Covid holidays
At our house, the Christmas season begins on November 1st: Grant wakes us all up to some Christmas vinyl blaring on the record player. I used to roll my eyes about it, but these days, I appreciate how something so simple can make my husband (and, consequently, my home) so happy for a few extra weeks before Thanksgiving officially ushers in the Christmas season.
We just returned from backpacking and a few days of R&R in Black Mountain, NC, our second favorite place next to home. It was glorious. All of that alone time (my parents took the kids for our fifteenth wedding anniversary - thanks Mom and Dad!) left lots of time to chat about…everything. We did sneak in some time to talk about how the holidays will look different this year, and I thought I would share what we’re thinking in case it is helpful to anyone else.
Kendra (AKA: The Lazy Genius) asks what she calls “the magic question” about meal planning every morning: what can I do now to make my life easier later? I think this is a genius question for this last week of October: what can we do or start now to make our lives easier during the Thanksgiving - Christmas craziness?
So here’s what we’re doing and not doing during this weird Covid year:
We usually host Thanksgiving for Grant’s family every-other-year. This is our off year, and we haven’t decided for sure yet, but I think we’re going to plan on it just being the four of us this year. I’m actually excited about not cooking for days in advance and maybe starting the day with a family hike, which we usually don’t have time for because we’re cooking all of the things.
Our kids are in school full-time, and we really want it to stay that way, so we would rather skip out on some normal social holiday stuff in hopes of schools staying open. That means, no holiday parties unless they’re outside or with our bubble families.
I like to plan out our holiday calendar way in advance - click through the picture below for the details -
But this year, I’m adding in some more specifics: Grant and Jasper made a list of Christmas movies that we’re going to watch, Maeve picked out some cookie recipes she wants to try, and I made a list of the Christmas concerts on PBS and streaming that I could find. I added them to the calendar now, so that we have things to look forward to even though we will be scrapping some other “normal” holiday things this year.
Traditions that we’re keeping this year: going to Spencer’s to buy our Christmas tree, checking out the lights at Conner Prairie, and maybe subbing in a date at Newfields instead of going to our typical Christmas shows that aren’t being held this year. While I’ll miss some of our traditions, I’m adopting the idea of a Covid year - a different sort of year that we change things up in hopes of protecting our friends, family, and neighbors for many more years to come. For us, changing things up means more Christmas dance parties and movie nights in our jammies - it’s not like we’re being forced to really sacrifice much.
Over the past few years, I’ve attempted to finish up my Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving. I’ve yet to completely meet my goal, but it still really helps to front-load things toward the beginning of November. I’m trying to work ahead now to not only finish up Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving, but go ahead and ship anything that needs shipped because I imagine this December will be even more bananas than usual for all of our delivery people.
We usually try to spend most of our Christmas budget at small businesses anyway, but I’m going to try to do 100 percent this year. I can’t imagine the stress small business owners are under this year, and I want to do my tiny part to keep them around for next year. I’ll be sure to share the good finds on the blog, but send me your ideas too!
We are hoping to take a little trip after Christmas back to the mountains. It will just be the four of us, and we’ll plan on cooking ourselves and staying in, but we are testing out a post-Christmas trip as a replacement for our family Christmas this year. We’re still going to do stockings and give each other books, but we all decided to try out a vacation together instead of gifts. I’ll keep you posted.
Your turn - what are you doing now to make your December self a little less stressed out and harried?
Rants and raves
Schitt’s Creek. I mean, I’ve been raving about this show for years now, so this is no surprise, but we finished up the sixth season and watched that documentary last week - and I just want MORE. I immediately regretted binging the last season so quickly, so take my advice and savor it like a fine bourbon or something.
Backpacking with your partner. As mentioned, Grant and I went backpacking for three days in western NC last week, and minus about an hour on the second day when I wanted to throw something at him for being so cheery after thirteen miles mostly uphill, it was really wonderful to be immersed, secluded, and unplugged in nature together in such a beautiful place for a few days.
10% Happier. I re-read 10% Happier on vacation last week and loved it way more than the first time I read it. If you’ve been wanting to learn more about meditation and/or find some motivation for doing it, I highly recommend you give Harris’ book a read. It would be the perfect read for these last several weeks of the year to spur you to add more mindfulness to your 2021.
The Barrett fiasco. I honestly think I spent up most of my rage about this whole debacle back on the evening RBG died when Senator McConnel took all of about 40 minutes after her death to announce his plans to ram through a Supreme Court nominee, but the official confirmation this week made me sick to my stomach nonetheless.
Worth sharing this week
I’ve been stressed - to put it mildly - about the election and the fallout afterwards, but I’ve read at least twelve articles in the last week about how, really, we’re not as far apart as a country as reading the news might have you believe. This was the best of that genre that I read, and you should read the whole thing too.
Do yourself a favor and sign-up for Nadia’s Sunday prayers. I love them all - and loved her version of the Lord’s Prayer last week so much that I printed it off for the kitchen table.
Whatever you’re up to for Halloween this year, this post had some great and creative ideas:
Lastly
I needed this reminder, and perhaps you do too…Having the end-in-sight of this interminable election season is hard. Living through a global pandemic is hard. Living through a global pandemic in a country where cases are escalating astronomically while the rest of the world has things far more under control is hard. Dealing with job and school uncertainty is hard. Worrying about our marginalized or immunocompromised neighbors and family is hard. There are so many hard things right now.
I don’t know about you, but I’m just exhausted. I realized while we were away that I need to take a few things off of my plate at least for a little while, and maybe add in a few simple practices to try to regain my footing. So here is what I’m prioritizing for the next month or so: longer walks outside and more yoga nidra (try this one, this one, or this one - or join me next week). The time outside gives my body some movement, some fresh air, and some nature therapy. The yoga nidra gives me some extra rest (and other benefits according to studies).
Make sure you’re allowing yourself to grieve, to get angry, to feel however it is that you’re feeling.
Seasonal view of the week
#naturetherapy
Cheers to doing something this week that your December self will thank you for!
Sara