Yorker day-to-day calendar. I have had this calendar before and I don’t remember it well but I remember being perfectly happy with it. Reliable mild humor, sometimes veering Boomerward.

 

Workman 365 Cats page-a-day calendar or Cat Gallery page-a-day calendar. I’ve had quite a few cat calendars and this year I had the dog one, so I am feeling a little tired of this idea but on the other hand they’re always pleasing.

 

Audubon Birds page-a-day calendar. Oh BIRDS though! I haven’t had a birds one yet!

 

1,000 Places To See Before You Die page-a-day calendar. The title makes me a little stressed, but I had another travel calendar before and it’s really just a bunch of pleasant pictures of someone else’s vacation, with little descriptions in case anything catches your eye and you want to know more. I find that while the title makes me feel pressured to go do a lot of traveling I don’t necessarily want to do, the calendar itself makes me feel as if I now HAVE IN FACT seen those places before dying, in that I have seen the pictures in the calendar.

 

Atlas Obscura page-a-day calendar. Similar concept, less pressure.

 

Wanderlust box calendar. Similar concept, less pressure AND less reading.

 

Farmer’s Almanac everyday calendar. Maybe! Could be an interesting eclectic assortment! Could be a lot of boring stuff! Hard to say! The sample page about conditioning hair with mayonnaise gives me pause.

 

Shoes Gallery page-a-day calendar. I got this calendar one year on a whim and it was surprisingly pleasing. You don’t have to be like that book I read where a male author wrote a female point of view and it was all “Shoes shoes hot guy shoes shoes hot guy!,” which, as if. You can just appreciate interesting pictures of interesting shoes.

 

Paper Airplane fold-a-day calendar. This isn’t a candidate for Elizabeth or for me, but I got this one year for Paul and he liked it. Maybe I’ll buy it for him again this year.

 

Living Language Spanish day-to-day calendar. Again not for Elizabeth or me, but Henry has “fun Spanish-learning things” on his wish list. (If you have other ideas DO TELL!)

 

Pokémon day-to-day calendar. I don’t mind telling you that I have become re-obsessed with playing Pokémon Go on my phone, so this catches my eye.

 

Oh, Simon’s Cat! I remember Simon’s cat!

 

Animal Crossings New Horizons day-by-day calendar! We played so much of this in the early days of the pandemic!

 

Hamilton day-to-day calendar. Perhaps this is relevant to your interests.

 

Bob Ross: A Happy Little Day-to-Day calendar. It is perhaps indicative of my current-long-term frame of my mind that I saw this calendar and immediately got weepy.

I just impulsively put together a seasonal/December/pre-Christmas care package for Rob, my eldest who is living far away and not coming home for Christmas this year. My goal was to get it shipped for free from Target, which meant hitting $35—but I didn’t want to go too much over, because this was impulsive. I succeeded in this goal: the total was just over $37.

My other goal was to send things that would not overly oppress him: he doesn’t want Too Much Stuff, he doesn’t want Too Many Sweets. These preferences can be challenging for a parent who loves Stuff and Sweets, and who inclines towards showing love through those things; also, he IS just starting out in a new place with only what he could carry in his airplane luggage, so my hope is that SOME, SMALL number of things will still be useful. My other hope is that by this point in adulthood or by a point sometime soon he will have taken on board a sense of Middle Ground, and that we can come to an arrangement where I dial my shopping/lavishing inclinations wayyyyyy back, AND tactfully/completely fail to notice/care if he keeps the items; and where HE accepts the items in the loving parental spirit in which they were intended, AND finds friends or a local charity to take anything he doesn’t want.

…I am looping back to edit this section after posting only the very first thing that I purchased, because it is clear to me as I try to select a second item to post that although I DID dial things way back, I did NOT succeed in not sending Stuff. I just didn’t. It reminds me of a scene from the book Life with Father by Clarence Day, where he is describing the spending habits of his mother, and he says something about how after she had kept herself from buying nine simply divine teacups, it didn’t seem so very terrible to give in and buy the tenth. I felt at the time I was assembling the care package that I was showing enormous restraint by NOT sending all the things I WANTED to send, and there were SO many things I REMOVED from the cart—well, but now I see I will be lucky if he doesn’t sigh over the waste before bringing the whole parcel to Goodwill. Well!! If so, there will be someone at Goodwill who benefits, and how nice!

Here is what I sent, if you have someone similar to send an impulsive and perhaps unwise Christmas care package to—or perhaps you have someone who DOES like Stuff and Sweets!

Mrs. Meyer’s Iowa Pine hand soap. I started with this because I buy it every year. And it’s consumable/useful, so I hope it will not oppress the little minimalist; but I hope it will also smack pleasantly of December and Christmas and home.

 

50ct white Christmas tree lights. It is just a WEE little string of them! Like what you’d have in a college dorm room, or even littler than that! And they tend to stop working after a couple of years anyway!

 

Cotton pug kitchen towel. I’d bought one of these for myself and liked it even better than I’d expected. And everyone needs kitchen towels! And I only bought ONE, when I’d wanted to buy him TWO (I would have gotten a different design as the second towel, for variety). And I DIDN’T buy him the coordinating bathroom hand towels OR the coordinating mug!

 

Just one single melamine Christmas plate. NOT two different ones for variety, as I would have preferred. And also, I’d WANTED to buy him the Christmas-tree-shaped one, but Paul said if I wanted there to be any chance of him keeping it, it would HAVE to stack with his other plates, and I saw the wisdom of that and COMPROMISED.

 

Candy cane napkins. He uses cloth napkins AND his favorite color is green!! Also: I had already bought a pair of these for my household (along with another kind, for variety), then realized they’d be perfect for him and set one of them aside to include with his Christmas box—but then the total was just under $35, and the napkins were on sale for $3.50; and this way he can use them through the Christmas season instead of not starting until Christmas.

 

Snack pack of Pepperidge Farm Christmas cookies. Just one lil individual snack-pack of cookies, not a full pack, and not the entire cute polar-bear-themed sewing-kit tin of cookies I would have sent a child who liked more sweets! And no second thing of cookies, for variety! And no Christmas candy!

 

One single serving of Ghirardelli hot cocoa mix. Not a whole box, even though a whole box would have had eight times as much for three times the price! And no cocoa toppers, or marshmallows, or what have you! Just one austere little packet!!

 

Holiday flannel sheet set. OKAY I UNDERSTAND WHAT I’VE DONE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO INDIRECTLY SCOLD ME WITH STORIES ABOUT HOW YOUR MOTHER NEVER LISTENS TO YOU WHEN YOU SAY YOU DON’T WANT ANY MORE OF THE UNWANTED STUFF SHE CONSTANTLY BURDENS YOU WITH, THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AND YOUR MOTHER IS NOT TRYING AS HARD AS I AM. But also: he had a set of flannel sheets this same color that he used until they absolutely fell into scraps—and I got the ones that were more “pine trees, why not year-round?” and less CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS ONLY CHRISTMAS. And he’s only lived in his new place since summer, so he might not HAVE flannel sheets yet. And they were on sale. And I took the sweet little three-pack of dressed birdies and nice little flocked trees out of the cart! I AM NOT EXCUSING I AM JUST EXPLAINING.

 

You know what, I am turning this into a little Christmas/winter giveaway for someone who WOULD like to receive a box like this from their parent!! If you have a mailing address in the United States (it can be your address, or you can have me send it as a gift to someone you know in the U.S.), and you (or the someone you know) DOES like sweets and stuff, I will send you (or them) a VERY VERY SIMILAR box (I don’t want to promise EXACT, because things are selling out fast).

This is going to be a fast one, because of what I just mentioned in the parenthetical about things selling out fast: I will choose a winner tomorrow (Wednesday the 7th) evening sometime. To enter, leave any comment; I will follow up with the winner about whether the package should be Christmas- or Winter-themed. (I will also ask the winner if they have a twin-sized bed they’d like sheets for, in which case I will choose one of the available sets and it will be a surprise; if not, I will substitute some of the things I kept myself from sending Rob.)

(If you want to comment but DON’T want to enter, just add something about not wanting to enter.)

You were all so extremely helpful on the Co-Worker Holiday Gift post that I am STILL not entirely sure what to get for all my co-workers, because there are TOO MANY WONDERFUL IDEAS. I have jotted down my favorites, and will save this year’s non-used ideas for future years.

I found out today that there is a WORKPLACE HOLIDAY PARTY with a YANKEE SWAP. This should not have been a surprise to me, since this is my fourth holiday season at this workplace. But the first year, the party was for the same night as a friend party I’d already agreed to go to. And the second and third year there was a pandemic on, so I didn’t go. This year there is still a pandemic on, but I am going to go to the party.

I don’t know what THEY consider the rules of the Yankee Swap. I don’t know if MOST people typically bring joke gifts, though I know there is typically at least ONE joke gift (one year it was a Men in Kilts calendar; last year there was something no one would tell me about, saying “What happens at Work Party stays at Work Party”). There is no price range given for the gift. I am thinking…$30? $20? $25? Something in that vicinity.

William worked for the library before I did; and the two years he went to the party, he didn’t care what gift he brought, whereas I was extremely keen to choose for him. One year I sent him with one bag each of like six or seven different Pepperidge Farm holiday (CHRISTMAS) cookies, and I wrapped them in a long line (but side by side, not end to end) so the gift would be an intriguing shape; I liked how those were festive, but wouldn’t go stale anytime soon, so could be kept for after the holidays—or, if not wanted, could easily be handed out to others in a festive manner. The other year, I sent him with a big container of chocolate Christmas tree ornaments (SORRY NON-CHRISTMAS-CELEBRATING CO-WORKERS, I WAS NOT THINKING). I asked him just now what other gifts he could remember people bringing; he remembered a big gift pack of assorted Ghirardelli chocolate squares, and that’s it.

As with the small individual gifts, my main priority (now) is that it not scream CHRISTMAS, as there are KNOWN non-Christmas-celebrators among my co-workers. And once again, I am not taking into account food allergies, scent sensitivities, etc., as there are NOT any known issues among my co-workers. I am not ruling out book-related ideas, but on the other hand I feel like this group has already covered all the book-related ideas. Oh: and I need it in a week and a half, so it can’t be something I should have started on last week/month.

My real goal, my secret goal, is to WIN. However we define “win.” I want to WIN.

This does not, however, have to be a discussion just of “What Should Swistle Bring as a Workplace Yankee Swap Gift.” I would be JUST AS if not MORE interested in hearing what YOU bring and/or are bringing and/or have brought as a workplace-or-non-workplace swap gift; or about what OTHER PEOPLE have brought to your workplace-or-non-workplace gift swaps. ANYTHING you remember about what people brought, and what other people thought. What were the gifts people FOUGHT over? What were the really MEMORABLE gifts—good or bad? What were the good sturdy options? TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU REMEMBER

To add my own anecdote: the two gifts I’ve seen fought over at previous Yankee Swaps were BOTH throw blankets.