Tag: Merry Christmas

Old-Fashioned Christmas Traditions

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Joyful Holidays.

Don’t you just love old-fashioned Christmas traditions? When I was growing up, we had a plethora of traditions in our family. Many of them were based on our Eastern European heritage, including our rich religious practices. Others were based on Santa Claus, decorations, cookies, presents, and Christmas trees. And of course, there was always an endless parade of company coming over to visit. The visits were always planned, and my mother would prepare well in advance. She would set out extravagant trays of her home-baked cookies (which were legendary) along with appetizers, finger food, coffee and adult beverages. Visitors never popped over unexpectedly. Well almost never. Until one Christmas Eve. My mother had already had me and my 2 older sisters bathed and ready for bed, which included...

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Quick Tips for Stress-Less Holidays

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Joyful Holidays.

I love the holidays. It’s a magical time of year. However, along with the excitement and eager anticipation comes a significant amount of stress and anxiety. After all, no matter how carefully we plan our holiday festivities, sometimes they don’t always work out quite like we planned. The warm, cozy evenings with friends and family, the carefree winter days spent playing with the kids in the snow, out of town family coming to visit, and the fun-filled weekends at the shopping mall sound wonderful in theory. And then reality hits.  Let’s face it–the holidays can be an awful lot of work. Also, high expectations can lead to deep disappointments, especially when we invest so much of ourselves and our time making this the perfect holiday season for everyone else. Even...

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