The Type A+ Podcast Episode 16: 5 Ways to Host a Stress-Free Holiday Season - Links & Show Notes
Episode Description:
The holiday season is upon us, whether we are ready or not. Just as our work schedules fill up, so do our social responsibilities, travel calendars, and ability to take time for ourselves!
In this week's episode, Beth gives you permission to enjoy your holiday season and create new traditions, no matter where you may fall on the Type A+ Holiday fanatic scale.
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Links mentioned in the episode:
Podcast:
The Type A Plus Podcast Instagram
Host:
Beth Lawrence & Company Instagram
Beth will be back each week, delivering bite-sized tips (15 minute episodes or less) on how to optimize your life and work.
Episode Transcript can be found below:
Well, friends, the holiday season is upon us whether we are ready or not. And if you hear a little bit of a tickle in my throat, it is because it is finally feeling like the holiday season here on the East Coast. And just as our work schedules fill up, so do our social responsibilities, travel calendars, and overall ability to take time for ourselves.
There's certainly a spectrum of holiday preparedness from those of us who select our wrapping paper themes and already have the holiday decor labeled by location to the holiday craft stars and light display enthusiasts among us. Whoever you are and wherever you fall, here are five ways to take the pressure off during the holiday.
The first one is to remember that you can make the holidays your own. All of the traditions that were created in your family and in your culture, in your community were created to be able to be made modern and fit your schedule in the modern day in any way that you can. To see what your local town is hosting.
Invite your family to be a part of those celebrations. The holidays are really about the people. and they're not necessarily about the day itself. So something that has changed rapidly with the way that works schedules are especially is that not all of us have off on the actual calendar holiday.
So it's okay to have more than one celebration, especially if you have to see multiple sides of a family or friend group. And it's okay if that celebration doesn't fall on the day itself each year. Take the pressure off of yourself and allow yourself to be a little bit flexible with the way that you celebrate.
Try something new. Last year, my husband and I actually had a charcuterie board Thanksgiving. So who says we also have to eat the same thing every year? We actually had a couple of celebrations planned with both sides of our family, and we decided let's host a charcuterie board Thanksgiving. And it was a come and go as a you-please occasion for any of our friends and family that wanted to stop by. And it was such a good decision. It's something that I hope to replicate each year and I remember calmly walking through Trader Joe's. Any of you who have a Trader Joe's near you know that it's really no such thing as walking calmly through a Trader Joe's
And I was choosing from an abundance of items. I was sitting in front of the cheeses and meats and no one was over there. And I was looking at the dwindling supply of cranberries and everyone fighting over the last bottle of Turkey stock. And we were able to stay home. We were able to see so many people and it was minimal cleanup and minimal preparation. It was a great time.
The second thing is to embrace the slow cooker meal or the convenience meal. So we have slow cookers now. We have air fryers, rice cookers, and instant pots, and these things make our lives easier all the time throughout the year.
But I feel so many of us put pressure on ourselves to put them away and do things the from scratch way when the hosting stakes are super high, especially for those of us who are having 10 or 15, or 20 more people in our homes, putting the pressure on ourselves to hand make every single part of the meal, it's beautiful and I, there's definitely a space for that, but there's also space for embracing the now and embracing things that could make your life just a little easier.
Another way is to ask for help. No one ever likes to come empty-handed, so when someone says, What can I bring? Have an answer, right? Bonus points if you have some sort of spreadsheet.
It's really easy to take everything on ourselves, but allowing everyone to bring something, really feels like a community gathering and that's what the best meal should feel like in my opinion. Also, a great idea is to buy takeout containers or reuse a takeout container that your local restaurants have given you and give people leftovers.
And the final way that we can really start to think about how to take pressure off of ourselves during the holiday season is by catering to everyone from your local grocery store here we have Wegmans, for example. They offer a huge catering package, and small businesses in your neighborhood also offer the same thing, right? Your local restaurants, a lot of them have either the traditional Thanksgiving meal or a non-traditional take on a Thanksgiving. Maybe you're spending a little bit more money, but you're saving a little bit of time, if not all of your time in the kitchen, and you get to spend that time with your family instead of running around preparing things at the last minute or cleaning up while your guests are over or afterward.
I'm not saying you have to throw away your whole ritual. If it's something that you love, maybe you embrace that and you invite a few people over into your kitchen and you all cook together. If you invite people in, whether it's friends or family, you're creating new memories and making new traditions, which is what this is all about. So I thought this was really topical for this week. Our calendars are filling up and I just wanted to give all of us Type A+ folk permission.
Enjoy the holidays and take a step back and really reevaluate what is most meaningful to you and what new traditions you can make your own or create yourselves. Have a wonderful week and I will see you next time.