The following is an original article from co-author of Merry and Bright, Julie Fisk.

After years of being a do-it-all Christmas Season Maximalist, I’ve discovered my sweet spot in a quieter, more carefully curated Advent for myself and my family.

While there is nothing wrong with entering the season of Advent as either a maximalist or a minimalist, the maximalist version of Advent is often considered the proper way to celebrate.

Fewer Must-Do’s

Over a decade ago, I found my exhausted self standing in a friend’s kitchen, my newborn in another’s arms, sliding pans of cookies in and out of the oven as six of us worked to make and exchange hundreds of cookies. I love my friends, and I love doing things in community, but cookie exchanges are not my thing. The year I gave myself permission to say a loving no to the cookie exchange was the start of my minimalist Advent adventure.

With the school concerts, work, and “nonnegotiable” events that tend to pack the weeks in December leading up to Christmas, I’ve let go of many activities I felt obligated to do “just because.” Instead, I focus our energy on a few beloved family traditions. For example, my family cuts our own tree, and we make it an event at a local Christmas tree farm. It’s a day of silly, tradition-laden joy! And we’ve been doing random acts of kindness during Advent for as long as my kids can remember. In my house, it doesn’t feel like Christmas without kindness and a live tree. I now buy the cookies, sometimes we don’t send Christmas cards, and we’ve never had an Elf on the Shelf. And that’s okay. Our rhythm is quieter but no less special as we mark the days until Christmas.

Fewer Totes

My friend decorates everything for Christmas. Her house is magazine-worthy gorgeous in December. As lovely as it is to visit—and it is—the idea of unpacking and repacking that much Christmas feels incredibly stressful to me. As my children have grown, I’ve found myself pulling fewer and fewer decor totes out of storage in late November. We have a few beloved pieces (nativity sets, an inherited ceramic tree) that sparkle and glow in addition to our tree, but we find ourselves gathering primarily around our tree during December evenings, so I focus my efforts there and let the rest of my house stay much the same.

Refocus on Jesus

While some of our traditions are rooted in secular Christmas culture, I’m always on the hunt for ways to bring us back to Jesus. An advent devotional, religious Christmas music, reading the story of Jesus’ birth on Christmas morning—the list can be as long and varied as your family wants. I find using less energy in other areas allows me to expend more energy on keeping my and my family’s attention on Christ.

My version of minimalism is just that: mine. Here are a few questions to ponder as you consider what a minimalist Advent means in your home:

1. Does the stress of something outweigh the joy it brings you or your family? If so, is there a way to reduce the stress while keeping the joy? If not, consider releasing it. Buy cookies instead of baking them. Do a name exchange for extended family presents instead of buying for everyone. Make a list of your personal stressors and consider what might be a reasonable change.
2. Can you replace a high-energy event with a lower-energy alternative? Instead of Elf on the Shelf every day, can the Elf visit your home once a week?
3. Can you switch to an every-other-year pattern rather than every year? Instead of driving hours to walk through the gorgeous lights of Bentleyville every year, we make the trip every few years. We make hot chocolate and drive around our community to look at lights in the in-between years. As our kids have aged, we’ve sometimes skipped a year on Christmas cards.
4. What parts of your traditions embrace Jesus in tangible ways? Do you have Christmas books that get pulled out and read to the youngsters in your life every year? Does your family walk through an Advent devotional? As you free up time and energy, consider reinvesting it in ways that encourage contemplation and closeness to Jesus.

Whatever you decide to do (or not do!), remember that we can appreciate and admire what others do without feeling obligated to do the same. Jesus did not create us in cookie-cutter formation, and each of our Advent celebrations will (and should) look slightly different.