[printable via oh my deer handmades]
We’ve been posting recently about fall fashion, fall food and even fall favorite outfits from the new Dainty Jewells collection. What we haven’t necessarily mentioned yet are the holidays that are brought with the fall season. You do know about the #ShesGrateful social media campaign (which we hope you’re joining us in), and of course, Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, less than a month away. Cue the madness. Holiday madness. Mad dashes to the grocery store, frenzied cleaning fits and all the little details that go into the holidays themselves. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a routine that made holiday entertaining more effortless?
Around our house the holidays are very celebrated. We celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas both in a big way. I was homeschooled growing up, so Thanksgiving was also a learning holiday, looking at our forefathers, dressing up alternately as Pilgrims and Indians and trying to understand the feelings that the First Americans must have felt on that very first holiday of Thanksgiving. Sadly, those wonderful deep feelings of gratitude can get lost in the shuffle of turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. How do we keep the Thanks in Thanksgiving and the Christ in Christmas? My answer is the Rule of Three: Plan, Prepare & Execute.
1. Plan: Grab a blank piece of paper and give yourself five minutes to write everything about the holidays that comes into your mind. Done? Okay, look at that list and choose five action items – things that you need to actually do for the holidays – and put them on a separate list. Write a goal date to have those five things finished.
2. Prepare You have your list right? Prioritize them. You can’t make the pumpkin pie the first week of November, but can you do the shopping for it? Can you get your table ready? What can you do ahead of time to make the day/week of easier?
3. Execute It’s action time! It’s time to do those five things! But wait, you mean you have more than five things to do? (Haha, of course, I’m kidding here.) It’s a continual process. The break-down of your list has to happen more than once, but it’s a start! Do it weekly, or even daily if you have to…you’ll notice that it will become a habit and maybe even something you do outside of the holiday season.
I’ve included some articles below that talk about pro-tips on destressing the holidays! And one of the best ways? Pray about it. Think about what you want to remember after the holidays are over and decide what is most important – the things that matter the most are the things you want to focus on and forget the rest. Family matters, flaws don’t!