Slow and Simple Tips To Bring Peace This Holiday Season

Back again with more holiday drama? Not here at House of Eilers. Well, not intentional drama anyway! 😉 The holiday bustle seems to bring enough of that on its own!

Here are a few ways I give myself a much needed break during the holiday season as a busy mom of four little ones. But still keep up our most important holiday traditions!

1. Ditch Perfection

Beautiful + Pinterest Perfect Christmas, is that you, knocking at our front door? Sorry pal, you aren’t welcome here! B.K. (before kids), I found so much joy in creating photo worthy holiday moments. But alas, with all things children, grace prevails. Besides… I’ll take these cuties in a picture with a hodgepodge tree any day over the latter.

In all seriousness, we need to ditch the perfection vibe because it’s simply not realistic anymore. Motherhood comes with enough pressures as is, yes? So maybe we can set down our Super Santa capes and chill this year instead? Let’s vow to make 2020 a perfectly imperfect Christmas!

2. Ask The Kids

So often we think we need to do all of the activities and traditions for our children. But we are forgetting an important part. Do they even want to?! To slow down the stress of too many activities, I like to ask our kids what THEY want to do to celebrate the holidays!

This year when I asked, I was so surprised at their top choices: family game night, singing Christmas carols, coloring projects, snuggly movie time, and playing in the snow. Literally none of the things I thought they’d say!

What does this mean? There are lots of things I can ditch off my mom-list. Win Win! Join me on Instagram this week as I share a few practical and simple sustainable crafts we will be doing in our home leading up to Christmas! Things that stay fun, and ditch the complication.

3. Keep Realistic Expectations

Often as moms, we feel the need to include the kids in each step of the holiday process. But if our to do list is overwhelming to us, imagine how all these tasks feel to a child?!

Case in point, holiday baking. It’s arguably the biggest tradition in our family, and we love the end result so we don’t want to skip it.

But during this busy season of life, it’s okay to take shortcuts.

Having four littles means an all day bake-a-thon is basically a realllllllly horrible idea. So what do I do? Revert to Tip #2. I ask the kids which part of holiday baking they like most!

I could buy premade cutouts! But I also want to recognize the aspects of the tradition that I love. So this year I’ll be prepping the dough after bedtime, in the peace and quiet of my empty kitchen. I’ll be accompanied by a good bevvie + the soothing voices of any Christmas song NOT produced by KidzBopz. And. It. Will. Be. Glorious.

4. Choose Slow Progress

It’s super easy to get caught up in our to do lists and go full throttle during the holiday busyness. So let’s slow it down a little bit!

GOING SIMPLE TIP :: Wishing for a relaxed + easy Christmas morning? Then be intentional, and choose slow!

CLICK HERE for simple tips to pump the breaks and take your time with Christmas morning!

When you are feeling like a Hectic Holly this season, take a step back. And reset.

First, cover your daily tasks and rhythms. It’s extra hard to make progress on holiday goals if the home is falling apart around us.

Then, choose one holiday task that is reasonable to achieve. Now, try again. I like to keep a running holiday task list in my accountability planner. That way my brain doesn’t have to hold the responsibility. When I find a free moment, I check my list and pick a realistic task to tackle. Go slow.

5. Build Smart Traditions

The excitement + anticipation of a holiday pumps my kids energy levels through the roof! In hopes of holding my sanity to a reasonable standard, I offer them easy, independent holiday projects.

Busy little hands in the days leading up to Christmas save me! When they get hyper, I redirect them to a holiday workbook. Nothing fancy here, just a bunch of printables mixed together, stapled into a book. Find the printables I grabbed this year, here on my Pinterest board!

On Christmas Eve we are going to break out the holiday tablecloth from The Coloring Table. It’ll be so fun to color together as a family throughout the day. And so productive, as they get super antsy with anticipation! The best part is it’s washable, so we can reuse it every year!

Use Coupon Code COLORING2020 for 25% off everything on The Coloring Table’s website through 12/20/2020!

6. Make Room For Emotions

Kids + Anything = Big Emotions. There is simply no way around it. I’m a meek six years into motherhood, so answering their emotional needs is still a major work in progress for me. Then again, does it ever get easier?!

Recently during a Mom Chat Monday, we spoke to Dr. Siggie Cohen, Child Development Specialist about all things Holiday + Big Emotions and Boundaries. She gave so many insightful tips to help navigate emotions for our little ones, especially this year when things are feeling different.

If you haven’t yet, you can catch this quick 18 minute bonus episode by WATCHING here or LISTENING here!

One of my favorite tips… the holiday season exists, even with the struggles 2020 has piled on top of it. Reminding our kids, and ourselves, that the spirit for this holiday will remain no matter what the world may look like is a great way to focus our attention on what really matters this holiday season.

I hope this post finds you well and gives some needed rest to your heart. I wish you all the best holiday this year. And thank you so much for spending time in this space with me.

Happy Holidays!

xo