I remember reading an article last month on Huffington Post called, “Can We Bring The Holidays Down A Notch?” It’s a Mom telling about the stress that she feels comes with Holidays while feeling pressure from other moms who seem to make each holiday bigger than the last. I’m not a mom with kids who sometimes need to be pampered with gifts on holidays, but as a newlywed, I can relate to feeling that pressure as well.

We live in the time where we enjoy the concept of Pinterest, which can be a blessing and a curse. We know what our friends are all interested in when the pin all these different clothes, recipes, and crafts, all day long. SO MANY CRAFTS. I mean, I have my fair share of crafty things pinned, but some of them are like pipe-dreams, because realistically, when do I have the time to make a family tree made of buttons? When do any of us have time to make all these crafts?! Even if we don’t actually follow through with making them, I can’t help but feel a pressure to be doing festive crafts all the time. Do you feel that way?

In being a newlywed, we’re experiencing first holidays together, which is so great. In that way, however, it kind of puts pressure on us even more, feeling like we have to make this year significantly more special. I think it can be special without being surrounded by frilly crafts all month long, or hand-made Easter baskets exploding with candy. I don’t want to feel like our first holidays, or any of our future holidays, to feel like we need these things to make it special, because we don’t.

Since we are going to visit our families for Easter, and know that we will have Easter candy and gifts there, I’m not sure we need to double it by having Easter baskets or candy for the two of us here. But I also didn’t want to not do anything for Trevor, just because of that. So I simplified a lot and got him something.

Light bulb moment

He loves real chocolate, the rich kind, so I got him a cute golden chocolate bunny made of Lindt milk chocolate, one of his favorites. To be honest, I didn’t know how I was going to give it to him at first. “Oh here’s this bunny for you. Happy Easter.” or it meant putting it in an Easter basket, which would mean buying more candy and things to be stuffed inside with it, so it didn’t look so dinky on it’s own. You can see my dilemma. I was still wondering what I was going to do, but knew that I now had to hide the chocolate bunny from Trevor for a week while I thought about it. And then it hit me: I will make him go on a hunt for the golden bunny in our apartment. It was like that big light bulb went on.

That bunny cost me $2.99. It took me 30 seconds to hide it. Trevor didn’t need an elaborate looking basket, stuffed with other candies and gifts. I felt zero stress in this holiday situation. And then I realized that this could now be a little Easter tradition between the two of us each year… YES! I did it. I made it stress-free, simple, AND most importantly, I feel like we made it special.

For those of you who are newlyweds like Trevor and I, don’t feel like you need to make your first holidays together so elaborate. There is plenty of time in the future for making things a big deal, and more elaborate opportunities when you have kids and have to make them believe in the Easter Bunny. For those of you married and with kids, simplify! Don’t make it harder for other moms to top your gorgeously wrapped Valentine’s candy. I’m sure being a mom is already time-consuming enough as it is.

That’s fine if people want to spend their time dying their Easter eggs ombre-style. I won’t be. Even if we did make it a point to dye eggs this year, I’ll be kickin’ it old school with crayons.

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