Hello!  
It has been a full month already with activities and events we have had going on and with all of that, I have not got any baking done, my homemade gifts finished, or finished my list for the Grandkids, so I have to push pause on a few other things I have going on so that I can be present with my family and friends.  Yes, this means that the rough draft of my book won’t be done by the end of the year, but I am ok with that knowing that I am putting my most important values ahead of everything else.
 
I don’t want you to stress out if you need to do this as well.  I was having a hard time concentrating on writing the last few weeks because of all the things I still need to do as well as making this season as special as possible for my family and this may be you as well.  You might not be writing a book, but I’m sure you are doing things that you really don’t need to do right now so that you can enjoy intentional time with family and friends.  Christmas only comes once a year, so I am giving you permission to say no to things that do not align with your values and bring you joy right now.
 
This last weekend we went to a Christian Camp that we do every year with kids and Grandkids that have all kinds of Christmas activities to do and it is only 3 hours long with so many things to do and because it is spread out and we do alot of walking, we have to really decide what is important to us to do in that 3 hours because you can’t get to everything.  It got me thinking about how this is how we should look at this whole season as well and enjoy the moments that we truely enjoy and make sure we priorize because we truely can’t do it all ~and certainly not without stress and overwhelm.  I will say, one thing that I don’t enjoy is wrapping presents.  I love love love to give meaningful gifts or experiences, but wrapping is not my favorite and right now my teenagers enjoy it, so I will give them gifts to wrap so that I can focus on the things I love and it is a win win for all of us!  Funny thing is that I have put some of their gifts in boxes and they have even wrapped their own presents some years without even knowing it!!!!!  I’m so grateful my girls also like doing the baking, so we all do that together and then the grandkids decorate their own that they get to bring home~because there is alot of finger licking at their young ages when they decorate!!!!
 
I want you to think if there is something you have been doing that you could put off until the new year?  I promise….most things can wait and our time is so precious.
 
I did want to tell you that I will be doing the no spend challenge again this year in January!  This time I am going to try and spend even less money on groceries if possible and get creative with what I have.  I don’t have quite as much canned food as we had previous years since we didn’t have a garden this year because of the move, so this might be even more challenging, but on an exciting note, we are getting more eggs these last 2 weeks than we have gotten since july, so at least we should have eggs!  We will see how many different ways we can fix them with sourdough and pork because we have lots of that!!! I would love to have you join me if you are ready to cut spending and live more intentional!  Just send me an email to monica@claimingsimplicity.com and write no spend challenge in the subject line and I will add you to the group!!!!!!!!!



I hope you are able to pause and enjoy celebrating the birth of Jesus and intentional living with family and friends this time of the year.
 
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Chat soon!
Monica