I am not a Christmas girly. The family gatherings with people I haven’t seen in a year, the excessive happiness radiating off of everyone around me, the stress of buying the perfect gifts, and the music are not my jam. However, pretty much all of the people I surround myself with are Christmas lovers and are pretty appalled at the fact that I am not. I want to know why they love Christmas so much, so I decided that I’m going to learn how to love it too.
This is my guide to learning to love Christmas.
Step 1: Make a Pinterest board. Pinterest is my brain in picture form. It’s sort of a digital dream board. So, for me, the obvious first step to loving Christmas is to visualize it through Pinterest. I’ve spent weeks carefully curating aesthetic pictures, bucket lists, and gift ideas. The important thing to remember with this step, though, is that your Christmas is most likely not going to look exactly like your picture-perfect Pinterest Christmas, but I think it helps to start romanticizing the holiday.
Step 2: Decorate your room. I spend a lot of time in my room, so I feel like it needs to be decorated for Christmas. I collected all of my fall decorations and put them in a box in my basement, and then I started going through my Christmas decorations. I used to have a Christmas tree in my room, but it broke, so I opted not to use it again. But, I found a mini Christmas tree, and although it’s stereotypical, I put it in my Taylor Swift popcorn bucket from The Eras Tour Film. I decorated it with plastic mini disco ball ornaments and decided that was enough. My mom then found me some bottle-brush Christmas trees, so I put those up. I didn’t want to spend any money on Christmas decorations—which means avoiding the dollar section at Target like it’s the plague—so my decorations are pretty minimal. I topped it all off with a couple of Christmas pillows on my bed, and it felt Christmas-y enough.
Step 3: Make your room smell like Christmas. I always have a room freshener in my room, and during fall, it was scented like autumn leaves. I made a trip down to Bath and Body Works to look for a refill for my wallflowers in my bedroom and my bathroom. I smelled a lot of scents and eventually decided on Bright Christmas Morning. I also needed to replace my fall candles, and they were still having their Cyber Monday sale, so I headed to the candle section to get one. After a lot of searching, I got a single-wick candle with the scent of Tree Farm. My room smells like Christmas now, and it is definitely putting me in the spirit.
Step 4: Make a Christmas playlist. Even though I’m learning to love Christmas, I will always hate Christmas music. It drives me insane because it’s the same 10 songs over and over; I can’t stand it. But, music is an important part of the holiday, so I begrudgingly made a playlist. I wanted it to have songs that weren’t the classics, so I dug through Spotify for hours to find the perfect songs. I searched through songs by the artists I love and combed through unique playlists. I now have a playlist full of Taylor Swift, Lauren Spencer-Smith, Avery Anna, and songs that I’ve never heard before but totally vibe with. At least now, when I play the playlist in my car, I won’t get incredibly annoyed.
Extra Tips: My last few tips are just random things that I’ve picked up over the past few weeks. The first is to dress Christmas-y. For me, this means wearing Christmas earrings, putting bows in my hair, or wearing red. It adds to the whole aesthetic that I’m trying to go for. In addition, I always keep rubber ducks in my car, so I switched out the Halloween ones with the Christmas ones I found at Target.
My last tip is to remember that you don’t always have to be in the spirit. It is really hard to enjoy Christmas when you feel like you have to. Take it at your pace, and if you’re not feeling it, that’s okay.
