9 Old-Fashioned Tips for a Simpler Christmas That Feels Better

I love the Christmas season, but sometimes I wonder why we feel the need to make everything bigger, better, and flashier each year. Maybe you don’t feel that way, but my wife and I are grappling with this feeling that we’re just barely keeping our heads above water, and I’d like that to change.

When I think back to my childhood, that is not the feeling I get about the holidays. Our family traditions were humble but packed with so much fun and meaning. In fact, I think my fondest childhood memories mostly revolve around those month-long celebrations between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Now that my wife and I are parents, we want to re-capture that magic and of course, the simplest path forward is just to stop trying so hard. I don’t mean stop doing things with our children, I mean lower the bar and enjoy the simpler things of life.

With that introduction, here are a few simple, old-fashioned tips we’ll be keeping in mind and trying to implement in our home. I hope you find them useful (or at least interesting) in your own quest to live a more meaningful life.

Focus on relationships, not activities

I have a lot of fond memories of childhood Christmases, and it’s not because they were full of action or out-of-the-world travel. The memories are sweet, especially the one with me and my siblings playing together around the Christmas tree, because we were soaking in long stretches of unrushed time together. That’s what I want to gift to my kids.

Use the stuff you have

One of the simplest ways you can reduce stress in your life is by reducing the number of decisions you need to make. Money often isn’t the issue— it’s deciding what to buy and then managing all that stuff. Instead of buying more junk, our plan this year is to dust off our old board games, cook old family recipes, and decorate our home with stuff we already own.

Settle for good enough

It seems that the more option I have in my life, the more that dissatisfaction grows. I see this effect play out in the Christmas season where I often want just one more decoration for the tree, or one more snack for the party, or one more present under the tree. There’s a simple fix to all my striving, and that’s just to stop. I can choose to be thankful for what we have and content with however much we can accomplish.

Schedule lots of rest

Many people I know, including my wife and I, use their extra free time during winter break just to get more stuff done. This makes sense as a trade-off, but it means you’re trading rest for the possibility of future rest, and we all know how often that really happens. Instead, why not fill your days with the people and things you love right now, and don’t spend so much energy thinking about tomorrow.

Use screens strategically

I think there’s a place for screens in the modern world, including streaming TV shows and video games, but I hate seeing my kids fall into the same traps as their parents. Too often the screen is a distraction or an easy way out of boredom, and what we really need is just to sit with those feelings and let them pass. Use screens, but decide ahead of time and use them intentionally.

Give experiences, not stuff

There’s so much research that shows the way to buy happiness is to buy experiences rather than stuff. And yet, each year, my wife and I find ourselves buying our kids more and more stuff. It’s not that we don’t do other things with them, it’s just that the buying has gotten out of control. We want to pull this back and instead, gift to our kids the kinds of memories that they’ll take with them for the rest of their lives.

Spend more time outdoors

The older I get, the more I think I was born in the wrong time. I love simplicity and nostalgia, and I think nothing captures those feelings better than being outside. Strolling through the neighborhood with my wife, walking along the creek with our children, or watching the robins jump from branch to branch— these experiences are among my favorites. It’s crazy to imagine that they’re free to all of us, and yet we don’t take more advantage of them.

Lean into nostalgia

If you’ve read my writing for any length of time, you’ll know that I am a big fan of nostalgia. I love anything from the past, and I love the idea of collecting happy memories over the course of my life. If you’re looking for a way to make your Christmas simpler, while not giving up that feeling of “specialness,” I recommend leaning into nostalgia as well. The flip side of nostalgia is not, of course, sentimentalism or avoiding anything new— it’s merely adopting the timeless attitude of approaching the wonders of life with childlike wonder.

Give homemade gifts

One of the biggest items on our family’s to-do list each year is to find great gifts for all our kids. It turns out, there’s an easy way to reduce this workload while adding a big dose of meaning. Why not make each other homemade gifts? This could be something that took time to prepare or a small hack you made to improve a room in your house. These kinds of gifts are not only cheaper, they tend to be more meaningful because they were made with a specific person in mind.

Raise a glass to simplicity

At the end of another year, when everything is done and dusted, it’s natural to look back and evaluate how things went. And if you’re like me, you notice that most of the things that mattered weren’t really things you bought or tasks you got done, but the ways you lit up the world with the simple pleasures of old-fashioned living.

Our lives might be a bit more sophisticated these days, but they’ll always be rooted in the basic joys of eating and laughing with friends and loved ones we cherish. Here’s to another year of chasing good times with good friends and living a life of simple contentment.