Intentional Holidays

It’s that time of year again. When our kids go slightly crazy in anticipation of the big day, of getting presents galore, of time off from school of spending time with you. Doing all the holiday things, and whatever that means to your family, whether it be parties, decorating trees, caroling, watching football games, whatever the holiday season means to you and yours.

But it also feels like a super easy recipe for disaster with sugar at every corner and therefore the temptation to overindulge, both for us and our cute little kids that then suddenly turn into brats. It is a bit like the holiday parade I was part of this year as a Girl Scout leader. Almost all of my troop was there, a total of 7 girls only two of which were mine. We were all riding on a float that they had helped decorated with 37 other girls from other troops in the area. What made it a leader’s nightmare was the pick up as in this particular parade it just stops on Main Street and the parents all come to the float and want to take their kids, and as you can image 44 girls getting picked up at once on a multi-sided float can make leaders who need to see parents eyeballs super antsy.

It worked out well this year as there was a single exit from the float and I had prepped all the parents and the girls that I had to see their eyeballs before they could walk away with their girls. And as near as I could tell all the other leaders had similar experiences with their parents. Because we prepared them and the girls ahead of time for what we expected to have happened at the float.

But what about the craziness of the holidays? Can you prepare your family in advance to have a smoother time? Can you prepare self-care for yourself around it so that you can be vigilant (like when there are 44 girls on a float that need to stay seated while you cruise down Main Street) when you need to be but also get some time to relax and enjoy the holidays too?

How can you do this? Well here are some things that I have done in the past and am trying out this year to help navigate through this season of light.

Every year my kids and I sit down and come up with a list of activities we want to do usually from Thanksgiving through Christmas. You can see my post about it last year here. What is great about this is that I get a chance to find out what each of my kids want to do and what is important to them, so if say nobody wants to go see the Nutcracker again (this year) we don’t have to go and do that and instead of time to try some other things, like going to a historical 19th century Christmas celebration, and going to see Christmas in Arendelle that a library we have never been to is hosting. I like to put the list on post-it notes and then we can move them around on the calendar as it works, as sledding in the snow is weather contingent and we have already watched a Christmas movie as a family this year.

So step one is being really conscious of what we say yes to schedule wise. Right now I have all the Saturdays between now and Christmas scheduled with an activity, and we know the approximate date we are going to go and get our Christmas tree. Any additional invites will be filtered through the already busy Saturdays and it can be easier to say no that we already have plans than sometimes just saying no.

But I do try and keep us busy just before Christmas, because that countdown to Christmas morning can be so frenzied and that’s just my 5 and 6 year old. That is the one weekend where we currently have an event on Saturday and a party on Sunday. With Christmas being a Tuesday this year I am hoping my hubby can work from home on Christmas Eve and if the weather is good I can keep the kids outside most of the time.

I also have the ability to take the week before Christmas off, so I am not working after December 14th until the 2nd of January because it’s just too crazy with little ones, and frankly in 5 years they will be old enough that I could work then if I wanted too. I want to enjoy the delight of Christmas while I still can before they are too old to care.

I also try and take care of Christmas cards and the like early. We make a holiday calendar for family and I usually build that on Thanksgiving weekend so that it is ready to be ordered when the sale is good and then they get mailed out as soon as I have them. I often also write the Christmas letter and cards and order the photos around Thanksgiving too. This year for Thanksgiving we were super tired so I didn’t worry about working on that and instead just really focused on rest and relaxation with my family. But I will get the cards out early so that they are done. I totally think my friend that did New Years Cards last year had it great as well she didn’t even try and get them out for Christmas and that took a lot of pressure off.

I have also been working on Christmas gift shopping since probably July. My kids know that they have to me know what they want from Santa by Halloween so the elves have time to make what they want. None of this last minute request stuff. Because I use Swagbucks to pay for a lot of Christmas, not quite everything is in the house yet, but most of is and I know how much is left to order at the beginning of December.

That just leaves some food shopping and maybe a few things for stockings. But I have even already been talking to the family about what we want for Christmas dinner and have gotten a few of the things for the relish tray type idea for lunch already squirreled away in the cupboard. By working ahead I can spread the cost as well as feel less stressed and I can just focus on doing what the kids want to do as we wait for the day.

How are you preparing for the season? Have you thought about what you are going to say to any rude relatives or acquaintances? Have you thought about how much space you really have in your schedule that you can hold social events? Have you gotten the teacher/scout leaders/postal worker gifts sorted or at least have ideas? I like to get my kids involved in the making of those things so we can work on them together and they are also part of the gift giving process.

How can you take the stress out of the holiday season?