7 Ways to slow down this Christmas season

December 10, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Do you ever find that the time around Christmas is super rushed and busy?

Maybe you or your children have a lot of activities around this time of year. Maybe you have a lot of family gatherings to attend.

Maybe you find it hard to find time to just slow down and enjoy all that this season is about.

I’m lucky, in some ways, that we don’t have as many obligations in my family. We have a very small family, so we only have one Christmas gathering to attend. My children are homeschooled, so there aren’t Christmas programs for them to perform in.

It might be easier for me to find the time to slow down and focus on the season than others, but even without obligations, life seems to get busy. The dishwasher smells funny, the cat is throwing up, the dog wants to go out (again), the youngest has a cold, the husband injured his foot, the cleaner that was supposed to start at the parents never showed up. All of this kept popping up even when I was trying to write this blog post!

There are always interruptions in life, especially at the holidays, and sometimes we feel like we have to keep jumping up and plugging our fingers in the holes popping up in the dam of life.

Really, though, we need the slowed down moments in our life to regain our strength for the busier times. During the Christmas season, we need to slow down to remember what Christmas is truly about — the birth of our Savior.

The moments where we slow down isn’t wasted time. It’s the most important time because it’s when we are really living. The slower moments are when we are really taking it all in; making memories our children and we will always remember.

So, without further ado, here are seven ways to slow down this Christmas/holiday season.

It goes without saying, by the way, that shutting off social media is the first way to regain your peace and find some slower, more relaxed moments. Social media will be there after your break. Don’t be afraid to shut it off. You won’t miss very much, if anything at all.

Baking cookies or other Christmas goodies with your kids or spouse or a friend or even by yourself.

Maybe you’re like me and you don’t bake often or baking stresses you out because you’re a perfectionist. This idea might not appeal to you but remember, you don’t have to get fancy when you bake. You also don’t have to bake from scratch. Most importantly, whatever you bake doesn’t have to be perfect.

Pick up a boxed mix and have some fun.

Don’t know how to decorate cookies in a fancy way? Who cares! Just have fun figuring it all out and if your cookies are a mess that’s fine because they’ll take the same as they would if they were perfect.

I have baked a couple times with my daughter lately and it’s been fun as long as I can let go of needing things to be perfect. There’s something about the methodical movements of adding the ingredients, stirring the batter, and placing it on the tray that relaxes me. I don’t have to think of anything other than adding, mixing, and placing. It’s on those days when I can simply take my time that I understand why bakers love to bake.

If you’re going to choose cookies to bake, YouTube is a great source for ideas and tips on how to make the cookies and decorate them.

Here are three that I found:

Then, when the cookies are done and decorated, eat a few, slowly, really tasting them and washing them down with your favorite (non-alcoholic. Ha!) beverage.

2. Make or buy Christmas cards you can write notes in and send them to a few special friends or family members.

While the cookies are baking, or on a day where you aren’t baking, it can be both fun and relaxing to pull out some Christmas cards and write notes inside addressed to friends or family you haven’t talked to in a while, or even ones you just spoke to.

Write a small, personal note inside and let them know they’ve been on your mind.

Here is where I hit a snag when I try to do this — if I make the cards, I want them to be perfect. This was especially true this year when I prepared one for a cousin who is a talented advertising designer.

I had to let that go, though, and simply enjoy the process of making the cards and writing the notes. Hey, maybe they’ll think my 11-year-old made the card and won’t judge. Ha! Hopefully they wouldn’t judge anyhow.

Be sure to play some Christmas music, light a scented candle, and maybe sip some eggnog or cocoa, while you create to get yourself in the Christmas spirit.

I’m not going to link any YouTube videos here, lest you compare yourself to some of the artists who create amazing cards. I’ll let you search them up yourselves.

3. Read a Christmas-themed novel or short story.

Find a classic Christmas novel or short story with a sweet, uplifting plot, then find a chair to sit in, lay a blanket across your lap, and settle down for a good read. Make it a real book, if you can.

There is something so special and grounding about holding an actual book in your hands, feeling the weight of it, the tangible texture of the pages against your fingers as you turn them, the smell of the ink.

If you can, light a candle or a fire in the fireplace/woodstove when you read, but be careful not to fall asleep.

4. Hold a family movie night.

Find a movie all of your family (or friends) will enjoy and make it an occasion. Set up the living room with cozy blankets, maybe even a blanket tent, some favorite snacks, cozy pajamas, stuffed animals and whatever else will make the movie night both fun and cozy.

Make it a movie that will make everyone laugh and feel excited about watching together.

Turn off the lights to make it feel like you are out at the theater, but without the crowds and high prices.

5. Decorate your house for the holidays.

You don’t have to go all out, but at least do a little decorating, even if it is a display in your living room. Set up some battery run candles or some garland or anything that will bring extra cheer to you while you relax, read, bake, or write in your journal.

As you decorate listen to an entire album of either Christmas music or your favorite musician/singer/band. Instead of playing the album on your phone, pull out a CD or record. You can find record and CD players online for very reasonable prices and listening to music the “old fashioned” way will be another way to immerse yourself in a less digitally connected time.

6. Journal each day of December. Write down at least three things that you are grateful for (and maybe keep that going for the rest of the year).

The “journal” can simply be a notebook from a dollar store. Something where you can write down your thoughts about what you are grateful for and don’t care if it is neat or not. Draw pictures in it or paste them in too. Actually get photographs printed out and add them to the journal even! Won’t that be a blast to the past for us older folk who used to paste photos or mementos in our journals instead of leaving the photographs in our phones?

Here is a YouTuber I found who designs and keeps journals:

7. Use an Advent Calendar.

An advent calendar is some way to countdown to Christmas. It is either a picture or object featuring windows where one window or door is opened each day leading up to Christmas. The phrase advent calendar comes from the German word Adventskalender.

Many Christians use the Advent calendar to countdown to Christmas as Jesus’ birthday.

An Advent calendar can slow you down because it leads you to take time out of your day to reflect on the meaning for the season. For our family the reason for the season is Jesus, while for others it might be family time or a time to reflect on all the good they’ve experience in the past year, or maybe work through all the bad. Using an advent calendar can be a way to bring the family together as well. It carves a small amount of time out for the family to sit down together and read the reading for the day together and talk about what it means to them.

Christmas is supposed to be a time of slowness and purposefulness.

This season is when we pause to remember the good of our lives and experience family togetherness, good will to men, and cheer brought to us by spending time with those we love.

But it is also the time we honor the birth of our savior, the greatest gift of all. Jesus doesn’t ask us or want us to rush through this season so there’s no reason we should. I hope you can find your own pockets of stillness, peace, and calm this Christmas season.

This post is part of the Comfy, Cozy Christmas feature hosted by me and Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. If you have a blog post that you would like to share as part of this annual link-up, please find out more here.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

Five Quirky Christmas Movies You Should Watch This Year

December 3, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 16 Comments

A couple years ago, I decided to look for Christmas movies to watch that are not as well known or popular or maybe not exactly “Christmas movies” but are considered Christmas movies by those who have viewed them.

Alas, Die Hard is not on this list. Die Hard 2 isn’t either.

These are older, more classic films — though some might say Die Hard is old now and a classic.

Still…no Die Hard here.

Beyond Tomorrow/Beyond Christmas

Beyond Tomorrow, also called Beyond Christmas in later years after it was colorized, was released in 1940. It is quirky, but also very sweet.

The movie starts with the story of three old men (Michael O’Brien, George Melton, and Allan Chadwick) who served together in the army and are living in the same house and looking back on their lives with some sadness and regret. They want to help others to make up for some of their regrets and we learn that they have tossed wallets with money in them out into the street for Christmas. They want to see if anyone will be honest and return the money. Two people do. Schoolteacher Jean Lawrence (Jean Parker) and cowboy James Houston (Richard Carlson).

The three men begin to conspire how to bring the young man and woman together as a couple but in the middle of their matchmaking, they tragically die in a plane crash.

Stay with me here — the men come back as ghosts and work from the afterworld to keep the couple together.

Read my review: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/11/30/comfy-cozy-christmas-movie-review-beyond-tomorrow/

Where you can find it: Tubi, Amazon Prime and Hoopla.

We’re No Angels

We’re No Angels is certainly an out-of-the-box Christmas movie and a lot of fun. The subject matter and some of the lines were actually jaw-dropping to me and weren’t something I would have expected in a movie made in 1955.

The movie stars Humphrey Bogart (Joseph), Peter Ustinov (Jules), and Alto Ray (Albert).

The men are escaped convicts on an island called Devil’s Island off the coast of France. There are other convicts on the island in prison uniforms but they are on probation or parole, working at local businesses. The fact there are so many convicts wearing the same uniforms makes it easy for the men to blend in.

They make a plan to find a business they can rob and get money from so they can leave the island on a boat. A chance meeting with a doctor on a ship who needs to deliver a message leads them to a clothing store where they meet Felix Ducotel and his family. Felix is managing a store and they offer to repair his roof as a way to get their foot in the door, so to speak, so they can rob him later that night. He accepts and from the roof the three men begin to learn about Felix’s family – including his wife, Amelie and daughter, Isabelle.

Soon they are wrapped up in the family’s drama. They learn the business, owned by Felix’s cousin, is failing. Isabelle is in love with a man named Paul. Her mother wants to know why she isn’t married and giving them grandchildren already (umm…because she’s only 18. Hello??!) and the couple is stressed because the business is failing.

I will not spoil the movie but I will say that the men end up deciding to cook Christmas dinner for the family and steal most of what they need to do so. They keep offering to help the family, partially because they would like some of that dinner too, and partially to build trust so they can . . . um…kill and rob them. Ahem.

My review: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/12/14/comfy-cozy-christmas-were-no-angels/

Where you can find it: YouTube, AppleTV, Amazon Prime Video, Fandango

Holiday Affair

This movie stars Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and Wendell Corey.

Leigh plays Connie Ennis, a widower, whose husband died in World War II. She has a 6-year-old son, Timmy played by Gordon Gerbert , (ironically I worked with a man named Tim Ennis and my husband still works with him). She is dating a man named Carl (Wendell Corey) who is predictable and safe. You know, the ole’ boring boyfriend versus the dashing and bold potential boyfriend trope.

Mitchum plays Steve Mason, whom Connie meets at a department store when she’s there as a comparison shopper for another store. Steve pegs her in her role right away but doesn’t turn her in because she tells him she’s a single mom and her son’s only support.

That move gets him fired and one would think that means he is out of Connie’s life. On the contrary, they continue to have interactions when Connie goes to apologize to him and then he ends up helping her out on her next shopping trip.

That encounter leads to Steve meeting Timmy, who is enamored with Steve – much more so than Carl, who he knows wants to marry his mother.

Timmy acts out with Carl and is sent to his room and this leads to a heart-to-heart with Steve who learns Timmy wants a train for Christmas.

Steve makes this happen and yet another interaction occurs between him and Connie.

There is a lot of back and forth in this film and more than one interaction between Connie and Steve when she walks away from him angry and he just watches her walk away with a smug grin.

This is a movie with a definite love triangle, of course, and you’ll have to watch to see how all that works out. Some of the movie is predictable but some of it isn’t. There are plenty of surprises to make this movie a unique and non-traditional Christmas watch.

You can read my review here: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/12/07/comfy-cozy-christmas-movie-impressions-holiday-affair/

Where you can find it: Amazon, YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Fandango

Bells of St. Mary

I couldn’t believe it took me so long to watch this movie.

I ended up loving it when I did last year. The chemistry between the main stars, Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman, was outstanding. It was also nice to see Ingrid in a role with some humor because I’ve only ever seen her in more serious roles. And, of course, I love that Bing sang in this movie, even though it wasn’t a strict musical.

Bing Crosby arrives as the new priest at the St. Mary’s parish and is immediately told of how the former priest aged quickly because he had to help oversee a nun-run, school that is run-down and in the inner city.

The former priest also had to deal with Sister Superior Mary Benedict (Bergman), a woman with a strong personality who runs the school.

“I can see you don’t know what it means to be up to your neck in nuns,” the rectory housekeeper says.

Father O’Malley admits he doesn’t and the woman advises him to “sleep well tonight” as if implying it will be his last good night of sleep for a while.

Father O’Malley and Sister Benedict butt heads more than once but in passive-aggressive ways. One way they butt heads is in how to educate the children at the school. O’Malley is much softer in his approach while Sister Mary prefers levying harsher punishments.

There isn’t a ton of “Christmas” in this movie other than in the middle of the movie, there is an adorable rehearsal of the Christmas/nativity story with the cutest little kids – probably 5 to 7. Still, many consider this a Christmas movie.

“The Bells of St. Mary’s has come to be associated with the Christmas season,” a Wikipedia article states. “Probably because of the inclusion of a scene involving a Christmas pageant at the school, a major plot point involving an unlikely (yet prayed for) gift, and the film’s having been released in December 1945. In the 1946 film, It’s a Wonderful Life, in which Henry Travers, a co-star of The Bells of St. Mary’s, plays the guardian angel Clarence Odbody, the title of The Bells of St. Mary’s appears on the marquee of a movie theater in Bedford Falls, New York. In The Godfather (1972), Michael and Kay see The Bells of St. Mary’s at Radio City Music Hall.”

My review: https://lisahoweler.com/2023/12/12/comfy-cozy-christmas-the-bells-of-st-mary/

Where You Can Find It: Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, YouTube, Apple TV, Google Play, Roku Channel, etc.

A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

Shortly after we moved to our current house, my son and I were looking for a show to watch late at night and found a show called The Goes Wrong Show on BritBox. We clicked on it and were, quite frankly, bewildered by it.

It was a group of about seven people acting out a play and completely messing up lines, tripping off props, and being all-out insanely weird.

We weren’t sure if these people were really messing up their plays or if they were pretending to mess up a play, or . . .what was going on.

We watched the first episode and laughed so hard that our sides hurt. Obviously, we eventually caught on that the whole show was meant to be a joke and that the actors were real actors playing fake actors on a show about actors.

Later we watched the episodes with The Husband and he laughed so hard I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel.

We watched the whole season and I have to say the Christmas episode was my favorite that first season. Flash forward to a few years ago and we discovered this group — which we had since found out was called Mischief Theatre — had been featured in a special called A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong on the BBC.

With A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong we are getting more than just funny but also pure ridiculousness.

For a little background on the actor troupe who takes part in this Christmas special, according to Wikipedia, “Mischief Theatre is a British theatre company founded in 2008 by a group of students from The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in West London, and directed by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. The group originally began by doing improvised comedy shows, but by 2012 they expanded into comedic theatrical performances that include choreographed routines, jokes, and stunts.

The company is best known for its performances as the fictional theatre company, The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, who attempt several amateur performances that comedically go wrong.”

In this particular special, the comedy group has taken over the BBC’s production of A Christmas Carol by kidnapping and dragging out the main stars, including Derek Jacobi, a famous British actor. Actress Diana Rigg plays the narrator part of the time, but literally has to “phone it in” because she is stuck in traffic.

Things, of course, go completely haywire and become even crazier when one of the actors believes he should be the lead actor and tries to knock out the director (Chris) to take over the lead as Scrooge. While trying to take out Chris, though, he injures other cast members or ends up destroying various sets.

My review: https://lisahoweler.com/2022/11/17/tis-the-season-cinema-a-christmas-carol-goes-wrong/

Where you can find it: Amazon, Tubi, YouTube, The CW, Pluto, Plex

Have you seen any of these movies?

What movies will you be watching this holiday season?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men Came with The Star of Bethlehem

December 24, 2019December 24, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

For Christmas, I thought I’d share some prose from my dad, Ronald G. Robinson and a poem from my grandfather, Walter Harlow Robinson, who passed away when I was 2. I would have loved to have known Grandpa, but I know him through his poetry and his journals he left behind and I know one day I’ll see him again.

First, a status update my dad left on his Facebook today, Christmas Eve:

Contemplating Christmas this a.m. As Christmas approaches there are many things yet undone and I spend, maybe waste time thinking on the happenings in our country as Christmas approaches. Will ignoring such make it go away? Then there are friends facing serious sicknesses and going to funerals and the list goes on and on in uncertain times. Will not thinking about them make them go away? Were we better off before social media and did not know about so much? Well, I don’t know exactly but, I pray as we contemplate Christmas that the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever, the One who calmed the raging storm of fear on the sea of Galilee will calm the storms in our lives as we contemplate Christmas. May Good memories, hope and joy live still in your hearts this Christmas.

And from my Grandfather, an untitled poem he wrote for Christmas in 1967:

As the passing year comes to a close

A Sacred Holiday everyone knows.

Peace on earth, goodwill to men

Came with the Star of Bethlehem.

Shepherds came to a glorious light

A song was born – O Holy Night.

No room at the Inn, no crib for a bed

No place for Jesus to lay his head.

One man arose, willing and able

To Joseph and Mary he gave his stable.

It always remains through the years,