40-Day Christmas Challenge | Day 40: Go Enjoy Your Christmas • Everyday Cheapskate

Forty days ago, I asked you to look back at last Christmas before you started planning this one.

What did you love? What made Christmas harder than it needed to be? What wouldn’t you miss? And most important: What did you want more of this Christmas? What did you want less of?

Remember? Because here we are. Day 40. And I have one final challenge for you.

Stop preparing for Christmas.

Go enjoy it.

Today’s Challenge

That’s really it.

No shopping. No organizing. No worksheet. No clever little Christmas task I’m going to sneak in at the end.

Today, I want you to notice the Christmas you’ve made. Not the one in your head. Not the one on social media. Not the one you remember from childhood with the inconvenient parts mysteriously edited out.

This one. Your Christmas.

Do This Today

1. Go back to your Day 1 sentence.

Remember?

This Christmas, I want more ____________________ and less ____________________.

Read it again if you still have it.

Did you get some of it?

Maybe you wanted more time together and fewer obligations. More peace and less rushing. More generosity and less spending. More fun and less perfection.

Maybe Christmas still got messy around the edges. Of course it did. People are involved.

But perhaps you changed the direction a little. That counts.

2. Notice what’s good while it’s happening.

Look around. Listen to the conversation. Taste the food. Laugh at the thing that went wrong. Take the picture, then put the phone down.

Sit with the people. Turn on the Christmas lights. Have another cookie. Use the good dishes if you want to. Use paper plates if that makes the day better.

There are no points either way. Just be there.

3. Don’t grade it.

Christmas is not grading you.

There is no final score for presents purchased, cookies baked, cards mailed, money saved, traditions completed or family members delighted.

You don’t get extra credit because everything matched. And you haven’t failed because something went sideways.

Real life is still real life at Christmas. Let imperfect be wonderful.

Quick Win

Do absolutely nothing to improve Christmas for the next 30 minutes.

I’m serious.

No tidying. No checking an order. No looking for one more gift. No fussing with anything that doesn’t actually require fussing.

Sit down. Look around.

Enjoy something you’ve spent the last 39 days making room for.

Look What You Made Room For

Over these 40 days, you’ve made a lot of decisions.

You decided what mattered. You gave Christmas a budget. You thought about the people you wanted to remember. You planned food before the grocery store planned it for you.

You dealt with gifts, logistics, guests, wrapping and all those little details that have a remarkable ability to become big details when ignored long enough.

You kept some traditions. You dropped some things. You finished what mattered.

And eventually, you stopped.

At least I hope you did. Because all of that preparation had a purpose. It wasn’t to become exceptionally good at Christmas preparation.

It was to make room for Christmas.

Christmas Doesn’t Have to Go According to Plan

Somebody may get sick. Plans may change. Dinner may be late. A package may not arrive. Someone may be disappointed. You may be disappointed.

None of that erases everything good around it.

A meaningful Christmas doesn’t require every moment to behave itself.

So don’t spend the day comparing what happened with what was supposed to happen.

Pay attention to what is happening.

Why It Matters

It is remarkably easy to spend so much time creating Christmas that we forget to experience it.

That’s why we started early. Not so we could fit more into Christmas. So we could make room by doing less. Less scrambling. Less overspending. Less guilt. Less doing things simply because we’ve always done them.

And in the space left behind? More of whatever you decided mattered back on Day 1.

That’s the Christmas I wanted this Challenge to help you create. Not perfect. Not impressive.

Yours.

One Last Thing

Thank you for spending these 40 days with me.

I hope you saved some money. I hope you saved a lot of time. I hope you avoided at least one ridiculous last-minute purchase.

But more than anything, I hope all that preparation gave you something you can’t put on a spreadsheet: room to enjoy the people and things you love.

If Christmas looks different at your house than it does at mine, good.

That’s the point. Keep what matters. Skip what doesn’t. Let imperfect be wonderful.

And now, my friend, you’re done.

Go enjoy your Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Your Turn

Before you go, I’d love to hear one thing: What did you make more room for this Christmas? Tell us in the comments. And then get out of here. You’ve got a Christmas to enjoy.

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Jan says:

December 19, 2025 at 6:37 am

I love you too, Mary!!! Thank you for reminding us that Christmas is, first and foremost, about JOY!!! I’ve done a lot of reflection in these 40 days and simplified my approach this year. I am far less stressed than ever before. THANK YOU!!!

Mary Hunt says:
December 19, 2025 at 6:33 pm

Oh this is so great, Jan. Happy to hear it … and your kind words as well. xo m

40-Day Christmas Challenge | Day 40: Go Enjoy Your Christmas

Today’s Challenge