My 7 Secrets for a Perfect Holiday

 

My Thanksgiving Day schedule on the fridge. Next to the stove, you can see my recipes on a stand.

Have you noticed how time seems to fly when we get close to the holiday season? This is my favorite time of year, and yet I seem to always be running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get everything done, and getting flustered, flummoxed, and frustrated in the process. If you can relate, then I am here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way, and I think I’ve found the secret to making any holiday just about perfect.

Like many families, the last few years around here have been fraught with change…COVID, unemployment, extra family members living with us, illness, death…we’ve survived it all, and it has changed the way we look at Christmas (or any holiday for that matter). At some point, I just gave up trying to be the perfect hostess presenting the perfect dinner in a perfect house with all the perfect touches for a perfect event. Where does this idea of perfection come from anyway? I think we’ve all been watching too many Hallmark movies! Although I truly do know better than to expect perfection, there is something in me that has this “perfect” picture of the holidays in my head and I’ll be darned if I’m not going to try and accomplish it! 

A few years ago, I finally figured out that I can’t do it all on my own, and I enlisted the help of my daughter, Christen (who you know from this blog and the podcast), and my niece, Ashley. One early fall day, we enjoyed happy hour at our local Chuy’s and decided to plan our holiday festivities, nailing down any and every detail we could think of along with assigning a person to be responsible for it. It was nothing that I hadn’t done before, but having it all spelled out in writing and with two other family members to back it up, it carried weight.  We planned it together. Who was going to challenge that?

Those first couple of years were focused on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and many of the activities in our “plan” involved baking days, crafting days, and even some movie-watching and game-playing days. As each day rolled around, we found it was easy to know what was supposed to happen and when so most things went off without a hitch. After each holiday, we would regroup, make notes about what worked and what didn’t, and set it aside for the next year. This planning has become our routine and has been amazingly effective even through COVID and all the aforementioned changes. And because of the success of all this planning, I was able to discover what I call my 7 Secrets of a Perfect Holiday. 

1. Be realistic. 

When you look at what you want to accomplish realistically, you may find that what you want isn’t just a challenge – it can be impossible. Pick and choose what you really want to include, and learn to say “no” to anything that goes beyond that.  

When my family started planning, we quickly realized that some family activities just weren’t going to happen when we are all  together, so we opted for going our separate ways for things like visits with Santa and driving around looking at lights. We also quickly realized that to have all of our Christmas baking and decorating done in time to enjoy it, we had to start working on it the weekend after Thanksgiving. Now, baking and decorating on that Saturday is part of our Thanksgiving/Christmas ritual.

2. Make a plan.

Once you know what is most important to you, start planning it out. Think about all the details like time constraints, supplies needed, and who will be responsible for each part. Plan out the menu for your meals and then break the recipes down into little steps that are scheduled throughout the day or even the day before.

Knowing that we are going to make cornbread dressing on Thursday for Thanksgiving, we knew that we had to bake the cornbread on Monday so it could dry out to bread crumbs. I made pies the day before. Then, for the day of our feast, I start at the time I would like to serve dinner and work my way back through all of the recipes so that everything is done and ready to serve at exactly the right time. If a recipe calls for chopping celery, I mark on the plans who will be chopping. In this way, every person knows exactly what they are doing and when…right down to setting the table, changing clothes, and putting on make-up.

3. Delegate.

This was one of the hardest things for me to do. I’m a control freak, and to allow someone else to do something that I am perfectly capable of doing (especially when I have a specific way I want it done) is darned near impossible, but I’ve learned to do it. I realized some while back that the other women in the family are never going to learn how to do things unless I allow them to do it and learn, and someday it will be up to them to carry on our family traditions. I owe it to them to bring them in on the process – to teach them the way. It has been a lifesaver for me. Learning to let go and let someone else do it allows me to focus on other aspects of the holiday like baking my special recipe or coordinating all the other helpers. This year, more than half of our Thanksgiving dishes were made by someone other than me, and my brother and niece set the tables.

4. Lower your expectations.

This can be hard, too, especially if you have some kind of Norman Rockwell/Hallmark movie picture of what Christmas (or any other holiday) should be like. Remember that 70% rule Christen talked about a while back? It applies here, too. If you can manage to get 70% of what you hope to accomplish, I’m betting you’re going to have a great holiday. And remember that delegating thing? Don’t expect too much of your helpers, either. It’s perfectly okay if your niece sets the table with the forks and knives on the wrong sides of the plates. No one cares. Really. No one cares.

5. Be in the moment.

If I learned anything from our adventure reading Eckhart Tolle’s, A New Earth, it is this – be in the moment. The moment is now. Now is all there is. Make the most of what you have. Enjoy it. Be fully present. 

This was never more evident in our family than this past Thanksgiving. My brother and his family came to visit, and rather than change our plans, we decided to just bring them in on all the fun. For Saturday, the plan was to rise early, eat some donuts and start decorating my tree. In the afternoon, we were going to start some of our baking and take turns at building gingerbread houses. If there was enough time in the evening, we would either play a game or do some crafting. But things change. Christen wasn’t in the mood for donuts, so she brought breakfast burritos, too (a big hit with everyone), and we were having so much fun visiting with my sister-in-law and doing some crafting that we never did decorate the tree. In the end, the “boys” played a game while we crafted, and then we all got in on the gingerbread houses, taking turns at the dining room table. It was all good fun, and while I wished I had gone to bed that evening with a fully-decorated tree, it didn’t kill me to do it the next day. The point is that we were in the moment, enjoying what was, and not worrying about what was supposed to be. I wouldn’t trade those hours of crafting and talking with Lisa for the world.

6. Stick to your budget.

This may sound super obvious, but budgets have a very real and valuable purpose, and that is to keep us out of trouble! It’s very tempting to shop for groceries for a dinner and add one more side dish or appetizer, or to discover one more gift for someone that you think you must give. I am so guilty of this! Especially when it comes to gift-giving. I will find the perfect gift for someone and then the very next day find another little something that would be perfect for that person. But, oops, if I buy one more for this person, then I need to find another little something for that person, and it just keeps adding up. I love using things like Amazon Wish Lists to buy gifts because I can quickly tally how much I’ve spent on each person and stick to my budget. It’s a lot safer for me than just randomly milling through stores looking for something. Santa has the right idea; make a list, check it twice, and stick to it! There’s nothing worse than overspending on a meal or gifts and then eating beans and rice for the next month just to pay for it.

7. Stick to your routines.

This last little tidbit is more about self-care than anything else. Often, when we are caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays, we tend to overlook things like our diet, exercise routines, and even sleep. Be sure to stick to your regular sleep schedule as much as possible (even when you have company!), and don’t give up on those exercise routines. A morning work-out, evening meditation, or that wonderful soak in a hot tub might be just the thing to help you keep the stress at bay. As for that diet…well, we all over-indulge once in a while, so just be mindful and don’t make it another habit that you’re going to have to change come January 1.

That’s my secret to having a perfect holiday. I’d like to know what you think. Do you have any tips to share with our readers? Be sure to listen to the podcast on Wednesday to hear what Christen and Amber have to say!

Secret Santa Stocking Stuffers

Hey, it’s Cindy again, and I’m here to wrap up our talk about holiday traditions. I think we’ve already established that I like Christmas...a lot. I love giving gifts, something I got from my Dad, who was always giving surprise gifts to my mom. I think he really loved the part of Santa --  those secret gifts stuffed into stockings and piled up under the tree to be discovered on Christmas morning. It’s one of the reasons he was still leaving things for my sister and me long after we were grown and had children of our own. 

One of the things I loved was that there was usually a Santa gift for my mom, too. It wasn’t necessarily something big, just a token of his affection stuffed in her stocking or stacked neatly where she’d be sure to find it. I carried on that tradition with my own family, filling their stockings every year, even after the kids were grown and there was no reason to be secretive about any of it. But one thing always bothered me -- I loved the giving, but I missed being surprised. 

A few years ago, at a board meeting with my Aggie Moms group (that’s a whole podcast of its own!), the president asked us to share a fun Christmas tradition. So as we went around the table, one of the other moms told us how her family had an unusual gift-giving routine. Someone in the family would pick a store and everyone in the family had to buy a gift from that store. The store changed every year, and sometimes it could be a real challenge because it might be a unique specialty store, or even a gas station!

This sounded like great fun, and wound up being the perfect solution to my stocking surprise dilemma. I told my family about my idea, and we all agreed to give it a try. For that first year, we agreed to Dollar Tree as our store, and the challenge was for everyone in the family to buy one gift for each person in the family (we didn’t have any kids then). There was no price limit because...well, it was Dollar Tree. On Christmas Eve, we all stuffed each other’s stockings before we went to bed, and then we sat around the breakfast table the next morning, exploring what we got. We had a lot of great laughs and wound up with some fun little goodies that we might never have bought for each other or ourselves. After that, it was a tradition.

Over the years, we’ve shopped at Always 99¢, Daiso, Five Below, Dollar Tree (again), and others. Sometimes it’s easy to find gifts, and sometimes it’s a real challenge, but it’s always fun, and everyone looks forward to both giving and receiving the fun little trinkets we find. Notably, it never fails that someone buys me something with a llama on it, and I always find something for one of the girls that has a mermaid. Now if only I can remember what store we picked for this year….

 

Christen's Favorite Holiday Tradition

Back a couple weeks ago I was talking about my December bucket list, and some of the holiday traditions that I love. One of the newer traditions that I have stated recently is really just an old tradition that has evolved over the years, and it’s one that I seem to look forward to the most. It has kind of formed its own bucket list of sorts. Mom and I have been compiling a list of Christmas themed movies over the past couple of years, and we select certain ones we want to watch; we literally take a vote each year and plan movie nights together. Please tell me other families are as neurotic as mine? So far we have watched the traditional movies everyone knows and remembers as well as some not-so traditional holiday movies. The debate is still up about some of them like Diehard and So I Married an Axe Murderer. In addition to those holiday movies, there has been a binge fest of Terminator, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. This  year I am thinking Marvel is a good idea, as my mom hasn't even seen Aquaman yet!

This nonsense all started with those old Christmas movies that I grew up watching, like the stop motion The Year Without a Santa Claus or the animation Frosty the Snowman, both of which were produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. Anyone my age can recall watching these films growing up. They originally aired on TV, and still do if you keep an eye out for them. We even watched them in school countless times.

As I got older, I wanted to watch more and more of the holiday films and I discovered Hallmark one lazy afternoon. My best friend and I sat at her mom's house one day from morning till night watching back to back movies. The three of us snuggled up on the couch just lazing the day away, each dozing off into tiny naps. I have to have my snuggle days in the winter time, I guess the combination of the weather and warm drinks and food that just make me want to hibernate. What’s more enjoyable than cuddling up on the weekend and watching some cheesy holiday movies? Once I discovered the ridiculousness of Hallmark Christmas movies I was hooked! 

I try to watch as many Christmas themed movies as humanly possible during the holiday season. It does take some planning if you need to include the kids or want to have a holiday watch party. If you are flying solo, Hallmark takes the guesswork out of it. There is basically a new movie every two hours all day every day. If you have a DVR you can record the ones you miss while at work. If you ditched cable or can’t seem to get in sync with the network channel and you need your movie fix ASAP, Netflix has been really pulling out the stops for their holiday movies. Last year, we enjoyed Klaus, Jingle Jangle and Christmas Chronicles 2 as a family. I also enjoyed watching all of the Princess Switch movies. If you have children in your watch party, I recommend spending about 10 minutes on Netflix adding all the holiday movies to the watch list on the kids profile. This will keep the movies streaming for hours. I especially like to have these on while I am doing my holiday baking, because I have seen them all a thousand times and don’t have to be 100 % engaged. I can sit down, watch a few minutes of Home Alone in between cookie batches while I rest my feet.

This year, I am also excited to bring out all of the old Christmas classics from the 70’s that my husband and I enjoyed growing up that I mentioned earlier. My mom recently cleaned out her movie collection and gave us all of the VHS tapes, and she had all those favorites. We plan on blowing the dust off of the VHS player soon and popping those babies in for some throwbacks!  If you are interested in looking up the old animated films that we all loved to watch growing up, here is a great list of holiday themed movies; just scroll down to the 'Television Specials' graph and you will see all your favorites and more. 

What is your favorite holiday movie? Do you think Die Hard is a Christmas movie? Let me know of any little gems that aren't as mainstream because I have the desire to watch them all and want to add them to my Ultimate Holiday Movie List – Coming soon!