The holidays are a wonderful, stressful and intense time in the mom world.
We have more stuff put on our plates starting really before Halloween. Some of it we can help, some of it we can’t help and some of it we love.
Either way, there is no denying that our to-do lists get longer and our patience gets shorter.
I love cookie decorating.
I love putting up decorations.
I don’t love all of the traveling.
I don’t love that we’re probably going to have 72 spirit weeks at school that I will have to remember.
What happens this time of year (and I’ve been guilty of it) is that we yes yes to everything – in our family life, in our personal life and we try to keep up the same pace in our business too.
We try to do everything.
Then we end up losing our ever loving shit and being the mean mommy. We don’t actually want that. If you’re like me, have you ever had that out of body experience, you’re like,
“Okay, I know I’m losing it on my kids who don’t deserve me to lose it on them. And why am I doing this again? Oh, because I said yes to being the Santa at school to deliver candy and I’m stressed out about it”
As we get into this blog, I am going to share what I do every year to try to avoid this happening.
Setting Boundaries & Saying NO!
I essentially blocked my calendar the last two weeks of December. I also believe that you have to have a plan for your business so that you don’t disappear or you don’t burn out, which I see happen to people every single year. You also have to have boundaries in your life.
One of my boundaries since we’ve had kids is I will not travel for both Thanksgiving AND Christmas.
None of our families live close enough that they can just easily come over. We have to travel to see both of our families and to pack up and travel for Thanksgiving and then less than a month later to do the same thing. For me, it’s not enjoyable. I don’t have fun with it. So wherever we travel for the holidays, it’s only happening for one holiday.
I want to remind you that it’s okay to say no to the small things, too.
It’s okay to not agree to do every single thing.
It’s okay to buy the store bought cookies and decorate them instead of making them from scratch.
It’s okay to not take your kids to see Santa.
I had to remind myself of that last week because we didn’t take our kids to see Santa last year.
They did it at school. We didn’t get to see it, but we got pictures of it.
We made an executive decision to not do it with everything else that we had going on. Last week I was like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe we didn’t take our kids to see Santa. I felt like a bad mom for a second.
I had to snap myself out of it and remind myself that we made the choice not to take them.
Honestly, you know how it is. You’re dressing up two toddlers to go see Santa. They’re going to crap their pants. They’re going to cry about it. It just becomes this whole thing that’s not actually as fun as you think it’s going to be. So we didn’t do it last year.
You get to say no too!
We want to create a magical experience for our kids. We want a magical holiday season for them and for us because we deserve it, too. But we truly, truly can’t do it all.
When we try, that’s when we end up crying on the floor of our shower. Just me? Okay!
You add in your business on top of that and all the end of year stuff like Black Friday. Good luck, right? Good luck to you.
I really believe in straddling the line. I’m not going to say balance, but I believe in straddling the line. I believe in rest and I believe in being super present in the holidays without just tossing your business in the trash.
The Want To, Have To, Should Do List
This exercise is really going to help you stay focused on what is important to you for the last two months of the year. Essentially, it’s like the adult version of a bucket list, the adult version of an anti-bucket list too.
It’s what I call the want to, have to, should do list.
You’re going to take a piece of paper and you’re going to divide it into three columns .
You’ll write: Have to, Want to, Should do at the top of a colum.
Start thinking about all the things that you do during the holidays.
All the things you say yes to both personally and in your business.
1. Have To List
Now, there are things that you have to do over the next two months. You might have to travel for Thanksgiving and do all the prep for that. You may have to take client calls through the end of the year because your contracts and your groups go through the end of the year. There are things that you don’t really have a choice and you do have to do them.
I do want you to take note of, if it doesn’t feel good that you’re taking calls and you have groups the week before Christmas or the week of Thanksgiving, if that doesn’t feel good, make sure you make a note of that so that you adjust that for next year. In my content membership, I adjusted the way December is going to look because my clients are also not showing for calls the week of Christmas, they don’t want to – so we make adjustments ahead of time.
It’s your business. You can adjust it however you want.
2. Want To List
Then, and this is where I think we get tripped up.
What do you want to do? Not that you have to do, not that you think you should do because Susie on Instagram is doing it. What do you actually enjoy about the holiday season and what do you want to do?
I truly honestly enjoy baking cookies. I really do. It is a tradition that we’ve done in my family for as long as I can remember. Last year I did it with Celeste, but I’ve also done it by myself. It’s really something that I like. That goes on my want to list because I know that if January comes around and I didn’t do that, I am going to be disappointed. Not because I feel like I have to do it for anybody else because I just like doing it for myself.
Now, let me give you another example. I used to love wrapping and making really fancy gifts. I used to make personalized, handwritten gift tags for everybody that I sent a gift to. I would spend hours wrapping in front of the TV, watching a Christmas movie, handwriting these tags. I really did enjoy it. Now, that’s something that goes on my should do list because I feel like I should do it because I always have. But the time it takes isn’t worth it to me anymore because there’s so many other things to do.
But really think about what you want to do. Really think about what makes or breaks your holiday season, and not just as mom, not just as wife, not just as business owner, but also think about just you as you, what you like to do.
3. Should List
The last list is the should list. This is a list that you fill out of all the things that you think you should be doing.
I should be wrapping fancy gifts because I’ve always done it before.
I should be putting up two Christmas trees that’s what my mom does.
I should be doing a Black Friday sale.
I tricked my brain and almost did it again this year. I see everybody talking about Black Friday sales. Maybe I should put one together.
No, because we’re going out of town in the middle of BFE, where we have no cell phone reception. If anything were to go wrong, and I don’t want to show up that weekend, it’s too much work to have to show up for Black Friday weekend. So that’s on my should list. Yeah, I should do it because everybody else is, but I’m not going to.
Think about the things in your head, matching PJs for some people. For some people, that’s on their want to list. That is their tradition. They love it. For you, maybe it’s like, oh, I should do matching PJs because everybody on Instagram has the cutest pictures.
But do you care? Do you want to spend the money? Do you want to do the work to find them and force your kids into them?
I really want you to think about what is on that should list. What are you in your brain saying, well, if I don’t do this, I’m not a good business owner. If I don’t do this, I’m not a good mom. Think about that.
For me, I’m backtracking to Halloween, I will never do a boo basket. I’m not into it.
To me, it just feels like extra work and extra crap in my house that I don’t want. I also have people in my life that love doing boo baskets, and it’s so fun for them to put them together and make them cute. Then absolutely keep doing them.
We’re not all the same. Just because you see a bunch of people doing something on Instagram does not mean that you have to do it.
At the end of the day, the stuff that goes on your want to list is stuff that you block on your calendar that you commit to doing and you commit to being present in doing it.
The should do list, you rip that shit up and you throw it away and you ignore those things and you let those things go, whether it’s business or home related.
You don’t have to do it all.
You don’t have to keep up with what everybody else is doing on Instagram and then not have an enjoyable time for yourself.
That defeats the purpose. That is not what we’re doing here. So make those lists, like I said, rip up the should one, throw it away, but then keep your have to and want to list on your calendar, on your desk, on your bathroom mirror.
Block time on your calendar for those want to things.
Stay focused on what’s best for you and for your family and set the boundaries where you can set them.
Embrace Your Own Unique Holiday Experience/Traditions
My mom used to always tell me something that her mom used to tell her. And it was like, the most important people are the ones that are in your house when you close your door at the end of the night.
When I was a kid, I understood very black and white what that meant. Now that I’m older and I have my own family, I guess it means a little something different.
We need to do the things for ourselves and for the people that live under our own roof. That are there when we close the door at the end of the night and not worry about what anybody else thinks or making anybody else happy. If we’re trying to do that and we’re showing up as a crappy version of ourself for our own immediate family, what’s the point?
I’m not always the best at this.
We’re getting ready for a road trip right now and I’m stressed out. The other day I was in the bathroom with Dom and I had that feeling of overwhelm creep up of like, we have this road trip. Then we immediately get back and we have a wedding that Jeff’s in. Then right after that wedding, we are going away for Thanksgiving.
I started spiraling. I looked at Dom and he looked at me because he could see it on my face. I was like, okay, shake it off. We’re not going to be stressed out, right?
We can choose to change our thoughts.
I spend a lot of time in the holiday season changing my thoughts and you get to do the same thing.
Anybody that creates their have to, want to, should do list, post it to your stories and tag me so that I can help hold you accountable to what you said you’re going to do this holiday season!
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