Simplified Gift-Giving: Practical Ideas

Hi Friends! Over the years I’ve called my Christmas home decor ‘simple’, ‘minimalistic’, etc. I don’t like a lot of fuss - not over the holidays or in our every day life. But it got me thinking there’s got to be a way to simplify beyond the decor, too! Celebrating Christmas with kids can get chaotic and out of control fast. Starting a few years ago I’ve had this pull on my heart to simplify not just our home, but the way we celebrate, too. Careful not to read that wrong - I don’t want to celebrate Christmas less, just simplify it. More emphasis on less things, if that makes sense. Gifts are a really fun way to celebrate that Jesus was born for what would be the greatest act of love in history, and I love the opportunity to give gifts as an expression of our joy and gratitude. But they don’t need to occupy so much mind and heart space as they have for me in previous years. It can get stressful fast!

It was when we got together with our small group from church several years back to pack shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, that a light bulb went off! Here is the list that was attached to each box:

I love this outlined structure and it got us thinking about making our own for celebrating Christmas with our kids! Here is what we came up with a few years ago:

•         Wow - One really special item the kids most want. We ask them each to give this some thought and write it down

•         Special surprises - A couple of smaller items that have either come up in conversation or we’ve thought of on our own as something they’d really enjoy, (doll clothes, race cars, cozy blanket, special mug, etc)

•         Game/Book/Puzzle - This is especially relevant in the dead of winter when outdoor time decreases

•         Experience - This one only works if you follow through, so be realistic with your family’s schedule and your capacity. We’ve found that planning it out ahead of time works better so they have something specific to look forward to. Doesn’t have to be big! Even surprising your kids with tickets to a movie you all go see on Christmas Day could be fun! (Except not a sad movie - I will never forget the year my parents took us all to see Marley & Me on Christmas Day. Spoiler alert: SADNESS)

•         Winter Pjs - I used to love finding fun pajamas that were relevant to each of their interests/personalities! Now that they’re a little older, flannel pj pants are in. I also like to throw in slippers or warm socks.

•         Creativity - Our kids have really, really loved creating things. They are always in the middle of making something, and this has gone on literally for years. Things like construction or patterned scrapbook paper, markers, colored pencils, tape, and craft scissors always get used up fast, and Christmas is a great opportunity to replenish their supply. Books on how to draw things or make things are hits, too.

• Handwritten note - An addition I’m adding this year because I don’t think there’s any greater way to touch your kids’ heart than telling them why you love them, why you’re proud of them, and why they’re special. Be specific so you can do this again next year with new whys.

Christmas shopping has been a lot less stressful so far, and more enjoyable. Oh! And a huge part of preparing our hearts, (and home), for the season is cleaning out and donating old stuff! Every November I ask the kids to commit an hour to going through their toys/books/clothes and bagging up what they have lost interest in (Tip: Set a loud timer for one hour. One hour isn’t a lot of time, but I ask them to set that time aside for this specific task. Usually, when focused, they end up finishing ahead of the timer and feel good about that. It’s a small way of setting them up for success, because I know it won’t take them an hour.) And when they’re on the fence about something I know they haven’t touched in a while, I try to redirect their focus to the kid that would have the opportunity to enjoy that item next.

Maybe you already have your own gift-giving structure, or maybe this is helpful! After trying it for a few years I feel more peace about shopping for gifts than I used to. With inflation doing what it’s doing to retail, I felt compelled to share this again for others working within a strict budget.

However you celebrate I hope you enjoy these next few weeks! There can be so much pressure on creating that perfect Christmas morning that this month between Thanksgiving and Christmas goes by in a blur. Give yourself permission to slow it down. No one but you will notice what you don’t get done, and that’s a truth I need to remind myself of often.

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

'Shire Green', SW

Hello, sweet friends! Well we are just barreling through the seasons here, aren’t we? Aspects of this new weird normal feel like a marathon, but I’m also getting seasonal amnesia - you know how sometimes when you’re driving and you end up back home but hardly remember how you got there? (this IS normal, ask around) That’s how the seasons are kind of feeling. The pandemic started when the weather was still cool in March, then we blew through Summer and are rounding the corner to Fall and the air is turning crisp. How’d we get here? I, for one, don’t intend to barrel through the Fall. I quite enjoy this season and we intend to take full advantage of all of its sweet gifts.

Since March work has increased, schools have closed, I released my Interior Design Starter Guide, and we finally started letting Albus upstairs to our bedroom level. Those are the highlights in a nutshell! In all seriousness, what has been hard about this season has also been met with all that is rich and precious about it at the same time. Life has been busy on an other worldly level, but at the same time there is nothing like being with my family to fill my cup. Gratitude has not escaped me and I know that is a direct gift from the Lord.

Towards the end of Summer Matt and I suddenly realized we had no established work spaces for our kids to do virtual school from this year. We thrust ourselves into creating functional desk areas in their rooms in time before the first day of school (yesterday!), and I’m relieved to share we got it done! It was a stretch, but done. Re-working Shire’s room to even make space for a desk was a challenge. But for me challenge and opportunity are synonymous and we really had a ton of fun! Since we were going to be moving things around I asked Shire if she wanted a fresh color which was an instant and surprising “YES!”

She’s loved her pink for several years, but she shares my curiosity and joy in creativity and wanted to try out green. After many swatches and samples, she ended up mixing two colors from Sherwin Williams and got to name it!

‘Shire Green’ is soft and minty with just a slight touch of gray. It’s perfectly dreamy; and so fun that our girl got to create it!

We went 3/4 the way up the wall, just like we did with the pink, but added vertical trim for some cozy texture and needed visual interest for such a light color. Before we added the trim it kind of just blended with the white, so I love that the trim work establishes the two colors.

Her bedding and curtains didn’t change, but it’s fun to see how the new color plays off both. Everything else in the room is new, new to us, built or on loan!

The light is a sweet borrow from Cate who used the pair in her master bedroom a few years ago and I love that it can bend out of the way when not in use!

Since Shire specifically requested her bed be placed in this nook (we were originally going to put the desk in the nook), we needed a slim nightstand solution, which Matt created out of scrap wood in our garage.

The desk is a piece we found at Target (linked here), and the chair I created from two Facebook Marketplace pieces I found, and the shelves….oh, those shelves. I really wanted corner shelves here so she could get as much up on shelves as possible, but it turns out the studs on this wall are every 24”, which didn’t work for your standard brackets. We found these horizontal brackets online (linked here), and while they ended up being the only possible way we could hang shelves where we wanted them, they felt like a visual eye-sore. Very garage-y looking. But honestly, as soon as I got her stuff up on them they grew on me!

That gorgeous mirror we’ll call a temporary trade - we loaned all our weight lifting equipment to my brother and Cate as soon as the gyms closed, and we got their mirror for when my sister was staying with us earlier in the pandemic. Weights for a mirror - not a bad deal! The dresser I am going to hold off on sharing because Shire and I have plans in place for the piece. She and I had searched all Summer for a refinishing project we could tackle together, and that cutie showed up just last week on FB Marketplace for a steal. It’s the perfect shape for our inspiration, (see here - of course, the project will be entirely dependent on our skills, so who knows where we’ll end up!)

Have you been cornered into updating any parts of your home during this time of COVID? Or simply taken on any refreshes in the name of creativity? Drop your project(s) in a comment below! Would love to hear what you all have been up to?

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Childhood Unleashed

You don’t even have to say it - this is WAY out in left field for a home design/decor blog. But Cate and I have never promised not to discuss other topics if they are close to our heart, and if you’ve been hanging around with us on this blog for a little while you’ve probably seen a heart post here or there. To cut right to it, I had no plan to write a blog post on this topic until taking my son, Colin, to his 10 year check-up last month!

It began with the doctor asking Colin some standard questions about school, home, life, etc. But the questions started to get more specific and directed toward how Colin and his friends regularly socialize. What he was driving at, I realized, was whether it’s more digital or IRL, (in real life). The doctor said many informed pediatricians are adding questions regarding how children socialize to their well-check protocol. When Colin answered that he usually plays outside with friends after his homework and on weekends, the doctor was absolutely blown away. He said he had just come back from a large pediatric conference at Stanford where the primary discussion was of the growing concern for the amount of time children spend on screens, and it’s longterm social affect. I admitted that my kids spend so little time on devices that it became apparent to us by the time the twins were in 2nd grade that they were technologically behind. They just weren’t as proficient on computers as their peers and it was affecting their grades, (many tests are on computers so we had to work through some anxiety our kids were experiencing there). The doctor balked and said they have plenty of time to learn computers, but the skills they’re learning from face-to-face play with friends outside is foundational in their development.

I don’t typically see the world in terms of right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, so when it comes to child development and parenting advice, even coming from a pediatrician, I take it all with a grain of salt. But I do think it’s worth noting that this discussion of screentime is gaining momentum, and when a topic hits popularity like this I try to see if there is anything I can learn from it, even if I don’t agree with every aspect.

As I mentioned, our family is in a unique position where we already spend a ton of time off screens are actually working on helping our kids become more comfortable with devices. We’re getting there, but my kids just naturally prefer face-to-face play. As parents, there are always thing we are working on; new challenges seem to present themselves every week! We have a lot that we are working on, but outdoor play and in-person socializing is not one of them. So, I thought maybe by sharing some helpful things that have made it really natural and easy for my kids to want to be outside that this post could help others facing this particular issue! It’s really a lot of little things, some big, but all have added up and resulted in three VERY different children choosing to play outside with friends in their free time. So here we go!

Location. I would be leaving out a gigantic detail if I didn’t tell you up front that we live in a fantastic neighborhood stocked with children and away from main roads. When our twins were 8 months old and we were pregnant with Mason, Matt and I started looking for a family home. We lived in an apartment just outside of Washington D.C. and I remember discussing with Matt what direction we should move. I desperately wanted to try the city life. I fantasized about raising my kids in the city; I loved walking out and about with my kids, I was good at using the metro system - in my imagination we were so chic! But Matt felt really strongly about going deeper into the DC suburbs and I told him I was open to looking. For several months I would pack up the twin babies and meet our realtor to look at houses in our price range. Each one was crummier than the last. But when we stepped into our current house 10 years ago, it felt right. More importantly, the price was great. Funny thing is, we moved into our house without ever driving up the street. We had NO idea this was a three cul-de-sac neighborhood, meaning there would never be any traffic cutting through. We had no idea there were only 50 houses. Or that it was lined with sidewalks. We really hit the jackpot. God is so good. So, location is relevant to why my kids love playing outside. Since babyhood we have been able to utilize our yard, these sidewalks. This precise spot has made it very easy to spend time outside safely. You are where you are, but if you’re in a position of considering your next move, location can make outdoor play incredibly easy…or riddled with challenge.

Teach by example. When our kids started school we really found out just how many kids are in this neighborhood. The bus stop was like a party. But that’s how we started getting to know other families and building trust with each other. Matt and I have always really enjoyed playing outside with our kids.. Eventually, other kids from the neighborhood would trickle down to see what we 'were playing. Over a short period of time we got to know several families really well in our neighborhood and now the kids all play in various yards. Sometimes it’s our house, sometimes it’s up the street. But I think that getting outside ourselves, especially early on, created this interest in just being outside.

The above are more your broad, general ideas, The following get into the nitty gritty details that make a difference for us on a practical, daily basis.

‘Play clothes’. This is an entirely personal issue so feel free to glaze over it, but it matters to me that my kids put an effort into what they wear to school. Not just for the phsychological connection between feeling put together and doing your best, but for the message it sends the teachers and staff at the school; that their time and efforts matter to our family. But it is HARD to keep school clothes looking presentable when they are also worn for outdoor play. My kids play like there’s no tomorrow, and their clothes take a beating because of it. So to make things easier on everyone, we keep a stash of play clothes. These are the items that are outgrown but still work, (you know what I mean), items that are ripped. If I see sweats at a thrift store that will fit my kids or there’s a super sale going on somewhere, I try to stock up. They just go through pants so fast. But with a reserved stash of play clothes they’re free to be wild!

Stock the right toys. Whether alone or playing with friends, there are some outdoor toys that have been serious home runs, many of which to my surprise! Here is a list of regularly used items:

• Chalk - even at 10 years old my kids will still get out the chalk, but not as much for drawing anymore! They’re all about 4-Square these days, and from that they invented a new game they call Circle Ball.

• Balls - soccer, football, basketball and kickball. We have baseball and bat, but the neighborhood wide favorites are probably soccer and football.

• Basketball hoop - a neighbor with older kids gave us his. Also easy to find on facebook marketplace.

• Jump-ropes - but they’ll never be used as jump-ropes

Those are really THE go-tos. We have a garage full of things that also come out once in a while, but the above are easily the fan favorites. But if the kids want to trampoline or play on a playground, they go up the street to neighbors. :)

In addition to these things that have made uninhibited outdoor play so natural and free, it’s also relevant to point out that our kids didn’t really grow up with devices. My husband and I never gave our kids our phones or anything to occupy them while out. From doctors offices to grocery shopping, whether with one kid or all three, we just didn’t give them a device for amusement, (oh - except for that time my daughters lip was hanging off her mouth and had to have it stitched back in place - Matt played Arthur for her on his phone). They would amuse themselves by their environment, or me, or each other…they learned patience during boring errands and self-control when they wanted to lose it. Not to perfection, (I’ve experienced on-the-floor meltdowns in the middle of a store), but enough that I could 100% trust my toddlers out of our house, and ultimately, thoroughly enjoy them.

If your child(ren) struggles to enjoy free time apart from a screen, or if your instincts are telling you this is something you’d like to work on with them, please don’t feel discouraged! Discouragement is usually my initial reaction when I’m realizing something that we need to work on, (i.e. For about 5 seconds I felt bad when discovering our kids weren’t as proficient in computers), but trust me, these transitions are possible. They just take some time! Consistency helps, but even then, it is a process. My kids are now caught up to 2020 and comfortable with all kinds of devices! It took practice, but they got there. Their preference is to play without them, but there is no longer fear. And that, my friends, is a good feeling.

Thank you so much for taking the time to come by today!