It’s official. The Christmas season is upon us.

The Christmas Tour of Homes is in two weeks. December 14th we’ll all come here and share how we decorate for Christmas. But remember, it’s not a contest~no perfect decorations allowed.

This coming week we’ll talk about garland and decorating Christmas trees and other not-that-important-in-the-scope-of-life-things. Keeping in mind the balance of wanting to have a festive home and at the same time, staying in budget, enjoying the family, and celebrating the real reason for the season.

I know here we talk about all the things we are doing to make our home beautiful. So I thought I’d change it up and tell you what I’m not doing this year.

I’m not sending out Christmas cards. {Ok, so I’m still having some made to hand to people that I see in real life but no long list and stamps and stuff} I’m not putting The Most Wonderful Christmas Garland Ever on my mantle. I’m not sewing new stockings for us and I’m not buying any dumb junk gifts.

Here’s what I am doing.

I am making PW’s Cinnamon Rolls with my mom and sister next week. {I am going to gain 5 pounds like I did the first time we made them}. I am going to put colored lights up in my boy’s rooms. I am going to sit around and watch Home Alone with the family even though we’ve seen it a thousand times and I could be catching up on laundry. I am going to give gifts that are needed, beautiful and have meaning–handmade lovelies, food, books, useful items. I am going to put as many reminders around our home that Emmanuel, God with us, is the reason we celebrate.

I just ordered this Nativity with my hard earned money {it’s on sale!}. I realized that we have NO nativity in our house for some reason–maybe because the wise men always become fans in the grand stand at our table top NASCAR races? Not only is my new silhouette nativity beautiful, it quietly tells the Christmas story. I think I will want to keep it out all year.

My sister and her twins at my parent’s house at Thanksgiving

I also gave these sweet Jesus is the Gift aprons to my sister and her girls. I have a feeling they’ll be wearing them next weekend when we make our get fat cakes, I mean cinnamon rolls. What a beautiful reminder that Jesus is the Gift.

I will be gifting a hostess with this beautiful Jesus is the gift platter. I’ll also give gifts of food wrapped in these pretty hand towels and use the mugs to hold these dipped candy canes and homemade hot cocoa mix {a sweet gift that only costs about $5!} One of my favorite things to do when we are invited to a Christmas party, is to leave the dish that I brought our appetizer or cookies in, for the hostess. I’ll put a note on the back thanking them for inviting us and telling them to keep the dish or pass it to the next lucky person.

Now I want to know what you are NOT doing this season. Three lucky people will win a pair of adult and child Jesus is the Gift aprons to use or give away. Special thanks to DaySpring for providing the aprons and sponsoring this post but even more, for providing beautiful, meaningful gifts for us to give and use this season.

cookie plate: only $10.99

Two winners will be picked randomly from the comments {make sure you have an email address if you don’t have a blog}

One winner will be picked from Twitter for tweeting about what you are not doing and linking to this post and adding in @thenester so I’ll see your tweet.