Around this time of year, I like to write a column wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. But by the time you see this, Christmas will have come and gone, and we’ll be coasting to New Year’s Day.
Christmas did come and go rather quickly in 2025, partly because of how Thanksgiving fell. There are some years (like 2023) where you have nearly a week between Thanksgiving and when December starts, which gives you a little time to mentally prepare. But this year, there were just three days before Dec. 1 hit.
I like to have our Christmas tree up and decorated no later than the middle of the following week so we can get full enjoyment of it for a good three weeks or so. But the struggle was real for me between offline and online responsibilities. Plus, I was still trying to get myself in the right mindset since December got here so fast after Thanksgiving.
So instead of getting the tree done in what I would consider a timely manner, I slowly got the tabletop, wall and outdoor decorations done, putting out the garden flags and front door wreath, making sure the net lights still worked, and jazzing up the fireplace mantle to make up for the fact that the tree was operating on a delay.
I eventually did get the tree up and decorated, but it wasn’t until there were about 10 days left before Christmas. That might not be a big deal to some folks, especially those who like to wait to put their tree up closer to Christmas, but that was probably the latest I’ve ever done that.
This means I’ll leave the tree up for about a week or so after Christmas, instead of taking it down a day or two after, which is the normal routine. Everything else will get put away, but the tree will stay while we admire the lights a little while longer.
Getting Christmas cards together was uneventful, outside of the 30 or so addresses I needed to verify prior to mailing. Thankfully, social media DMing and texting make it pretty easy to get things like verifying mailing addresses a fairly painless and quick process.
Christmas holiday shopping was a wee bit on the dramatic side this year. For the last few years, I’ve taken to primarily doing most of my shopping online to avoid the crowds and for convenience’s sake. Being a caregiver, I don’t want to be away from Mom for too long.
Mom does her ordering online because her mobility challenges make getting out and getting into the stores a less-than-optimal option this time of year.
Between us, we got our ordering done in two days, and the good news was that most of it was projected to be delivered within three days of when we ordered.
But one box of gifts Mom had coming in from Amazon ended up getting delayed three days. By last Thursday, we were starting to get a little panicky, but thankfully, it was sorted out, with the box being delivered Friday, in time for us to do all of our wrapping over the weekend.
And that is what takes the longest time to do. Whew. Between her stuff and mine, it literally takes a full day to wrap. We start off feeling festive and ready to roll, but by midday, we’re grumbling about losing the scissors and not being able to find the right-sized bag.
Anyway, we soldiered through as people always do ahead of Christmas Day in eager anticipation of spending time with our family and eating a good meal.
Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. And now it’s time to do those year-end cleanouts and make those resolutions we know we won’t keep. Cheers!
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
