Traditions make the holiday season feel magical, but they can also lead to stress and overwhelm. In this episode, we’re taking a step back to evaluate which traditions are truly meaningful and which ones might be more hassle than joy. Just because you’ve always done something doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it! Using six key questions, we’ll walk through how to assess your traditions—considering their purpose, who’s involved, the opportunity cost, and whether small adjustments could make them more enjoyable.

Now is the perfect time to reflect, long before the holiday rush, so you can make thoughtful changes without pressure. Our goal? A holiday season focused on connection, not stress. Tune in to learn how to simplify your traditions in a way that keeps the meaning but ditches the overwhelm!

Highlights from the episode:

[00:00:57] - Tradition Spotlight on bedroom picnics

[00:02:35] - Why February is the perfect time for reflection

[00:06:13] - Reflecting on what matters

[00:11:53] - Is this tradition worth continuing?

[00:13:07] - Where to start with reflection

[00:15:08] - This week’s Get A Headstart Tip for managing wish lists

[00:17:10] - What’s on our to-do lists this week

[00:18:35] - Our Nice Lists

What’s Next:

• Choose a tradition that’s causing some headaches, and use the guiding questions to help you decide if your tradition needs to be tweaked or retired.

Resources:

• The Traitors
• Severance
• Grab The Holiday Headstart Playbook
• Take the Holiday Profile quiz
• Follow on Instagram @theholidayheadstart 
• Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! 

If you enjoyed this episode, you'll love these too:

• Episode 11 - 10 easy steps to create a new holiday tradition for your family 

More About The Holiday Headstart:

Welcome to The Holiday Headstart podcast, where we get intentional about kicking overwhelm to the curb and bringing joy back to your holidays (and every day). We’re Heidi and Emily, two sisters and former elementary school teachers, who’ve taken the simple strategies and practical tips we mastered in the classroom and put them to work in our personal lives. 

And we’re here to help you do the same! Join us each week as we share how, with a little planning and a little prep, you can ensure that the days that make life special don’t become the days that make you stressed.  

And we're here to help you do the same. Join us each week as we share how, with a little planning and a little prep, you can ensure that the days that make life special don't become the days that make you stressed. You can check out the show notes at theholidayheadstart. com. Ready to get a head start on your holidays?

Let's go!

Hey

there friends. Welcome back to the holiday headstart podcast. Today we are reflecting on our holiday traditions and sharing a get ahead tip for managing gifts.

But first,

Traditions are an important tool in building a healthy, happy, connected life.

This week, Heidi is sharing a tradition.

And I love how simple, but how magical this is now assuming your kid doesn't want crazy food for dinner, it's really not that much extra work, but what an impact it would have. I tried to put myself in my. Back in my childhood bedroom, and it would have blown my mind to have my family having a picnic in my bedroom.

I'm, that would have been something I remembered my whole life.

I'm not sure that my, uh, 14, almost 15 year olds would think that's super fun, but hopefully we could get her on board for the younger too. Maybe we'll have to try that. Yeah. I'd love to hear how it goes. We'd love to hear about your favorite traditions. Come join us on Instagram at the holiday headstart.

At least this time.

There's the parties, dealing with travel logistics, and stressing about whether or not you can get overnight shipping on that toy that your kid just asked Santa for at the last minute. Now, at some point in the middle of that seasonal whirlwind, did you find yourself saying, next year will be different?

So let's use February to make our December a little different.

Hopefully,

So, basically a tradition is any activity that you repeat, so it's likely that your holiday is full of big traditions, like your Christmas morning routine, and tiny ones, like choosing one gift to open on Christmas Eve.

And I understand that feeling. So let's use this February space and consider what's working, what's not, and how we can simplify without losing the meaning behind what matters most.

There's a page just to help you evaluate any tradition that's causing you grief.

Choose one of those traditions to evaluate.

Doing things like holiday traditions without a guiding purpose is just making you busier, but not any happier.

Involving people in our traditions is what makes them meaningful, but that's also why they can be hard to manage.

So what are you giving up in order to say yes to this tradition?

Maybe your sister in law hosts a cookie exchange the second Saturday in December and you don't really care about it. Saying yes to this tradition means you're giving up one of the last Saturdays you have before Christmas. And there are lots of things you could be doing with that time.

Yes, Saturdays in December are precious, precious time. However, if you say no to this tradition, you run the risk of damaging your relationship with your sister in law. Maybe a heart to heart discussion would help her understand where you're coming from.

It seems like it should be a straightforward process, but when you dig into it, there are a lot of feelings involved with traditions. That doesn't mean we should skip this exercise though. It just means we need to carefully consider the outcomes before we make changes.

What is the payoff? If this tradition benefits you and your loved ones, it's probably worth continuing, but it might need a few tweaks to make it manageable.

But if the effort is worth the result, then keep doing it and just find a way to make it easier to manage. Which leads

Or maybe you need to add some different games to the family party because the teens are bored doing what you've always done in the past.

Then you have the fun of sledding without the stress of Christmas thrown in.

Because Christmas Eve was already too crazy. And now we're thinking, hmm, maybe this needs to get moved from December altogether. So we make the kids dress up in Bible costumes and we have a floor picnic where we light candles and eat chicken skewers and oranges and pistachios and other Mediterranean inspired foods.

We're very inspired, inspired. It's what the kids will eat. Yes. It seems like it might fit. We're not too picky, but it is always a magical night. And I like to do it up big with lanterns and wooden dishes and make a whole scene of it. So that makes it a lot of work. And it's a lot of work in December. So this year we are trying to move it to Easter to see if it works better.

And I'm hoping that it works well with Easter. Because I realized it was such a relief not to do it in December. I don't think I had even realized how much it was adding to my stress until I didn't have to do it this year. Despite the work, this is really one of my favorite traditions. I don't want to give up on it altogether, but doing it at a calmer time of year really would make it much more manageable.

Even though it might be sad, consider the opportunity cost. By saying no to something that's not serving you anymore, you get to say yes to something new and wonderful that's better suited for your current needs.

We're after meaningful, not perfect. So this February, use our guiding questions to help you zero in on what really matters in this season of your life.

People are much more receptive to change if they have plenty of time to get used to the idea.

Is there something you'd like to add, change, or even scrap entirely? Do you want to start a new tradition? Once you know which parts of your holiday celebrations need a deeper look, pull up those six questions, And write down your answers. What's important about this tradition? Who's involved? What's the opportunity cost?

What's the payoff? How can I troubleshoot this? And given what I know, is this worth doing?

Maybe there's a collective desire to shake things up a little, and they'll be relieved that someone finally said what they've all been thinking.

This isn't about ruining the magic of the holidays. It's about being intentional with your time and energy so you can really enjoy the moments that matter most.

So let us know. Have you ever reevaluated a family tradition after the holidays? What changes have you made or what new traditions have you started? We'd love to hear all about it. Connect with us on Instagram at the Holiday Head Start.

Now it's time for a Get Ahead Start tip. Each week we leave you with a small, actionable tip to help you get a head start on your holiday planning.

That way you can kind of keep things in the back of your mind so that you are ready to go when it's time to shop. Or when you stumble on the perfect thing, you can just grab it right then. But another tool that can help you is Amazon's lists tool. You can set up a wishlist for each person in your family and add to it over time.

Now, this means that you can add items as you think of them instead of scrambling to come up with a bunch all at once in December.

And making wishlists also means you can watch for price drops and sales, which has been really good for me in the past. Items on Amazon are often listed as being on sale, but it's hard to know if the price they're showing is an actual sale price. A wishlist lets you watch items over time to get a sense of what's a normal price and what's actually sale price.

Patrick's Day, but I do put out a little pot of gold candy. So I need to order Rolos and Reese's in gold wrappers. Yes. And I need to pick up a box of lucky charms because I've learned that you do want to do this early. They become hard to find in mid March. Yeah, that's really good to keep in mind.

What's on your to do list, Heidi?

So all, where are we halfway almost done with February, it's still out there, ran out of chips, but I still have a ton of candy bars, but I think that's so

Boxes have to come to your house for your gift giving. Yes. I get way, way less. So I think I only need one box of candy bars. So I have made a note of that for this year when I buy candy bars, just get the one box.

And, I like that in the U S. It's the U. S. version of Traders because there's lots of, I've seen the Australian version and the UK version. I know there's a Dutch version, but I haven't watched that one. That it's all like reality stars. So I don't get too sad when someone gets voted off. It's not like, yes, they needed to win because they're going to build a house for their sick mom or something.

Yes. I can't handle that. But this, yeah, I don't have to feel bad for reality stars, housewives, lady person from the Survivor game,

And this show is probably not for everyone. And I haven't watched it for years because I thought it would be too intense. I actually am glad I waited though, because then I could watch season one and then start right on season two because everybody else had to wait a really long time. I think it was at least.

two years between season one and season two, because there was like the writer's strike and all this stuff. So anyway, with the new season coming out, I was like, I'm just going to try this. And I got sucked right in. Oh man, I watched the whole first season in a week and I'm loving season two just as much.

It is wild. Like the most recent episode, Holy cow, it was, I'm like, what just happened? What is going on? This is so wild. So I just feel like it's so different than any show I've ever watched and I love the characters and I'm totally into it. So. Watch severance and then message me and we can talk about it.

Process it all not while I'm trying to sleep because yeah, that makes sense, but I don't, I don't find it scary. It's just like intense and kind of like what's going on. This is, it's a, it's like a psychological thriller kind of. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'll have to give it a try. Please do.

Schedule some time to reflect on your holiday traditions while you've got plenty of time to adapt them. And don't forget our get a head start tip to set up Amazon wishlist for you and your loved ones.