Keeping it Light

Recently on her blog, Casey Wiegand shared about being real on her blog. She shared a lot of really candid photos. No carefully placed props. No one dressed up. Just a normal day.

I think there is always that struggle between being real and also having a nice blog to look at. Many people read blogs for inspiration, ideas, etc. But I think many times it can be frustrating to see everything perfectly in it's place and wonder how someone else can manage to hand embroider all 25 stockings for their also equally hand embroidered advent calendar and you can't even manage a printable one.

I thought of this as I attempted to get some photos during our tree trimming festivities. It's not an easy task!

We played Christmas carols and drank hot chocolate and I made gingerbread cookies from a package. It was great :)

But of course in the end, there are boxes everywhere, not a single decent photo has been taken and there is hot chocolate smeared all over the table.

So that's "real" life. It's mostly a mess. But we are having fun in this mess most of the time, even though the cleanup drives me crazy.

It won't always be perfect, it will always be a little bit of a mess with some pretty spots thrown in here and there. And the kids will always put 3+ ornaments on each branch, but that's ok. 

They say that statistically this is the most stressful time of year for people and I think that has a lot to do with our perfect expectations of how things will go. 

The lights aren't right, my tree has no "theme". Whatever it is I am finding that it takes away from my enjoyment of my family and friends, so why am I stressing?

So maybe we should all step away from Pinterest, set aside our glue guns, and relax! Enjoy!

Easier said than done. I know. I am preaching to myself.
   
Keep things merry and light :)