A few holiday confessions

I love this time of year. There is so much to love about Advent and Christmas, and from about Halloween onward, I feel like I'm in holiday mode. But I'm not one of those moms who seems all put together and ties everything with homemade bows and has a house full of Pinteresty decor.

With all the blog posts I'm seeing about great holiday crafts, unit studies and activities, I thought I'd go the other direction and keep it real up in here. Without further ado, or any ado at all, a few holiday confessions from my neck of the woods:

I haven't sent out Christmas cards in years
Usually I'm a traditionalist and I hate to see things change due to modernization or technology, but this is one I haven't kept up with. I love the idea of sending out an adorable photo of my kids to friends and loved ones, but I never wind up actually doing it. I have sent them out a few times since having kids, but not regularly and not in the last few years. I used to use the excuse that I had babies or toddlers and it was too much work. Now my kids are old enough that probably isn't such a good excuse. For now, I'll stay with "I'm keeping things simple." True enough.

Painting projects with my kids make me want to drink heavily
This isn't necessarily holiday related, but it seems like the requests for projects involving paint multiply this time of year. I so want to be that mom, who has arts and crafts going for her kids all the time, regardless of the mess (because my kids LOVE that stuff), and in some ways I am. I'm pretty free with the art supplies and David especially makes so many projects, I'm surprised we aren't buried in them. But getting the paint out always stresses me out. They painted ornaments recently and it was... trying. Maybe when Ella is older and less prone to getting paint all over herself and subsequently touching everything, it won't be so tension inducing. But for now, ugh.

I love to bake, but I rarely bake lots of cookies
This one is easy. If I make them, I eat them. Don't tell me that I can simply give them away, be a friendly neighbor and give away plates of cookies and all that. I would do that (and have, in the past), but it wouldn't stop me from eating my weight in sugar. There's that block of time from mixing bowl (because yum, cookie dough) to packaging for distribution and my willpower is exactly zero. Especially for my own baking. If I want to fit into my jeans by Christmas day, I can't spend a month baking dozens of cookies.

We buy too much stuff for our kids
Every year - every single year - we say we won't do it. We say we'll be more moderate, more mindful of our gift choices, and we won't go overboard. And every year, we still do. We are getting a lot better. Compared to some of those early Christmases as parents, we've scaled back. But there are far too many guilt inducing blog posts and articles out there, touting the merits of "simple," "thrifty," and "scaled down," Christmas giving. We certainly aren't extravagant compared to many people, but I always wind up feeling like we did too much. I'll go ahead and throw my husband under the bus on this one. This is clearly his fault. (OK, not totally.)

So what about you? Are you a shouter? A crier? A pouter? What's putting you on the naughty list this year?