Honoring my husband during the holidays. . .

I will be the first to say that I need to work on this area. I just LOVE the holidays and I am one of those who want to do it all. I need to be reminded to slow down and be careful to choose those things our family is involved in very carefully. I agree that including your husband in the planning is always helpful, even in general all throughout the year. I think communicating with our husbands helps keep us on the same page and also keeps us both in check on what we want to be prioritizing in our life and for our family.

Early in our marriage we decided to not do much in the way of gifts for any holiday/birthday. We decided we wanted to celebrate things throughout the year, going out to eat, buying something when we wanted it, instead of keeping it all for one or two days out of the year. I think it has helped us enjoy the holidays more because our expectations are not on what are we going to get or how “big” our day is, but on celebrating as a family, celebrating each other. I will admit that is was harder for my husband than for me. We live in a world that portrays a good husband as going all out during the holiday/birthday-basically that is the way he shows his love. I think that is so sad. I do not want to put that much pressure on my husband. I want to enjoy this time with him. We will give a card or a small something we have found through out the year, but nothing big. After hearing a mentor mom speak at MOPS about the 12 days of Christmas tradition she did for her husband, I knew I wanted to incorporate that into my holiday to honor my husband (even though we had agreed on the gift thing). I will admit my husband felt a little bad after the first year I did this, but after talking about it he could see that it was my way of showing him he was important during this time of year. Barb once shared with us a quote, “If you love someone, become an expert on them!” Well, this helps me do that in small ways. I spend the year looking for small things that I know he will like. They are usually small and are things he would not purchase for himself. . .he is a very practical man. I have come to buy a few staples that seem to work into my honoring him in this tradition. His favorite author usually has a new book out at Christmas so I purchase that for one of the days. The girls and I also create a mini scrapbook from the last year about 10 things we love about daddy, and I usually have to include some beef jerky-he loves beef jerky! The first year I did this, I tried to choose the same number items as the day is was i.e. on the 6^th day I would give 6 of something. After the first year I realized that I was stressing out so much about what to buy I lost focus on the reason I was doing it in the first place so I let that go and just do one gift in each bag. (On a side note, I know some women who have gone all out for this tradition and if it is within your budget and time-go all out. But I really think this tradition was started to show appreciation for our husbands, not a tradition to out-do ourselves every year-does that make sense)?

I also thought that I would include my girls more in this tradition but other than the scrapbook, I do most of the work. I have realized that is the way I want it. I want to be the one focusing on my husband. I am the one who can get distracted during the holidays and this is one way I stay focused on what matters-Jeff.