The Holiday Generalist Vs. The Holiday Specialist:

Meet Jenny Generalist. You can spot her a mile away at this time of year because of the speed at which she’s moving. “Who has time to slow down?” she shouts as she catches up with you in line at the local department store, her arms overflowing with gift wrap and greeting cards and stocking stuffers and a giant container of silver sprinkles—enough to carry her through an entire season of holiday cookie exchanges. Jenny doesn’t have time for inefficiency. Not with three fundraisers to organize, a children’s concert to plan, and a holiday dinner for 24 to get on the table.

Luckily for Jenny, she’s got this fabulous baby sling—a sling that’s big enough to hold her new baby while Jenny wraps gifts, addresses cards, makes handmade ornaments and pulls off the holidays without even missing a beat—as if motherhood hadn’t changed her life one iota. Everyone will be so impressed.

Across the street from Jenny lives Suzi Specialist. She’s also big-time into enjoying the holidays, but, for her, that means picking a few things and banishing everything else from her to do list.

Suzi gave up the Christmas card thing years ago—around the time the e-greeting card was invented and she found herself being bombarded with viruses masquerading as dancing Santas. She still sends out a few letters during the holiday season—heartfelt, handwritten letters that she writes over a period of days to people she really cares about.

Then, freed from the tyranny of having to address boxes and boxes of greeting cards and send them to people she barely remembers, she uses her newfound free time to indulge in a special holiday ritual she takes particular pleasure in—slicing the holiday brag letters that arrive in the mail each year into tiny strips and turning them into Christmas chains. (She’s sick of hearing from people who treat motherhood as a competition and childhood as an Olympic event.)

Suzi also takes a minimalist approach to holiday entertaining—minimalist as in potlucks and “let’s all meet at a restaurant.” She believes in recycling gifts (real recycling—not re-gifting!), making her own wrapping paper, and freaking out the neighbours by planting punk rock snowmen in her front lawn.

Yep, Suzi is Martha Stewart’s worst nightmare, a rebel mom who refuses to play by the 1950’s burn-yourself-out-by New Year’s rules.

In fact, she’s about to slice and dice a 1950s etiquette book into a hat for her punk rock snowman.