Christmas Chaos

Every year I make myself a promise to slow down and enjoy the season. But every year I have a really hard time keeping that promise. It is so easy to get wrapped up in gift buying and decorating and class parties and work parties and ornament exchanges and cookie making...did I mention the gift buying? Then you gotta wrap those gifts and mail them off (one day I will learn to buy ALL out of towner gifts online so I don't have to deal with the post office- but alas I have not fully learned that life lesson yet). It just seems to never end! I know a lot of it is just where we are in life- two elementary aged kids- so the Santa thing and the class parties are part of life right now- and I don't want to rush through it. I already have one who has lost a bit of that Christmas magic twinkle in his eye, I know before long I'll be the mom of two kids who have figured it all out. But I what I can't seem to figure out is how to get things done without all the stress. Is it possible? Or is it just the nature of the beast? It's important for my family to enjoy the stuff that goes with the secular Christmas- the cookies and the gifts and the cards and the parties, but I also want my kids to understand and honor the true meaning of the season as well... it takes effort to get all that information in! LOL! Hopefully I will figure things out year by year. Maybe by the time they are in college I will have my Christmas act together.