Baby steps: Staying sane during the holidays

It's the most wonderful time of the year, Christmas! Not only is Christmas a joyous time to step back and remember the reason for the season and spend time reflecting with family ... Oh, who am I kidding? Christmas is just another reason for moms to overbook and overschedule themselves and their families.

Christmas should be a time where you step back and reflect on Jesus and enjoy the company of your family, but if you are like me, Christmas is actually more busy than any other time of the year. You not only have your normal meetings, school events and extracurriculars, but you also now have Christmas parties for work, family and friends. If you are me you have indoor soccer games all month, caroling at church, church Christmas programs and extra barges that come in and leave you one man down during this busy time.

Not only does it seem that the things you have to do grow exponentially in December, but also the extra things, the things that make this time of year joyous, fill your calendar up, too. There is the Downtown Open House, Hutson's Christmas window, the holiday light display at Cape County Park, the new display at Jackson Park, Breakfast with Santa and the list goes on and on.

So what do you do to keep your sanity this busy yet magical time of year? You delegate, you pray and you remind yourself that it is OK to miss or skip something. You are Super Mom, but you aren't Wonder Woman, so back it up and reprioritize.

For me, it was realizing that I was not crazy and I was not taking a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old to the Downtown Christmas Open House alone. Instead, we enjoyed a quiet evening at home, drank hot chocolate and watched "Frosty the Snowman." It was extremely hard for me to let go of the open house. We do it every year, and the kids love it. That free picture with Santa is so worth the crowds and cold. But with Max working this year, I realized that it wouldn't be the same, and trying to keep track of two little kids in those huge crowds would have stressed me out, and made the event not fun but work.

I let it go, and yes, we were sad, but not losing a child and staying warm in our house cuddling made up for it. You don't have to do everything, just do what you do well and step back to enjoy it.