We love Christmas and everything it means. Janis & I have celebrated more than fifty Christmases together. Years ago, we did our best to attend every single function with our extended family, our friends, and the organizations to which we belonged. We did our best to please everyone. We purchased presents for so many people., even when our finances dictated otherwise. One year, we attended four big Christmas feasts in only two days, plus others over Christmas week. It was stressful for us and even tougher for the kids, who were very young at the time.

Eventually, we came to realize that we couldn’t do it all or please everyone. We decided to slow things down and instead concentrate on what suited us best. There were fewer but still large gatherings, with twenty or more people at our table each year. Even then, though there were fewer gatherings and we loved hosting family and friends, we found ourselves exhausted by the end of the season.

COVID changed everything. Christmas was suddenly all about our most immediate family. We stopped expensive gift exchanges, except for the young kids, and we started cooking the turkey the day before Christmas, We encouraged family members to help with a variety of dishes, spreading the workload around. We also decided it didn’t all have to happen on Christmas Day. We wished to see our family, but they could come when it suited them, and we would happily fit around their plans and needs. The fridge was filled with festive leftovers, which were always handy and just as delicious when people were hungry. Christmas suddenly stopped being a stress-filled giant production, full of deadlines and became a time of relaxation.

The changes have kept Christmas our favourite time of year.