The holidays are both exciting and overwhelming. This time of year the anticipation is high and our emotions run high. For many of us, the height of our to-do list even higher. Feeling the need to keep up and make sure that we put enough effort towards decorating and preparing meals, embracing our traditions and starting new ones around Thanksgiving can be exhausting. Unintentionally, we may find ourselves comparing our lives to the social media feeds we scroll through of friends and family on our screens. Hallmark and Hollywood depictions of the holidays don’t make it any easier.
It’s hard not to compare, especially knowing how important our traditions are for our children. It’s hard not to want to do more, add in the little extras. It’s hard to know what they will remember when they grow up, what will stick and be important for them. It’s hard to take a break from it all, even when we desperately know we need one. It’s hard to remember when our dishes don’t turn out the way we wanted them to, that the holiday will still go on.
And there’s just so many options! Especially this time of year, social media feeds are full of so many new recipes to try and new ways to celebrate with kids. Each one promising to be “simpler” and better than the rest — a “Must-Do” this season! Our calendars fill up with the so many opportunities to embrace the spirit of the season. So many ways to express gratitude and give thanks for our many blessings. And this time of year there’s so many ways to spread the vibrant colors of gold, red, orange, and yellow throughout our home. There’s really a plethora of possibilities when it comes to decor.
And despite all of that gratitude, there’s a list of other emotions parents are often feeling. Yes, the holidays are full of opportunities to also feel stressed, exhausted, overwhelmed, tearful, angry, and even, resentful.
I used to feel some of those emotions once I became old enough to start hosting. Staying up late to accomplish everything on my list, aiming for a mountain of food that no one could ever possibly really eat, and soaking up every last tradition, even if I was too tired to really be present for it.
But over the years, I’ve found the really important parts of my holidays, the parts of the day that I really enjoyed, were the traditions that didn’t require so much effort. I didn’t have to run the Turkey Trot in a race that required me to drive a half hour and wake up earlier than expected, missing out on the parade. I could, instead, walk out my door with my kids and go for a run while they rode their bikes, all of us with a turkey hat on our head to really give the neighbors a chuckle. In my younger years, I had a lot of fun running in Turkey Trots with family members but as I get older and have young kids, I’ve found adapting our traditions to our new circumstances allows for a far better experience during the holidays.
And as I’ve learned more about the importance of traditions for my children, I’ve placed a greater priority on making sure that those traditions are happy ones. If traditions are full of stress and take away from the cheer of the season, they aren’t likely to have the same positive effects. I laugh when I see a beautiful family photo of friends or family at the holidays with the caption below that this is right before a huge meltdown and right after everyone needed to pee several times, eat a snack, and change an outfit change. Yes, we can aim for a perfect holiday meal. But if the before and the after is a hot mess and everyone is stressed and upset, then is it really worth it to have a table that looks like it came out of a catalog? I have to imagine the traditions that are more likely to be important in building resiliency and helping kids build a strong sense of identity and belonging, are those that are positive, that don’t invoke a stress response. The traditions that are calming, warming our hearts, allowing us to exhale deeply, and the ones that cause our eyes to well up with “Happy Tears.”
Our traditions can’t just be the things we do each year on repeat, they also need to be positive for us and our children. Our traditions should bring us together. They should be the peaceful part of our year. The parts that bring us joy and give us hope. The yearly routines that bring us comfort in knowing something good is coming, through all of life’s unexpected twists and turns, these traditions will be bring us together. Our traditions will help buffer the struggles and the hurdles throughout the rest of the year.
Our traditions should also be simple enough to be repeated year after year. They can’t be so laborious and expensive that when our life situations change, that we are forced to change those traditions. It is in simplifying holidays that we really give our children the gift of meaningful traditions that they can carry on with them for their lifetime. No matter where they are in their own lives, no matter their finances, or their own challenges, in keeping our traditions simple, we allow our children the opportunity to share in them as they grow and establish their own families.
Certainly, there is a lot of effort that goes into holidays. There is no turkey that magically appears on the table, or fixings that whip themselves up! But despite the effort that goes into the holidays with three kids, I have actually come to find the holidays less chaotic than they used to be. They are more fun and less stressful now with three children than they used to be when I tried to take it all on before I had kids. Simple doesn’t mean boring or ordinary. Not at all. Keeping things simple has been extraordinary.
So I wanted to share some of my tips for keeping the holidays simpler, and how I try to make the traditions in my home, happy ones.
1. I start with gratitude. Every year on my birthday, which falls in early November, I prepare “Thankful Turkeys” with my kids. Using pinecones and colored paper for feathers, we write what we are thankful for on the feathers. Sitting together when they get home from school, we make these pinecone turkeys as we chat about our gratitude. Many people probably do something similar on Thanksgiving with family or in their classrooms at school but I like how casual it is at home doing this craft in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Sometimes we bring up things that are funny and things that are sad. Things that we wish for more of and things we are grateful we have plenty of. Sitting together, we come up with so much that we are grateful for. The table full of crafts and nothing edible is still overflowing — with gratitude.
I don’t do a lot of crafts anymore with my kids, but I find this simple craft actually makes the holidays easier. I know the holidays are going to take some effort and I anticipate there will be a serving of family conflict somewhere on the table, but feeling and expressing gratitude, I’m still appreciative of the time we will all have together.
This simple craft puts me in the mindset to take on the holidays — focusing first on gratitude and what’s important. Once finished, these “Thankful Turkeys” become centerpieces for our Thanksgiving table. Seeing those “Thankful Turkey’s” throughout the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving help me to embrace the true meaning of the holiday and not get sucked up into the “busy.” I actually have a hard time tossing them once the holiday is over because they bring such a positive energy to our home.
I don’t make my kids come up with something they are thankful for every day or on the spot in front of family. That feels like a lot of pressure which might make finding gratitude harder. I find making it a craft we do together one afternoon to be much more purposeful and productive. Instead of feeling pressure and discomfort, and instead of rushing through to “get it done,” we take time one afternoon to think about it and focus on what we truly are grateful for.
2. Less decor, more accents. I love hosting at the holidays. And I want my house to be festive, warm, and inviting. But I don’t invest as much time in decorating as I used to. I used to take everything I had and spend hours decorating my first floor. But now I just don’t have the time to do that. So, for the most part, I take out only those items that aren’t breakable and I let my kids help. There’s a few pieces that are important to me and I take those out. But otherwise, I let my kids help.
And I’ll tell you, letting my kids help decorate, has really helped to reel in my perfectionism. Having my kids put the decorations where they want and fighting the urge to move them, is still an art I’m learning but getting much better at. But I have found it far easier to let go when I watch the joy my kids get in decorating. It’s not as labor intensive as it used to be and we make an activity out of it.
I also focus more on accents in my home than actual decorations. I buy soaps with festive bottles and fragrances. I buy tissues with a festive box and seasonal hand towels for the bathroom and kitchen. I buy seasonal coffees and fluff my pillows, changing them out with a decorative pillowcase of pumpkins and gourds. A bowl filled with apples and pears with a few small pumpkins and gourds on the counter next to it, takes a fruit bowl and makes it festive! I never registered for China so while my husband vetoes paper plates most of the year, the holidays are our opportunity to use them in a holiday pattern.
Most of our holiday decor for Thanksgiving coincides with our fall decor but it’s minimal, a few accents here and there. And at the center of it all — are our Thankful Turkeys.
3. I plan out the day. One of my family members is very organized and prior to the holidays, I noticed a few years ago that she wrote down the dishes she planned to prepare and the steps involved. Her day is organized with what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. I remember thinking that was a really clever way of keeping it all together, of knowing the flow of the day without the added stress of trying to remember it all as people walk through the door and the conversation starts flowing, the turkey needs basting.
I started a few years ago planning our own Thanksgiving Day weeks before and writing it all down. It helps me in organizing who is coming to my house or where we are going, depending on who is hosting. Regardless of whether the meal is planned for my house or not, I still write down my families plan for the day. It helps me in making sure my kids are still eating somewhat of balanced meals, knowing they will be often too excited to eat anything other than a roll and my mom’s sweet potatoes full of marshmallows when we all sit down to dinner. I also try to carve out time for a nap for my little ones that still need it. I try to be flexible, but I also try to keep the positive energy flowing instead of depleting it.
I know some people that do this kind of hourly planning with their daily schedule, putting in exactly how they will spend each hour, day to day, and it can be an effective tool in time management. I don’t do it everyday, but for the holidays, I really do find it helpful in helping me prepare for the day. It makes the day seem more manageable and less stressful.
It also forces me to think about what I’m going to make and what I need to buy ahead of time, collecting my recipes instead of looking for them last minute. If I’m hosting, it also helps me organize what everyone else is bringing. Even year to year as our plan changes less, there’s still always the variable of where the holiday will be and who might have to work. It’s not alway the same faces year to year and re-evaluating the plan allows for flexibility in our traditions.
I even plan our dinner the night before. Our yearly tradition is a Quinoa recipe that I make throughout the year. It’s easy and on the night before Thanksgiving, substituting ground turkey for the chicken, the thyme and turkey in the recipe gets me in the mood for the big day with this fiber rich, protein packed meal.
I take my plan for the day and others from my family, including what they plan to bring, and I outline all of our plans in my family newsletter to my extended family. Everyone knows what they are planning to bring and the comfortable flavors they can expect to see on the table. They also know that if they can’t make it to dinner, there’s opportunity during dessert or in the morning to watch the parade. They are even welcome to join us for a Turkey Trot or for quinoa the night before. It’s an open invitation to celebrate with us in any way that feels comfortable and possible for them.
Taking a few minutes to plan the day ahead of time not only helps me stay organized, it also helps me to see when I’ve over planned — when everything I want to do for the holiday is going to be too much. If I don’t have time to sit down and eat myself, or to chat with family that has come over and FaceTime with family far away, then I know I need to reorganize the day. I make sure to include time with my boys — usually that’s our annual Turkey Trot and Thanksgiving bingo game. After a nice run or walk outside while our boys ride their bikes, we come in for the parade and play a game of bingo together. Planning our day allows me to figure out how to get it all done and what I can delegate and prepare ahead of time. It keeps me prioritizing what matters without letting the day pass us by.
4. I prepare what I can ahead of time, save a few things for the day of, and buy the rest! I prepare some dishes a few days before and some even weeks in advance. Spreading it out over several weeks makes it far easier to get it all done. I find that especially easy with baked goods!
Several years ago, when I was pregnant with my oldest, I went into a bakery to grab dinner rolls for our Thanksgiving feast and came across a Sticky Bun cake. Without a beat, I bought and ate more than I’d like to admit. Cinnamon and sugar, gooey and warm, it was like fall wrapped up in a cake! I remember the next year, I called to order one of those delicious cakes when I picked up our dinner rolls again. I was sad to hear they were no longer making them. But that sparked a new tradition — I would make my own. Except that I couldn’t imagine waking up on Thanksgiving morning and baking Sticky Buns in addition to everything else I had to do. So, I found an easy recipe for Sticky Buns that freezes well, and I now make them several weeks in advance with my kids. The night before, all I need to do is take them out, pop them in a pan in the fridge and let them rise. I bake them on Thanksgiving morning and we eat them during the parade. It’s one of our favorite traditions that started with a cake when I was pregnant with my first and anticipated the many holidays we would have together as a family. The sticky buns I now make instead of that cake, still remind me of the joy I felt pregnant and knowing our house would soon be blessed with tiny hands and toes. I love telling my kids that story of how I couldn’t wait to share holidays with all of them. The smiles I get in return invoke that sense of calm, that deep exhale, and those “happy tears.” And what I love most about making them myself is that years from now, my kids will be able to make them for their own families and watch the parade together, if they choose. They don’t have to worry about a bakery staying open or making them the same way. They can prepare them weeks in advance and easily pull them together in time for the parade on Thanksgiving morning, just like we did throughout their childhood. To freeze the dough, I follow this Cinnamon Rolls recipe, which I make on Christmas every year.
Many of my family members bring pies but if I’m bringing a pie, I often purchase it from one of many pie fundraisers in my area, freeze it, and leave the baking to someone else! The only pie that I really make anymore is a cherry pie that my husband requests — a simple Pillsbury crust with Comstock Cherry Pie filling. I learned after pitting all of the cherries one year that he preferred that taste over fresh cherries, and I never went back! Now my boys and I put together that pie in a no time and it’s enjoyed by all of us!
I also try to prep our sides a day or two in advance. I have read so many articles on how to do that and recipes that promise to be timesavers but honestly, I’ve had a hard time finding ones that really taste as fresh. But this one really is great prepared ahead of time — Ree Drummond’s Mashed Potatoes. Some of my family members actually prefer it over fresh mashed potatoes. It comes together beautifully and is super easy to pop in the oven on Thanksgiving Day. I also prepare the cranberry sauce and applesauce ahead of time. With supervision, my boys help me peel the potatoes and apples with kid friendly utensils and gloves to keep their hands safe.
By the morning of, all I have to do is help my husband prepare the turkey and put together an easy salad, a butternut squash soup in my crockpot, and a light charcuterie that we all enjoy for lunch. And the rest of my day is wide open, for welcoming people, playing bingo with my kids, and enjoying the company of our family. I can do this because of #5.
5. I ask for help. Everyone in my family pitches in and helps. And I ask for it. I am sincere in my appreciation for their help and just as sincere in my request for it. I am not a Supermom. Not during the rest of the year, and definitely not at the holidays.
I ask everyone to let me know what they plan to bring to our celebrations, instead of leaving it vague. I’m clear that I need them to contribute and I also really want them to bring a dish that’s meaningful to them. I want to include them and share in their favorite recipes, not just the ones that I think are meaningful to our Thanksgiving table. I want to include new traditions from significant others that have joined our family and bring with them their own recipes, hoping I can make them feel more included in the celebrations. Collecting all of our contributions, I include it in my families’ seasonal newsletter so we can all see what everyone is bringing and get excited for the sides and desserts we have come to expect this time of year. Delegating a dish to pass and then circulating it to everyone so we know what is coming to the table is part of the celebration, it is part of the anticipation that is felt even weeks before the day. The positive effects of our traditions carrying us right up until the day of the festivities — the leftovers providing us with the comfort after.
The approach I am trying to take at the holidays is less formal but I think, potentially more welcoming. When my family walks in the door, I don’t take their coats. I let someone else take the initiative or I have everyone put their coat where they know they can find it. There’s no tiptoeing into a space to sift through coats and try to find the one on the bottom for their chapstick. It’s right where they put it.
I also don’t offer beverages. I usually have it fairly obvious where everyone in my house can access something to drink and I let them know where it is, if not. My husband is better at offering a beverage but with three young kids, it would make hosting very difficult for me. I also want everyone in my home to feel comfortable being able to get something for themselves when they need it. Sometimes I find the “hostess” role to be less inviting than the sister role or the aunt role where my family walks in and makes themselves at home, quenching their thirst when they need to. Instead of feeling like they have to ask or be a bother because they don’t know where something is, when they walk in, I let them know, “Drinks are in here, turkey is cooking, and yes, you can lend me a hand in putting away those appetizers.”
Perhaps, my approach could be seen as rude. But I actually think perhaps it is far more inclusive. By not playing the role of hostess, I’m inviting everyone to be part of the day. I’m emphasizing the holidays don’t come together because of one or two people, but because all of us. Chores are important for children to feel like they matter, like they are needed within the family. But I think contributing and participating is important for everyone. Having a hand in a tradition makes it that much more meaningful. Everyone has a part, everyone has a role, and everyone is needed. The dish they bring is part of the anticipation and excitement of the holiday. And the dish they wash is part of my sincere gratitude when the day is done.
Along the top border of my kitchen are black and white photos of many of my family members cooking with me and my kids over the years. I even have a photo of my grandmother drying dishes up there. Those photos are not only beautiful memories of cherished holidays and family gatherings, moments cooking and baking with my boys, but also, they serve another purpose. Those photos that line my kitchen suggest this is a place where we come to be together. This is a place where we all roll up our sleeves and chip in. Where the true meaning of the holidays unfolds and it is about working together as a family.
Keeping the holidays simple for me has not been about finding the simpler way to do a craft, it’s in not doing a craft that doesn’t bring me joy. It’s not finding a short cut to a complicated recipe, it’s in finding a simpler recipe all together. It’s not in finding ways to do it all myself, but in finding ways to do it all — together. My boys will chip in. My husband who rarely cooks, now helps me prepare the turkey for Thanksgiving Day. Our family has grown into a family who simplifies the holidays together. There is far less stress in working together, there is far more meaning in the holiday.
The holidays are not a day for stress and chaos. They are season for building strong relationships, for giving our children traditions they can hold onto, and for giving them support, a firm foundation that helps buffer all that we can’t protect them from. By relying on each other at the holidays for dishes that line our tables, we are also relying on each other to play a role in providing that support to our kids. We are coming together to provide them a sense of security, identity, and a comfort in knowing they belong.
And in keeping our tasks simple, our recipes simple, we offer them the opportunity to play a role in that. Their tiny hands that help peel apples and potatoes, lets them know they have an important role in our families traditions. Let’s them know they matter.
Keep it simple this holiday season. Spend time in the weeks before figuring out how to take the pressure off, how to simplify it, and how to safely get your kids involved. When my kids were little and learning to write, I had them write out the place cards on the table. Each person had a place at our table, and my kids helped to convey that message. It is only now that they are older that under supervision, they play a role in cooking. But even my youngest at two, will play bingo and watch the parade. He will help put out the paper plates and he will help place cheese on the platter for the charcuterie. He will put out the place cards his brothers will write out.
Be creative in safely getting your kids involved in your traditions this year. I suspect they will benefit even more — and your family just might too.
The holidays are kicking off and this can be the best year yet. Lower the expectations, take off your superhero cape, and enjoy the holidays with your kids this year! I know in our house — we need them!
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