As we are squarely in the middle of this Christmas season, I cannot help but find myself in a bit of a uncomfortable situation. I love Christmas. As a Christian, I embrace the longing and waiting brought on by the season of Advent. Secularly, I love the sights, sounds, smells, and overall cheerfulness and expectation that the season brings.

I love the decorating, the baking, the settling in of winter, the gift-giving, the family time– all of it. In our home, I am the primary merry-maker, conceptualizer, planner, and executer of Christmas. I’m grateful to wear that mantle, but at the same time, I routinely find myself feeling incredibly overwhelmed and feeling the dissonance of my actions and values misaligning. Ugh.

Here’s where I am on this: I spend eleven months of the year wrestling with contentment. I shop second-hand. I make do or do without. I limit my purchases. We live below our means and follow a monthly budget.

I wait, pause, and take into consideration what comes in and out of my house. I consider myself an essentialist. I’m regularly purging items, always with an ethos of “we move every two years and less is more.” So for December and Christmas to roll around every year and completely disrupt that spirit and mindset it is very disorienting and I find myself overstimulated.

Suddenly, albeit predictably, I find myself on a literal tear with purchasing, consuming, and managing many, many details of transactions left and right. I try to shop local when possible, but wishlists of others send me straight to online retailer links.

I submit the purchase. I get the retailer confirmation email and another from PayPal. I’m managing my inbox. I’m getting shipping updates and despite carefully un-checking boxes, somehow I’m getting daily marketing emails, promises of discounts, and more emails than I care to count. This digital clutter isn’t all. I’m getting packages delivered daily and feel immense guilt for the environmental drain of resources all of this shopping causes.

I love giving good gifts to our children, parents, siblings, and cousins. I’m grateful we have the financial means to give generously. I’m not a Scrooge or Grinch, I promise. It’s just that December Claire and the ensuing efforts to “make Christmas happen” feel in striking contrast from January-November Claire.

I already feel like we have so much more than we need, want, or could ever use up. Closets full of clothes, houses full of… well everything. Every single item we bring into the house must find a place to live, be stored, or organized. I guess when you move as frequently as we do, and you have the mental and physical conundrum of making your whole life fit into different houses with different layouts and different amounts of storage, you think of “stuff” differently, than say someone who has lived in the same house for five, ten, or thirty years.

You say, out of sight, out of mind. I say, I’ll have to touch this and every other item I own to find a new spot for it (again) in July. What’s one more dish, sweater, book, or pillow? Well, each of those things carries the literal weight of the item but more so, they carry the weight of multiple decisions. The represent brain calories, dollars, and in some cases, sanity.

This week as the barrage of emails and packages discharge from retailers to my inbox and doorstep, and as I am deep cleaning the house in preparation for our college kids to be home, I am feeling the conflict of overconsumption very strongly.

I do not want to cancel Christmas. I won’t suggest that our kids forego gifts to make a point. We do have several recurring charitable contributions and gifts we make throughout the year and at the holidays. I love seeing people I love open and enjoy a gift I’ve thoughtfully chosen. I love wrapping gifts in pretty paper. I do get a dopamine hit when I buy items. But I also feel a little sick of buying so many things, having so many deliveries, and living in what feels like a lot excess and a little bit of chaos. I guess both things can be true at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong. I have bought new Christmas decor this year. Just this month I’ve bought myself a new pair of shoes, two sweatshirts, and a gown. Sometimes, when I’m shopping for other people I get into the “one for you, one for me” spiral.

I’m not immune to the overconsumption. I’m just saying that in one minute I can be tempted and give in to the lie that just one more piece of clothing will complete my wardrobe or new stockings for the mantle will help create the perfect cozy vibes I am longing for in our home. And in the very next, I feel almost physically sick and and convicted about the cycle of money, stuff, stuff management, waste, and environmental strain I’m participating in. I feel guilt for having so much already.

What I’m getting at is that this internal conflict is causing me to think about some intentions for the coming year. What boundaries might I put into place in 2026 to consume less? What might I already have plenty of? What might I do with the time or financial resources I spend instead of searching, shopping, scouring, scrolling? What expectations can this year’s Christmas help shape for next year’s gift giving? I’ve already started a little note in my phone trying to flesh this out a bit. Surely, I’m not the only one.

What about you? How do you feel this time of year when it comes to shopping, gift-giving, and the commercialization of this season? What are your limits? Would you ever consider a low-buy, no-buy, or other boundary for yourself when it comes to spending and buying? Or does this just sound absurd?