Tag Archives: holidays

The “Nice” List (of Links!)

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KathyTiffany and I will be back in a couple weeks with some end-of-the-year thoughts, but in the meantime, here are some things I’ve been reading lately — on holidays, parenting, and introverting! I hope you are all finding some time for yourselves during this busy month.

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As a mom and a writer who works from home, this piece by Vanessa Hua for the Washington Post had me nodding again and again. I’ve been feeling unhappy lately about giving more time to the “life” side of my work/life balance, mainly in the form of holiday prep. It’s not just guilt — I really do feel happier when I’m writing. The whole point of having a flexible schedule is being flexible, though, so why can’t I let myself feel grateful for having that extra time? I need to find a way to embrace it, not beat myself up about it.

Along those lines, here are some tips on being kind to yourself during the holidays from The Business of Introverts. I’m personally giving myself the gift of sleep, or trying to, anyway. My brain is giving me the gift of waking up an hour before I need to. Thanks?

Raise your hand if you’re looking for ways to minimize your time in a mall this season. Yeah, me too. Lots of great ideas in this post from Parent Hacks. I am all about food gifts, experiences, and donations.

Anglophile alert: If you have been extra good this year check out Sacred Introvert’s 2015 retreat tour to the UK, which includes Glastonbury, Stonehenge, and the city of Bath, AKA some of the coolest places I’ve ever visited. The tour is designed for introverts and will include plenty of chances to set your own schedule.

Finally, I’m blocking out this afternoon for Carolyn Hax’s Hootenanny of Holiday Horrors, one of my favorite holiday traditions. You can’t get much more festive than this chat filled with holiday disasters. If you can’t join in live, read the transcript later. Warning: Then you will want to go back and read ALL the transcripts, but that’s okay because this definitely counts as downtime. Consider it my holiday gift to you.

— Kathy

Holiday Hot Wash

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This week the Moms hot wash their holidays.  One of us got sick and started thinking.  And the other one hit the wall contemplating baked goods.  Read on for their after-action report.

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KathyLooking back at my list of strategies, I should feel pretty good about this past holiday season. I successfully avoided shopping at the mall. We had fun at the neighborhood party. I even got a reprieve on the caroling, which was cancelled, woohoo! I mean, bummer.

My overall cookie count was a little low, mostly because I came down with strep throat the weekend before Christmas. Not recommended. But I recovered in time for us to spend the holiday with my family, and the rest of our break included a visit with iDad’s parents, Legos, reading time, and our New Year’s movie night (well, afternoon). We decorated our gingerbread house on January 4, but it was still winter break so that totally counts as a holiday activity. Right?

I successfully engineered the switch to a chocolate advent calendar, but I found myself struggling with other traditions I’ve loved in the past. Our tree didn’t get decorated until the 23rd, partly because I got sick but partly because I just couldn’t motivate myself to start the process. Our cards were late, and again I can only partly blame the strep. Mostly it was because I kept putting them off.

Is that a sign that I should pull back on these traditions, too? I don’t see these things as especially draining – it’s not like we invite twenty people over for a tree-decorating party, we just turn on some holiday music and go for it. And sure, writing notes and addressing cards takes time, but I can do that by myself, with a mug of hot chocolate by my side. These things should be antidotes to the holiday madness of the outside world, but this year they felt like chores.

Still, I can’t imagine Christmas without a tree – I know Doodlebug enjoys decorating it, and that’s definitely a tradition I want her to grow up with. She couldn’t care less about whether we send cards, and truthfully iDad would be fine with dropping them too, but again, sending and receiving cards is a big part of Christmas for me.

So maybe the answer isn’t cutting back on these traditions, but being even more careful about how we spend the rest of our time during the holidays? I did notice that Doodlebug didn’t seem to care about seeing other kids as much as I thought she would – she really seemed to crave time to do her own thing. I think we struck the right balance for her. I’ll keep trying to find it for myself.

— Kathy

tiffany_head_128The holiday break started off inauspiciously:  a busy Friday at work compounded by a soul-sucking two-and-a-half hour commute home. Saturday was booked with errands and a Brownie event for Princess Slim. Sunday was a cookie exchange for which I had absolutely nothing prepared. So by early Saturday afternoon I was an exhausted and sobbing mess.  Merry Christmas, dammit.

Fortunately Dreamy stepped in and took Slim to Brownies. Lunchbox napped and I recovered enough to get a few things done around the house.

On Christmas Eve I baked and puttered and did holiday stuff. Around 3 p.m. Princess Slim went to church with Dreamy and Lunchbox went down for his nap. “Nuts,” I thought, “I need to start that cinnamon roll dough because having homemade rolls on Christmas morning will be the best thing EVER.” Mixletrisetwohoursrolloutslicerisebakefrost.

But I was tired. And sitting on the couch in a quiet house with a cup of tea felt lovely. Thus launched the following rather schizophrenic internal dialogue:

I really want to bake these rolls.

Are they mission-critical to a good Christmas?

No, they aren’t, but they are so delicious and they will be the best thing EVER.  Maybe I could make them tomorrow morning.

So you are going to voluntarily wake up at 5 a.m. to allow enough time for the double-rising and baking?  Right.  Who’s going to eat these things anyway?

Well, I would.  And Dreamy.

The kids?

Probably not.

Relax then.  And your thighs have enough rolls already, k?

But homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning will be the best thing EVER.

Girl, please.

The Great Cinnamon Roll debate perfectly encapsulates what this Christmas was about for me:  listening to that internal voice that asked “Really?  Do you absolutely need to do Thing X and exhaust yourself?  Why are you doing Thing X?  For the kids?  For yourself?  To conform to someone else’s idea of a perfect holiday?”

This year I made a conscious choice to listen to that voice. There were hot baths. There were naps. There was even a little exercise, for God’s sake! Of course there was stress but the overall pace and vibe of the holidays was saner and more civilized than in years past. The kids seemed to sense this too. They played well together, for the most part, and like Doodlebug were fine doing their own things.

While I still returned to work tired and worn out the feeling this year wasn’t nearly as demoralizing and devastating as usual. When people asked how my break was, I replied “Good!” — and actually meant it.

Did I make the rolls? Nope. I snuggled with Lunchbox and slept for two hours. Merry Christmas to ME.

— Tiffany

Happy Thanksgivukkahmas!

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The first night of Hanukkah is tomorrow.  Thanksgiving is two days away and Christmas is closer than the Moms care to admit. We’re a little stressed just writing the word “holiday.”

Fortunately, we have a plan.

Kathy My version of a perfect holiday season goes something like this: Sweet potato casserole. Pumpkin pie. Menorah. Latkes. Christmas music. Cookies. Gingerbread house. Charlie Brown, the Grinch, and Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. More cookies. My ceramic light-up tree. Snow that looks pretty but melts before I have to drive in it. Visiting family. More cookies. Movie night on New Year’s Eve. 

Luckily, Doodlebug and iDad are happy with this holiday scenario, too. And when I lay it out like this, it seems perfectly obtainable. (Except for the weather. The snow gods have not smiled on us in recent years.) But I know I need to plan ahead if I want to keep the focus on the things I love and not get sucked into the holiday maelstrom. Some strategies: 

  • No malls. This is a new one for me this year – in the past we’ve cut way back on shopping stress by limiting the number of presents we exchange and by planning fun trips with our families in lieu of gifts. This year I want to focus more on gifts we (or our talented friends) have made, or things we’ve found at local shops. I’ve decided I’m not setting foot in a mall again until 2014.  

  • Letting go of certain traditions. For the past five or six years we’ve done an advent calendar with a mini stocking for each night – Doodlebug would either get a candy cane, a note about a fun holiday activity we’d do that day, or materials for a craft project. Last year, though, I ran myself ragged trying to come up with new fun things that she mostly wasn’t interested in doing anyway. This year I bought an advent calendar with chocolate inside. Done.  

  • Saying yes, with care. This can be risky — Christmas caroling with the Brownie troop? I have a bad feeling about this — but I also want to be sure Doodlebug gets to spend time with other kids this season. As the only grandchild in the family, I know she’ll be logging a lot of time with grown-ups. So yes, we’ll go caroling. And we’ll be at the neighborhood holiday party. And maybe, if the snow gods cooperate, she and Princess Slim can break out the sleds. Hot chocolate and cookies at my house afterward.

— Kathy

tiffany_head_256 Is anyone immune to holiday stress? Anyone? Bueller?

I’ve been feeling anxious and melancholy lately. The latter is attributable to missing my family, which I’m not going to see this year; the former is … well … hmmm.  There’s baking card-writing decorating shopping wrapping to do in addition to regular home and work responsibilities. There are babysitters to hire and parties to attend. And Dreamy’s birthday to plan. Inhale, count to ten, exhale. Repeat.

As a kid I remember feeling the same way even without all the adult responsibilities mentioned above. My parents attributed my crabbiness to being afraid that Santa wasn’t going to leave me any presents. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Way to throw gasoline on the fire.

While the fear of no gifts undoubtedly contributed to my moodiness, between holiday music program rehearsals and performances, family activities, school, and travel is it any wonder I was a pint-sized stressball? Looking back the connection between Little Grouchy Tiffany and Big Grouchy Tiffany is clear:  not enough downtime.

So, this year the holidays will be different. I will not, for example, succumb to the siren call of holiday craft projects. Store bought tinsel? Fine. I will not attempt spritz cookies, with their mercurial dough and dungeon-worthy cookie press. Bakery treats? Absolutely. I will not attend every party or dinner to which I am invited nor will I stress about making everything perfect for everyone. I will do my best, but that does not include draining my energy tank to mission-critical low levels.

Here’s what I will do:  plan activities for the kids to do while they are on break. Playdates, museums, and a day trip or two. I will bake and cook but not to the point of exhaustion. I will take naps, preferably with Lunchbox in his tiny twin bed. I will drink wine and watch movies (“Skyfall” arrived on Netflix last week.  Double-O YES). And I will hopefully arrive at 2014 feeling happy, healthy, and infinitely grateful for the many marvellous things with which I am graced.

Daniel Craig, that includes you.

— Tiffany