Easing up on yule is hard to do

By Ann Zimmerman
The Wall Street Journal

All Robin Look wants for Christmas is simplicity.

The 47-year-old Dallas mother of three, law firm human-relations director and junior-high PTA president wants less stuff to do during the coming weeks, less to buy and less to put away when the holidays are finished.

"I'm tired of the clutter and all the time things take," she says with a sigh.

But simplifying isn't so simple and can take a lot of careful planning, as Look is discovering. In years past, she has regularly redecorated her entire house for the holidays, down to changing the kitchen clock to one with Santa on it. This year, she will haul out Christmas decorations again — but only half of them. She has told her family not to buy her anything. She's giving the kids small checks as gifts and perhaps one inexpensive wrapped item. In lieu of presents for friends and extended family members, she's making donations to a charity in their names.

Despite good intentions, she's worried her children will be disappointed with fewer packages to open this year. And she admits she might just chicken out in the end. "Call me back closer to the holidays and hold me accountable," she says.

Even so, more Americans share her feelings, citing tougher economic times, the orgy of excess that predated it or the feeling of being time-starved and overextended. One sign: Real Simple magazine's circulation jumped 33 percent during the first half of the year. The desire to simplify "has grown even stronger since 9/11 to control the controllable, to have a managed life," says Carrie Tuhy, managing editor of the AOL Time Warner Inc. publication.

No time is that desire stronger than during the six-week stress tsunami between Thanksgiving and New Year's. The Simple Living Network, a hard-core anti-excess movement begun by environmentalists, has seen the number of daily hits to its Web site double to about 7,000 during November and December during the past few years.

The site sells more than a thousand books and pamphlets, including "Simplify Your Christmas," a 270-page, $14.95 hardcover with tips like "Say no to Elmo" and "Rethink your Christmas card tradition."

But paring down or turning your back on perfectionism takes resolve and a thick skin. Even Tuhy was criticized, by her college-age daughter, for augmenting her Thanksgiving dinner this year with prepared food.

"It seems kind of frivolous to create the artifice of the perfect holiday, if you're sacrificing the more important things, like taking time to be with family," Tuhy said.

Iris Krasnow, a Washington-area author and mother of four boys, has been working on getting simplified. It started several years ago, when she stopped worrying about getting her holiday cards out on time. She decided to send them out when she got around to it, which usually means the following June at the earliest.

Krasnow also has learned to "just say no" to holiday parties. "The holidays add to this fever of being out of control," she says. "And the last thing I want to do is stand around some glitzy house having drinks with people I don't know well enough to see more than once a year. I rather be at home with some unglitzy children."

The toughest part of holiday streamlining can be managing the expectations of others. Christina Nellemann, 34, and her husband have been trying to rid their addiction to possessions and chaos for a year. Applying that philosophy to holidays won't be easy.

"Usually we have the whole family over for a huge dinner and tons of gifts, followed by tons of dishes and wasted wrapping paper waiting for the landfill. This year I'm making my gifts: some candy and some homemade vinegar with rosemary from my garden," she says. Her mom will get "a nice gift" and she and her husband will take a minivacation to Monterey, Calif.

"Trying to avoid the materialism and excess will not be so much of a challenge, but dodging the comments of other people will be," Nellemann says.
Tim Smith, a 45-year-old business analyst at California Bank & Trust, resolved this year to turn his back on Christmas materialism. He has tried to reduce excessive consumption in the past, but it has caused friction with his wife, who had a simple childhood as a daughter of missionaries in Ethiopia and was looking forward to a more affluent lifestyle.

Now that they have a baby boy, who Smith says has enough toys to last until his fifth birthday, he has persuaded his wife to take a vow of moderation with him. He plans to send an e-mail to his extended family, telling them that they don't want to give or receive gifts. "But it's hard to do it diplomatically," Smith says. "It's contrary to the tradition of Christmas. People will think you're chintzy or will take it as a personal affront. You're denying them the privilege of showing you their love, which is the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish."

Smith hasn't gotten around to writing that family e-mail yet. "I'm still composing it in my head," he says.

"I'm tired of the clutter . . . "