Every year I crave more and more quiet over chaos around the holiday season. Every year I am inevitably the person running to the closest open store on Christmas Eve for that one gift I totally forgot.

This year I’m committed to a Quiet Christmas and dragging the Kaleidoscope Team along with me. For us this means DIY presents for our annual Secret Santa gift exchange and totally closing up shop for 2 weeks! Luxury!

I’d love to invite you all into the same effort to put more emphasis on quality time over quality Christmas cards and more presence than presents. Even if that’s the cheesiest line ever, it still rings true.

So I came up with a Quiet Christmas Checklist to inspire some ways to say no to the crazy and yes to the cozy.

You can download, print out and check off as a family or peruse to inspire your own. If you join this anti-challenge make sure to share and tag @kldscp and #aQuietChristmasWithKLDSCP on social media…unless you’re deleting Instagram for the month, which would be a great way addition to the checklist ;)

To get you in the mood and excellent reminders of what actually matters in the long run:

1. Taylor Swift’s adorable new Christmas music video

2. Amy Grant’s A Tennessee Christmas for nostalgia that hurts so good

May this season be full of the merriest and brightest moments,