On Thanksgiving Day, after we were done with second helpings, my niece asked her mother if she was going to make stock with the turkey carcas, and then some turkey soup.

My sister-in-law just nodded her head no.

“That’s something someone in their 30’s would ask,” I told my niece. “I bet 95 percent of under-50 mothers make soup Thanksgiving night. Anyone older than that is too exhausted.”

And I’ve been pondering this ever since, this great slowing of the engines, this willingness to skip holiday traditions or the things you’ve always done over and over year after year. When is the first time a woman says to herself, “Nah, I’m not doing that this year?”

My cousin was once a dedicated Black Friday shopper. She’d set out just before midnight Thanksgiving night and wouldn’t get home until dinnertime the next day. It was a sport for her. She loved every minute of it. But this year? This year she didn’t go. I almost fell over when she called and told me she wouldn’t be joining the hoards of people duking it out over video games or Cabbage Patch dolls. It was unfathomable to me that she wasn’t going shopping and I was, quite frankly, surprised the world managed to spin for another day.

So, what happened there? Nothing tragic, really. She’s just getting older. Black Friday now presents itself as something skipable.

I sent a visiting daughter home with a tub of old Christmas decorations. Inside, a stuffed Santa she would love and some other things reminiscent of her childhood holidays. But if that box could talk, it would have explained that I was sick of lugging those tubs around for 35 years, that I didn’t want to see the angel with the halo wreath ever again, and that the cute little dish for vegetable dips–red with Christmas trees on it, would have gone to Goodwill if nobody else wanted it. I’m starting to shed the sentimental in favor of empty closets and basements and there’s no stopping me now.

I don’t think my own grandmother was this way until much later in life. She was still cranking out turkeys, perfectly coiffed Christmas trees, and five varieties of cookies well into her 70’s and maybe even 80’s. But people had much, much less to deal with in those days. She wasn’t at Hobby Lobby on November 1st, loading up carts with holiday decorations that would reproduce in her basement. She had fewer things–special things– and she used them every year. She wasn’t pressured by Instagram to make new and exciting dishes every season–like a layered sweet potato concoction layered in phyllo dough or a pumpkin cheesecake with a baked apple strudel as the first layer. She didn’t have a phone she carried everywhere with her that barked at her every ten minutes or the pressure to be everything to everyone. She made the same food, had the same decorations and put her tree in the same spot for decades. Think about how much better you’d be if you could just keep reproducing the same holiday for eons. You could do it in your sleep.

These days, we have to rent out actual storage units to hold all of our holiday cheer. And I wouldn’t dream of not coming up with a new dish for Thanksgiving so no one would have to eat the same raspberry jello salad they loved when they were two but don’t like anymore because they are vegan or sugar free or gluten free. And God forbid I use last decade’s napkins with the red turkeys on them because nowadays the napkins say things like “grateful” and “thankful,” or some silly saying like “No cookies…just cocktails please.”

So, as the years go by, pieces of Christmas begin to fall by the wayside. They hop on a sleigh and dash off down the snowy hills of last year, or last decade. Like everything else in life these days, holidays are complicated and the older I get, the less I feel like climbing a ladder to put lights around the window by the stairs. And I have this attitude that simple is just better. Less is more.

I’m using the word downsize as a verb this year, without suggesting we stop making Christmas special. But I’m giving myself permission to do Christmas lite. Like generations of older women before me, I’m going easy on the royal icing and the outdoor lights. When we’re building traditions with kids, we have the energy to do it all. But I’m, quite frankly, tired now, so more years means less fuss and that’s okay. I’m not the first Santa to retire her suit and have a glass of wine instead. I’m happy just being an elf.