40-Day Christmas Challenge | Day 18: Choose the Holiday Classics Worth Making Time For • Everyday Cheapskate

We’ve done a lot of responsible things around here.

Budgets. Calendars. Gift lists. Freezer meals. Spending check-ins. Yesterday we even gave all our wandering Christmas information a proper home. Very mature of us.

But if all this preparation doesn’t eventually result in actually enjoying Christmas, I would like a refund.

So today we’re doing something that requires very little organizing and may not cost a dime.

We’re deciding which familiar Christmas favorites we actually want to make time for.

Today’s Challenge

Choose a few Christmas classics you’d genuinely be sorry to miss this year.

A movie you’ve watched so many times you know what’s coming and laugh anyway. A book or story you pull out every December. An album that can make an ordinary Tuesday afternoon feel like Christmas. A church service, Scripture reading, concert or other faith tradition that is part of Christmas for you.

Maybe it’s an old television special, a favorite recording or something your family has loved for years.

Not what you’re supposed to love.

What you actually do.

Do This Today

1. Pick your keepers.

Think of the Christmas favorites that reliably make you glad you made time for them.

Don’t make a list of everything you could possibly watch, read or listen to between now and Christmas. Three or four is plenty.

Ask yourself:

If Christmas came and went and I missed this, would I care?

If the answer is yes, it belongs on the list.

2. Make the easy ones easy.

Now remove whatever small obstacle tends to get in the way.

Pull the book off the shelf. Find the movie you already own or figure out where it’s available before the night you want to watch it. Put the album or playlist where you can find it. If there’s a particular service, concert or program you hope to attend, add the details to the calendar you started on Day 5.

Don’t turn this into a research project. We’re trying to enjoy Christmas, not conduct an inventory of Christmas entertainment.

3. Leave some room for spontaneity.

This is important. Your list is not a contract.

If you choose four favorites and get to two, nobody from the Christmas Classics Enforcement Division is coming to your house.

The point is to remember the things you love before the season gets so full that you suddenly realize you never got around to them.

Quick Win

Pick one favorite Christmas song and listen to it. Right now, if you can.

Not while reorganizing a closet or answering 42 emails. Just listen.

Four minutes of Christmas. Day 18 counts.

Familiar Is Part of the Pleasure

We spend a lot of time being offered what’s new. New movies. New playlists. New decorations. New things to buy so Christmas will somehow feel more Christmas-y.

But Christmas has always had a wonderful place for repetition.

The story you already know. The song you’ve heard a hundred times. The movie nobody needs explained.

Familiar doesn’t mean boring when it’s something you love. Sometimes familiar is exactly what we’re looking forward to.

Need a Little Inspiration?

Maybe you’re drawing a blank. Or maybe somebody just said Christmas movie and now you’re trying to remember the one you watch every year.

Here are a few longtime Team EC favorites. This is inspiration, not an assignment. See something that makes you think, Oh, I love that one? There’s your clue.

Team EC’s Top 10 Christmas Movies

Team EC’s Top 10 Christmas Books

The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien
The 13th Gift by Joanne Huist Smith
A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann
A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg
Christmas in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Put on Some Christmas Music

You don’t have to build the world’s greatest Christmas playlist, either. Put on the music you already love.

If you’d rather let somebody else choose, a ready-made playlist is perfectly acceptable. Pick one and press play.

Christmas Classics — Familiar Christmas favorites from decades past.
Cozy Christmas Jazz — Instrumental versions of familiar Christmas songs.
Mid-Century Christmas — Vintage Christmas music from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s.
Classical Christmas — Carols and classical Christmas favorites.

The goal here isn’t to collect more Christmas entertainment. It’s to actually enjoy some of what you already love.

Please Don’t Turn This Into Mandatory Family Joy

Your favorite does not automatically become everyone else’s assignment. If nobody else wants to watch the movie you adore, you are allowed to watch it yourself.

And if something you’ve done for years now produces more groaning than enjoyment, don’t force it today simply because it has achieved the rank of Tradition.

Today we’re choosing what we want to enjoy, not assigning Christmas homework to everyone else.

Why It Matters

There’s a danger in becoming very good at preparing for Christmas. You can spend the whole season getting ready to enjoy it later. Later is slippery.

The shopping gets done and then there’s wrapping. The wrapping gets done and then there’s cooking. Something else always appears. And suddenly the thing you kept saying you wanted to do never happened.

Some of the enjoying needs to happen along the way. That’s why we’re doing all this preparation in the first place.

Your Turn

What’s one Christmas classic you would genuinely miss if you skipped it this year? Movie? Book? Album? Carol? Church service? Something else entirely? Tell us in the comments. I suspect we’ll end up with a very good list without anyone having to create a 47-item Christmas bucket list.