Christmas is officially behind us, but before we get too far into January, we're pausing to reflect on the holiday season we just experienced. In this episode, we share our highs and lows, lessons learned, and plans to enhance our future holidays. We discuss how we balanced holiday tasks with self-care and how we aligned our actions with personal goals. Join us on this reflective journey full of practical advice and holiday insights, so you can make your next holiday season the best one yet!

Episode Highlights:

[00:01:09] - Tradition Spotlight on Lunar New Year

[00:02:49] - 5 Rs of post-holiday reflection

[00:05:30] - Our highlights of the season

[00:07:00] - When did your efforts contribute to our holiday celebrations?

[00:10:05] - What did you learn about planning and preparing this year?

[00:14:58] - What aspects of the season caused you the most stress?

[00:20:28] - What is your plan for saving for Christmas this year?

[00:22:10] - How could next year’s holidays more closely reflect your values?

[00:28:18] - How did you practice self-care during the holidays?

[00:32:42] - What advice would you give your future self as you move toward another holiday season?

[00:37:06] - This week’s Get A Headstart Tip for post-holiday Ta-Da! Lists

[00:39:19] - What’s on our to-do lists this week

[00:40:39] - Our Nice Lists

Resources:

• Luminette Glasses
• 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:

• Holiday Headstart Episode 9: How’s It Going? How To Take Stock Of Your Holiday Prep So Far

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.  

Welcome to the Holiday Head Start Podcast, where we get intentional about keeping overwhelmed to the curb and bringing the joy back to your holidays and everyday. I'm Heidi and I'm Emily. We're two sisters and former elementary schoolers. 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. You can check out the show notes at theholidayheadstart. com Ready to get a head start on your holidays?

Let's go!

But if you don't have Asian ancestry, this can be a great opportunity to learn about a different part of the world and their cultural celebrations. Last year, Emily and I ordered a box from Bo and Mai, and it was a fun way to learn about this new holiday.

In the reflection journal, there are pages for each of the eight areas of intention, your holiday vision, planning relationships, home, holiday experiences, gifts, and spending spirituality and personal wellbeing. I promise it's not as overwhelming as it sounds. And I have never answered all of the questions that are in this reflection journal,

We picked and choosed, chosen some questions from those areas to talk about.

So Heidi, why don't you kick us off with the first question?

So that made it like even more exciting to finally have. And my son was so excited to do it. And it's formatted in 24 bags so that you can do a bag every day. We. Definitely fell behind, but it was just really fun to have that going throughout the whole month and have that one on one time with him, my middle child and my only boy.

Okay. So when it comes to vision, where did your efforts make the highest contribution to your holiday, Heidi?

Some of it was organized. Some of it wasn't. And over the years it got to be like, okay, well, you know, decoration bins are separate from activity bins. And then the past couple of years, I've just really focused. I got smaller bins. And have everything I need for one activity in a bin. So I can just pull that bin out before the activity, everything I need is in there, everything it's packed up and then it can get put away.

It's made it so much easier to shift between so many activities that we do in a month.

I felt like that was illuminating to realize what I Love about the holidays and what makes it feel like the holidays to me like Uh, knowing that I love the holidays to feel really abundant and that I want like a full sensory experience Made me understand more during the holiday season like what I needed so that when it was a busy day Where i'm running my kids around i'm going this does not even feel like christmas Where I could lean into things that would make it still feel Christmassy Does that make sense?

And if you don't know your profile, you can find out more about it at quiz dot the holiday headstart. com and there will be a link to it in the show notes.

Okay. Emily, let's talk about planning. What did you learn about planning and preparing this year?

So I would say that's the the biggest thing. I'm realizing would make the Hopefully the biggest difference next year was just getting actually putting into my calendar when I'm going to do the things that need to get done. And then also I need to start earlier because I'm going to talk more about that later in the episode, I think, but I've got to start earlier.

And then also I need to plan for the unexpected, which was in my household was three kids getting the tummy bugs, but not at the same time. So it was basically like getting hit with this tummy bug. Three different times in December, which was a real bummer for everyone involved. I will thank my lucky stars that it didn't take me down too.

So at least that's the silver lining, but I need, I obviously you can't fully plan for something like that, but maybe we just need to be more prepared that there will be something unexpected that comes up in December. I mean, it's, it's pretty much of a safe guess that one of my kids will at least get sick with something in December.

So if I plan for that, because we had to like shift things around in the schedule, which was already a tight schedule. I don't know exactly how you plan for the unexpected, but I think I just need to be aware, have it on my radar that something's probably going to disrupt this month. Be, be ready for it.

I think losing that extra week between Thanksgiving and December 1st, this year, really just started me off on my back foot because I went from Thanksgiving on the Thursday and then. Monday is what? Monday was December 1st. So it was like, Oh, I am barely, I'm still washing dishes. I've got cornucopias still up, but now I feel like the clock is ticking and I'm behind,

It just didn't happen cause I was too tired.

There were, it just didn't really get to enjoy it. I'm like, yeah, we lost a whole week of Christmas that we normally would have, or at least a week to get ready for Christmas. So I feel like that made a big difference this year.

Maybe there's a way to have some combo of both, but.

Okay, Emily, looking at experiences, which aspects of the season caused you the most stress, even though you enjoy them or find them necessary?

We had a crazy work deadline, sneak out of the woods and pounce on us. So that threw off the first of the month. And I remember getting to like December 12th. I'm being like, okay, this is the make it or break it moment. Cause we're halfway to Christmas at this point. So either I can get in or I can just bag it.

And I decided, okay, I'm just, I'm just going to take it a little bit at a time. And so I would decorate and like 10, 15 minute bursts. Anytime I like walk past the tree, because that's all I felt like I could give to the job. Now, did that make it take 500 times longer than it needed to? Yes. But I, I was in a big spiral about it until I thought.

I either have to stop or I have to figure out a way to reframe it. And I'm actually quite proud of myself for recognizing I was doing it and finding a way to like pull myself back.

And it actually, it did help a lot with that anxiety spiral. Now I also had to have Emily's kids come over in the last minute and I just had to say, everyone grab ornaments and put them anywhere there's a spot,

And maybe that would just like get the ball rolling early. And I do think it's somewhat easier to work on if you're like, I'm only going to do it for 10 minutes. That's easy. I can do 10 minutes,

I feel like it's worse than it is. So once I actually do it, I'm like, all right, that's not that bad. But I think next year I'm going to do it where I have set days for certain things. So instead of like one day where all the Christmas stuff comes out and then it's chaos and there's bins everywhere and it's just like so much, I think I'm going to have set days of like, here's the day we get out all the Christmas books and change out all the books on the bookshelf to Christmas I have a plethora of those. And then a day where we put up the glitter houses and things like that. And if I just scheduled those out, then we only have to bring in those bins at one time.

I think some people probably do, but I do not.

So most of my decorations can fit in one big bin. And I think I can fit that in my front hall closet. So having that already in the house. It's just one less step than having to like go figure out wherever I shoved it in the garage last January and then out in the cold and hauling it up the steps and in the house.

Cause I think if it's already in the house, like that's just one less step. So hopefully, I guess we'll see. Stay

And I had my garage reorganized by professionals last year, so I can easily get to it. It's all well labeled and still it's just like, Oh, but it's out in the

Like I hadn't factored that in.

It's, it's the thing we love the most. I want to be able to spend without guilt. And so I need to put money aside and buy gift cards at the stores I regularly shop at and all of those things that in December I can shop without any guilt. That's my plan.

Um, but we didn't. The baby Jesus got separated from the manger. And so we, right. So we couldn't, we were, I was nervous to put out the manger in case I couldn't find the baby Jesus. Cause that would be very anticlimactic. So we didn't even do that this year. And I like to do like daily devotional with myself just personally and with the kids.

And I had bought a daily. Advent devotional, that has like on a big poster pad and you rip off a poster every day to read the next one. And I mean, the way that I got completely derailed on that, because I'm like, I need to find some hooks to hang this up. And then it was like, I ordered some hooks, but they came and I don't know where I put them.

So then I had to order some more hooks and literally by the time I got it up, I think it was like December 13th. And I was like, well, this is crazy. I don't want to waste this now and just rip off half of it because I'm starting it late. So I actually just abandoned that completely. I'm putting it away for next year with the hooks.

I think we're going to do it around Easter, but I didn't really realize until it was like Christmas Eve that like, I didn't do any of that. Like with my kids, we didn't read the Christmas story together. Like just kind of was off my game a little because I think I was just like counting that as having done the Christmas story.

I don't know. I feel like I fell short in this area and I would like to rectify it. But I don't know exactly how.

I think that would fit well. But then like part of that was the kids would set up my nativity and I never even put my nativity out cause I

And so that was a really special experience. So I do feel like we, you know, we got a little bit of. service, even if it wasn't as much as we wanted.

Spiritual gifts and recognizing the spiritual gifts in each other. I thought that was really beautiful and powerful. So it wasn't perfect, but we still, we met that goal. I think.

I am thinking of some kind of service we could do. So I'm leaning toward maybe like assembling birthday bags that you can donate to the food bank that have like cake mix and party supplies and stuff.

That could be something that could be fun too. So we should pick one. We should put that into our holidays that we have a day where we decide what our service is going to be so that we can start planning the shopping for it.

And that's really hard to do if you have a busy morning, or you just don't like to hop up out of bed and go out into the sun. So these glasses replicate that experience. And suddenly I can sleep at night, like before I would be up three, four times a night, sometimes not even really falling asleep till like four in the morning.

But these glasses have made such a difference. And I feel like I've had way better energy all month because I'm actually sleeping.

Like we had tickets to go to a different show that wasn't the concert and we bailed on that one day because it was just like, there was too much going on. And part of me is like, Oh, this wasted money.

So That was good, you know it again. My schedule was very busy because of it but it meant I was like taking care of myself and doing things I needed to do and The doctor that i've been seeing Has been monitoring my labs really closely. So I have been taking all sorts of new supplements because it turned out I had like no Iron or vitamin D or b12 or all the things that make you feel like a human I had like almost none of and so taking those in this recent month has made me feel a lot better More alive.

So I will say that I did was prioritizing my health

And so I did at least lean into those things that, like, feel kind of like self care to me.

It might feel a little weird, but once it's up, I think I'll be glad it's up. And looking back, then I'll be like, Oh man, I got so long to enjoy it. And sort of like this year where it's like, Oh, I wish I'd had a little longer to enjoy it. So I just don't think I'm going to regret. putting it up early. I just need to do it.

to do list items. The other thing would for me that I've got to remember this year is that I have to be better about closing the loop. Like this is an all my whole life problem. It's not just at Christmas, but it was very apparent at Christmas where I start something and I do part of it, but I don't close the whole loop there.

And so in my mind, it's done.

I've got to be better about like closing the loop. And when I don't finish something, making it clear somewhere that it's not complete and what still needs to be done so that I don't make the mistakes I've made of thinking I've done more than I have.

So this was something I was like wrestling with all my, I don't have to have my whole kitchen clean before I can start baking. I don't have to schedule a whole day to make a bunch of freezer meals. I could just do one in October and it would be putting me ahead. Even if it wasn't the perfect plan of, Oh, I now have three in the fridge.

You know,

Well, that was a fun exercise for us. I have lots of thoughts I need to now get down in my reflection planner. We would love to hear about your post holiday reflections, especially if you used the holiday headstart playbook this year.

So you can connect with us on Instagram at the holiday headstart, and now it's time for a, get a headstart tip. Each week we leave you with a small actionable tip to help you get a head start on your holiday planning. This week's get a head start tip is to make a to do list. Can you tell us more about that Heidi?

The big stuff, like, you know, we launched a whole new podcast and the little stuff, like I remembered to refill my prescription before it ran out, you know, that way I can look back and say, you know, ta da, look what I did. I started doing this as a way to counter that kind of dragging pull of getting to the end of the year and not having accomplished every goal I had set out to do.

But now this is something that I look forward to doing every year. It's so affirming and motivating.

So listing all the tiny little tasks that went into pulling together your celebrations can be a great help when it's time to start making your to do list for next Christmas.

But there are things, you know, the advent calendars can come off the wall and, and, you know. put away the Christmas dishes and things like that. So what's on your to do list, Heidi?

This is too much,

So, Each year and I help a little, but mostly she's the one that makes it happen and it saves me so much stress. And also it's so fun to like have something unique to give out to the neighbors and like have the fun of like hearing what everybody thinks about it. So you picked a particularly fun idea for this year and started it super early and we executed it all year long because it involved a lot of different plans that had to fall into place.

I know. Are we going to talk about this on the podcast? What it is.

It was a really unique idea and you made it happen. So You are on the nice

And. Like just, I want to give everyone hugs. I can give you a hug, Emily, but I mean, it gets to the, we're not in the same room in person, but I just know it's so much work for the special people you love and it matters. It matters even if no one thinks you. And so like, good job and keep doing what you're doing.

It's, it's important.

Thanks for tuning in today. Use this week to get a head start on planning for what's ahead. And remember, don't get it perfect, get it going. Come follow along on Instagram at theholidayheadstart. We would love to hear from you. If you liked this episode, head to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. We'll see you here next week.