Ways We Are Making Christmas 2020 Special

Happy December! It’s safe to say that 2020 didn’t pan out how any of us anticipated. I’ve shared my insights on how we are navigating COVID before, but our holidays look markedly different than how we imagined them. For starters, we didn’t think we’d be in Hawaii for Thanksgiving or Christmas – but here we are!

With the help of Wayfair, here’s how we are making Christmas 2020 special…

Even though this year isn’t what we expected (or wanted in many instances), I’m reminded a little bit of something my mom used to tell me. “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

Today I’m sharing how we are making Christmas 2020 feel special in a year that otherwise felt like the opposite…

We Decorated Early

Before fall even rolled around, I knew that I wanted to ‘haul out the holly’ early this year. What’s not to love about twinkling lights and festive Christmas decor?

This year I added spray picks to our Christmas tree after seeing them on Pinterest and loving the look. It’s a little bit wild, but it definitely makes our star pop and I can’t help but smile when I look at it. Plus, it sparkles when the lights on the tree hit it, which I seriously love. Mission: accomplished.

Outdoor Christmas Lights

To be honest, we’ve always gone all out indoors, but the outdoors left much to be desired. We live in a townhouse, so it just felt weird to decorate one half of our “house”. This year, I decided that was changing by bringing joy to our porch in the form of twinkle lights. 

If I’ve being even more candid, we got a timer for the outdoor lights that switches them on and off without us having to go out to plug and unplug them. It sounds very strange and probably brings me far more joy than is normal, but oh baby! This felt like such an indulgence and seeing the lights dance around outside through the window really does spark joy. Is this what being 30+ means?! 😉 

Baking

If you’ve been around for any length of time, you know that baking is the key to my holiday heart. It’s something I’ve done with my mom since I was very young and definitely a tradition I sorely miss when I can’t be with her. If you love sugar cookies, be sure to check out our Best Ever Sugar Cookie Recipe!

More time at home this year means that I’ve had more time to get busy in my kitchen, which really only drew attention to the fact that I finally needed to invest in quality cooling grids. I am sort of ashamed to admit, I usually let things cool on parchment paper on my counter, but not anymore!

Finishing Shopping Early

But wait – why is this making Christmas special? Well, because me having more things on my plate than I can handle is a recipe for stress and overall displeasure. I knew that if I could get my Christmas shopping done early (and shipped!), that everything else would feel so much more fun and enjoyable throughout the season.

I know that the holidays are looking really different for everyone this year. Dane and I are skipping our big Christmas Eve party in favor of a quieter evening in. We spent a good portion of Thanksgiving Day FaceTiming + ZOOMing with all the people we love, so I have a feeling Christmas Day will look pretty similar.

It would be really easy (too easy almost) to look around and be sad about all that 2020 wasn’t, but we plan to make some festive cocktails, watch our favorite Christmas movies – “Love Actually” ranks pretty high – and take stock of everything 2020 couldn’t take from us this year all month long.

What are your plans for making this year’s (COVID) Christmas special?