We’re now exactly one month removed from Christmas and as I find myself looking back upon the holidays, I come to realize that this past Christmas was one of the best I can remember, which also happened to be the year we received the least amount of gifts! You see, the best gifts we received weren’t things, but experiences.
Christmas has begun to feel like more and more of a drag, at least for me, in recent years. As I’ve grown older, it seems like nothing more than a celebration centered around us spending as much money as possible.
This year, there was nothing we needed (other than a mere $30,000 to pay off our loans!) and we made it clear to everyone that we didn’t need anything. We don’t have much space for many things (cough…tiny house), so toys for our daughter have to be kept at a minimum. She has one small storage cube of toys that we constantly audit for items she no longer plays with, which we then get rid of to make room for new ones!
We also don’t want our daughter growing up expecting massive piles of gifts every Christmas or become one of those kids who spend hours playing on her devices instead of enjoying the world outside. As she grows a little more each day, we want to cherish these moments with her at this tender age and enjoy as many moments with her as possible.
Thanks to our wonderful family, Lucy was given a year’s pass to the zoo and tickets to the Eric Carle exhibit at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia! These are precisely the type of activities we want to enjoy with her before she becomes a teenager and wants nothing to do with us! These are memories she will always remember, and best of all – experiences take up no space!
This year we gave our family timeless gifts that weren’t expensive at all. I took pictures of their grandchildren that they will cherish forever. Taking photos has become one of my favorite new hobbies!
The best gift Stephanie and I received was our parents babysitting so we could spend the night together child free on our anniversary! We don’t have much time at all to ourselves anymore so it was even more special, and exactly what we needed.
We used to take a lot of random trips with no real purpose other than exploring new places. We’ve lost a bit of our wanderlust since we had Lucy, but it was nice to briefly remember how things used to be when it was just the two of us!
We have always been dreamers, imagining grand things for our future. We often took long walks discussing all the things we wanted to do and see. Those walks typically had no set destination and were often in new places, sometimes in the dark, but somehow we never felt as though we were lost. Sometimes we’d start walking until the light turned to darkness, realizing how far we’d gone and how far we needed to walk back, losing track of time, as we always tend to do – things we can’t get away with when Lucy is with us!
Somewhere along the way, we stopped doing this, but the ability to get out over the last few weeks has rejuvenated us, reigniting the whimsical freedom and wonder within us – a feeling that cannot be bought.
We spent a day and a half exploring the streets of Harpers Ferry, WV, just the two of us, like old times. And it was amazing.
Walking through town is like walking back in time. They preserved many old buildings along the main streets and transformed them into exhibits for visitors to learn their history.
There are very few cars in town as they restrict parking and traffic due to the old and narrow streets. Most visitors are bussed in from the National Park Center.
We climbed an intimidatingly steep stairway (made of stone), past St. Peter’s Church, the ruins of another church, 
to a beautiful view of Potomac River. This spot came to be known as Jefferson Rock. 
Thomas Jefferson enjoyed standing in this spot late in the 1700s, enjoying a view he famously described as “worth a voyage over the Atlantic.”
We woke early in hopes of catching a photo of the sunrise from this spot, only to find the cloudiest, dreary skies full of haze. It was still neat to be up there! We arrived early enough that we were the only two people up there, normally a crowded tourist stop, but none of the tourists were bussed into town yet from the National Park. We had this eerie view all to ourselves.
We ended our trip with an early lunch at Kelley Farm Kitchen, by far the best plant-based restaurant we’ve ever been to. The portions are enormous, the food presentation is a work of art, not to mention incredibly fresh and delicious!
I wanted to share this because I know for me, the holidays had been growing stale the past few years and had me questioning why we do a lot of things.
On Christmas Eve we were driving home from a family gathering. We drove past a shopping center and were shocked by how many cars were in the parking lot. There were no empty spots! I envisioned a Hunger Games sort of madness down there – a feeding frenzy of shoppers frantically searching for the best deals.
Why is it necessary to mob the malls the day before Christmas to buy gifts for loved ones? It stresses me out just thinking about what could be running through the minds of those shoppers. The more you think about it, it’s as if we’ve been conditioned to participate in this scam to buy these things we don’t really need.
What more do we need other than the simple joy of quiet time with family and the ability to slow down and enjoy time with our significant others? It wouldn’t hurt any of us to reflect on what we truly value in life and make a conscious effort to focus more on what is important moving forward. Forget about stuff…choose experiences!
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