How to have minimalist (and environmentally friendly) holiday season

If you are like me, the holidays can really invoke stress and anxiety. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the holidays and everything (mostly) that surrounds them. I look forward to November and December, the parties, the food, the socializing, and the merriment. What I do not look forward to is the consumerism, the waste, and my personal overwhelmed feelings around clutter. As much as I love Christmas decorations, they overwhelm the crap out of me! They make the space feel extra cluttered at a time of the year when you are mostly inside anyway. And since having a child, this has gotten even worse. I think my number one reason in striving for a minimalist lifestyle stems from clutter/stuff and the stress and anxiety it makes me feel. I cannot function around so much stuff.

So that brings me to ways that I have developed and continue to develop in order to keep the holidays simple and fairly minimal. (Disclaimer: I am not a real 100% minimalist, though I do my best.)

Christmas Tree:
-Buy a fake tree and use it year after year. This saves the trees and allows you to select whatever size tree you prefer. For us, it is a small tree we keep in the back of our closet. In past years we had a real tree, but due to Andy's allergies and his environmentalist push (he does work in solar energy after all), we went the fake tree route and have been happy with it. (You can still go to a Christmas tree farm, take pictures, drink cocoa, and soak up the merriment without ever cutting a tree down.)

Decorations:
-Get ONE rubbermaid container and use that as your limit for holiday decorations and "stuff". I only have as many decorations as will fit into my rubbermaid. I bought the container for holiday decorations and if I acquire more decorations and they don't fit, then something else has to go. I have a strict one storage container rule for decorations.

Wrapping Gifts:
-Use newspaper. Wrapping paper is bought by the hoards only to be ripped, crumpled, and thrown into the trash. I bet most people don't even recycle it! Newspaper, or those grocery store ads that come in the mail are not only free, but are papers that have already been recycled. If you feel the need to jazz it up add a flashy bow, then save the bow to use again next year after the gift has been opened.

Door Wreath:
-Make your own from foraged greenery outside. Or, use a regular everyday wreath and just slap a red bow on it. When the holidays are over just take the bow off and continue using your wreath.

Gifts:
-This one really gets me going! As much as I love to give and receive gifts, the consumerism kills me. In fact, Andy and I haven't bought Hazel any Christmas gifts until this year because we knew she'd get gifts from other family members. (And she was/is too young to really care.)
So here are some less consumerist gift giving ideas:

• White elephant - my family does white elephant but with nice gifts. Everyone has a $25 limit to buy one nice gift that most family members would enjoy. Then, on Christmas morning we play White Elephant. It is always so much fun, it involves great, often hilarious interactions with each other, and in the end everyone walks away with a nice gift. (Usually kids are excluded from this and everyone has the option to buy them individual gifts. Not ideal, but it works.)
• Draw a name - then you are only buying a gift for that one person.
• Draw a name thrift store version - this is what Andy's family does when the extended family visits for Christmas. Everyone draws a name, then we load up into cars and spend a few hours at one or two thrift stores. We each have a $15 limit to find our person something we think they would like. After the gifts are wrapped and given, we have the option to trade or re-donate the gifts back to the thrift store if we don't like them.
• Thrift store gifts - only buy gifts from the thrift store. This year we bought Hazel gifts for the first time and they came from the thrift store! We found some really great games that weren't even opened yet.
• Donate money or time instead of giving gifts.
• Give gift certificates for experiences or subscriptions.
• Use the 3 gift rule - Give something they want + need + wear or read. This is what Andy I usually do for each other.
• Give one really nice gift. Andy and I did this last year and will do it again this year. 
• Give food - this could be in the form of a gift certificate to a nice restaurant, or a subscription to a food service like Sunbasket. Or, just fill a stocking full of fun and unique food items. Andy and I like to shop at an international food store to find unique food stocking stuffers for each other.
• Give handmade gifts - get crafty, go on pinterest and find a batch of something to make and give to everyone on your list. I have a friend that gets homemade vanilla from her brother every Christmas. My mom always sends a little box of homemade snacks, jewelry, and other fun things for Christmas. One year she made us cloth napkins with artsy napkin holders that represented each of us.

So try out one or all of these ways to keep the holidays minimal. Then, spend your days eating great food and having quality time with the people you love.

The benefits of moving often (yes we are moving again)

It is no secret that I LOVE to move! Maybe it stems from growing up as a missionary kid where we traveled and moved all the time OR, maybe I just hate commitment. (Though, that's another post altogether!) Either way, I am lucky to be married to Andy because he enjoys moving just as much as I do. We will see where Hazel falls on the moving spectrum...

So, why move after we put a whole years worth of work into renovating our current house?? Ha, why not? Andy and I have a pretty decent track record of moving every two years. We just so happen to hit the two year mark for our current house this June, so we figured it was time to move on. I have been dying to get back to the neighborhood where I grew up (old town, right next to downtown) and this move is going to take us there. We bought one big old house that is actually a duplex. No, it does not need any work. Yes, we will be landlords. The plan is to live in one half of the house and rent the other half. It should be interesting, but we are excited for a new adventure. This time, it is an adventure in being landlords! We are also excited to be spending LESS time working on a house and MORE time outside, downtown, and just enjoying life in general.

But really, there are huge benefits to moving often. The more I move, the more I enjoy it and realize how good it is. I feel like moving houses (or apartments) cleanses my head, my soul, my life. Yes, I may be weird, but I do believe there is something to it! When we move, it forces us to reevaluate everything. In order to pack our things we (Andy and I) first have to go through everything that we own and figure out what is worth making the move, and what isn't. I learned this the hard way when we moved across the US to California and took everything without evaluating first. Now, I know to sort through everything we have accumulated and keep only the useful important things, while getting rid of the rest. This allows us to move with a clean slate.

I have written posts before about living a minimalist lifestyle, but I often forget to take my own advice. It isn't until we move that I remember my minimalist desires. So with each move, I am able to think minimal again. I can see all of our things and decide which bring me joy, which do I use often, and then discard the rest. There is no sense in keeping things that I do not use. With each move, there is a large purge, and with each purge I get a sense of lightness and freedom from "stuff". It is fantastic! Almost addictive for me. Thus the moving every two years, I guess.