Avoiding the inlaws.
Amazing how much that simplifies everything!

But really, we try and keep things simple. Traditionally we do 3 gifts for each of the kids + stocking stuffers. The stockings we tend to fill with things like: toothbrushes, hair ties, socks, a little candy, chapsticks, etc. The gifting is very unbalanced. Our parents spend more money and get more gifts for our kids than we do. We've asked them to tone it down (for many different reasons). One of them is that we feel it makes Christmas less special. Anyways . . .

This year I opted to bake Pumpkin Cheesecake bread and passed them out this weekend to our neighbors and friends instead of trying to squeeze cookie baking and delivering in before Christmas.

DH and I usually only have Christmas and New Year's Day off . . . there's not a lot of free time to begin with. We don't make a lot of plans and we have no problem saying no.