Don’t Simplify the Holidays

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

00:00:08
Speaker 2: And this is Sarah hart Unger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

00:00:17
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. In this episode, we're going to be talking about how we should not simplify the holidays. We're being a little bit contrarian here, but first of all, this is airing December fifth, which is my birthday, So I'll celebrate how I want to by not simplifying the holidays.

00:00:55
Speaker 2: Yes, that seems completely appropriate. Do you like having a December birthday? Yes?

00:01:00
Speaker 1: I do, And the reason is because everybody is already feeling festive, and so you can kind of piggyback on that. Like there's fun stuff going on. There's often big parties like the weekend before and after my birthday that I might be going to. So even if it's not my birthday party, you know, you still have an excuse to get dressed up and go to something. If you want to go to fun community events, there are all sorts of fun community events. You don't have to hunt for stuff to do in a way that you might like the first week of March, whereas December there's all sorts of stuff and so you don't have to find things to do. You can just kind of have the fun of the holidays around. Now that said, I am three weeks before Christmas. My youngest child's birthday is just a couple days after Christmas, so that might be worse because then everyone's like done with it at that point and you just, you know, your present receiving occasions, which is always a big thing for little kids, are so cram to gather in the calendar year, and then there's nothing for the rest of it. So he may not like it as much, but we will see. We will see, because on the other hand, we will always be off work for his birthday. We will always be doing something fun, whether we're traveling or hosting relatives. So you know, on some level, there are upsides too, and.

00:02:20
Speaker 2: Kids don't really get tired of getting presents, so that should not be a problem, Like.

00:02:24
Speaker 1: We get presents again, but you know, your siblings might be getting presents then too, if you have relatives visiting right after the holidays and you're exchange of gifts, that it's not like it's you alone. So I think that might be. We'll see.

00:02:38
Speaker 2: We have a big December training birthdays too. We got you, then we got Josh who is turning forty nine, and then Genevieve was turning six like three days after that, so it's like definitely a big birthday month. I'm already trying to think about like fiftieth birthday that'll come in a year, in a.

00:02:55
Speaker 1: Year, that's true. Well, you know, unless he does he have big design for his fiftieth. I mean, is there something he's been saying, Oh, I should do this for my fiftieth.

00:03:04
Speaker 2: Not really, but I feel like he's going to want to do something and maybe I can make up for the fact that my fortieth was May of twenty twenty and was no real fun at all.

00:03:13
Speaker 1: No fun at all, no fun whatsoever. Well, yeah, I mean, we we have some plans for this. I'll maybe talk about them in a future episode. This is not a true milestone birthday for me. I guess it's a semi mile soton birthday. But I remember I threw a small party for my thirty fifth many years ago, which was in a restaurant here in town, and then it there was a blizzard, like there's literally a blizzard. So we had a lot of people who couldn't come in, who are trying to come in from other places that were more than like ten minutes away. So we had some friends who made it from New York and so bless them, they're good friends. But yeah, no, celebrating in December is great. And you know, there are a lot of magazine stories and features nowadays in December, always about like how to simplify the holidays, and simplifies one of those words that clicks really really well, like if you see what people search for, what they click on. And I think the story is that we're all so overextended during the holidays. Here are fit ways to, you know, do less of it or whatever. But on some level, I mean, most people are not truly that busy. I mean in life in general, it's like it's okay to be a little busier for a little while, especially if you are doing fun things with the upside that you are making memories. Like in general, people are a good use of time. That is one of our kernal beliefs here at best of both worlds. And also that life is worth the bother because there's no prize for like getting to the end of your life and being like woohoo, I saved up all my energy, Like now what, so you know it's it's it's okay to be a little tired some days. It's okay to be a little busy some days if you are doing things that you like. And I find that I generally draw energy from enjoyable things.

00:05:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I do feel like this is a busy season for some But at the same time, a lot of the things that tend to fill our calendars do tend to get a little more sparse as you really get closer to the holidays, which leaves room for more of that fun stuff. And I agree if you're just sort of like waiting for it to get sparse so you can just like breathe, you might miss out on some really fun opportunities to celebrate with others and just enjoy life and use some of that open time for things that might be seen as frivolous, but like that's what life's about. As you said, like what's the point of anything, Then.

00:05:42
Speaker 1: What's the point of anything true?

00:05:43
Speaker 2: True?

00:05:44
Speaker 1: Like few at least I'm well rested. I didn't do anything this Christmas, but at least I'm well rested. Well, you know, And to be clear, we are not saying, you know, like go into debt for presents, like don't go over the top on some of this. And you know, there's no point in filling the holidays with stuff no one wants to do, but you certainly can do a lot of fun stuff in December or whatever December holidays you happen to celebrate. So step number one, make a holiday fun list? Do you do this at all?

00:06:13
Speaker 2: Sarah?

00:06:14
Speaker 1: I mean, I see you know you guys, I mean we're maybe we should back up you guys. Pseudos celebrate like the secular version of parts of Christmas.

00:06:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know that I've ever like specifically discussed this, but like I grew up with a lot of Christmas music and Christmas movies and things like that, and I think the root of that because we're Jewish, but my father's family was like they were Philadelphians and they were very much into like assimilation culture back in the day, and so it was cool to like have a tree and have presence and celebrate the holiday. And I think even Josh has like one aunt who always throws like a big Christmas. So there's this there's like interesting crossover. And so I do enjoy some of the very like classic American Christmas type traditions because like they I did do them, so I still want to do them. So that's kind of interesting. But at the same time, Christmas, as like a religious holiday, is not meaningful for us, so we have our own kind of family hana good traditions as well. So I definitely feel like there are enough things that are meaningful to me in this season. Plus I love New Year's. Love New Years that comprising a holiday fun list is not a challenge for me. I want to hear yours, though you're like a you're like a ninja.

00:07:25
Speaker 1: Holiday fun list maker I am, which again, it's you know, in this like don't simplify the holidays kind of thing. You know, there's so many fun things to do, and I think we should try to do as many of them as we can. So every year I make a holiday fun list and this is the things that I want to do or I want my family to do over the course of sort of Thanksgiving to New Years that will make this time feel memorable and fun for us. So every year I post this on my blog. This year, there are a couple of things that are you know, there's some stand bys. I always love to go see the Nutcracker, the Ballet. Since I've started singing in a choir again about six years ago, I'm always singing in Christmas Eve services and usually in a Christmas choir concert as well. The kids are often in our church Christmas pageant, which is fun. I like to go see a couple of outdoor light displays. Longwood gardens around here is always good. There's one we've started going to recently called Tinseltown that is just really cool, like lots of shapes of lights that can be really fun for little kids as well. We do some things like create the Lego Christmas set of the Year, whatever it is. It's this alpine house this year, so Sam and Ruth and I have been putting that together. We do family Christmas pajamas that we open usually on the twenty fourth, so we can all wear those open overnight and open our presence on Christmas morning, all wearing the same pajamas. Some children love this, some tolerate it, but we have sort of that and you know, reading Christmas stories with the little kids and I this year where we are adding going to the Rockets. I have never seen the Rockets show in Radio City Music Hall, but if life goes according to plan this year, I will, so that will be crossed off the list. How about you, what's on your list this year?

00:09:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my like weird hybrid list. So I also love the Nutcracker. We haven't gone for a number of years. I remember taking Annabelle when she was back when she was doing ballet back in Miami, and now she's doing it again. So we're going as a whole family in Miami, and I'm super excited about that. I love Getty. I mean, this is like doesn't sound like a tradition, but it is because we do it and we kind of like have fun with it. But Chinese takeout on Christmas proper big family tradition. The restaurants in my area, I get so busy. You need to order at like four PM or the night before, because so many people do that around here, so it's kind of interesting. I love to watch the Charlie Bone Christmas Special, so I'll watch that with the kids. I love holiday music starting around Thanksgiving. Like you can't play the Mariah Carrey song too many times. All My favorite song is Christmas Rappings by the Waitresses.

00:10:07
Speaker 1: So there's that. I don't know that gonna, yes you do.

00:10:10
Speaker 2: That's Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. I think I missed this one this year.

00:10:15
Speaker 1: Really, Oh my god, I may not.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: Wow wow, Oh, Okay, we'll play that. We'll play it on a future episode.

00:10:21
Speaker 1: And I'm just kidding, Okay.

00:10:22
Speaker 2: I like to do cards. I like, I mean, I enjoy, I don't. I don't love gifting like we do Hanukah as a family. And we'll talk more about gifts later, but I guess that's a tradition. We do Latkas and Hanukkah gift exchange with my like Miami family, which is really really fun. And then New Year's we try to do something in Miami. If my husband's not working, he almost always has to work New Year's because working Christmas is actually very popular down here, and it's it's hard to get I know it's backwards, right, but this year he is working Christmas, which means we're off from the year, so we're actually going to sleep over in Miami Beach and then I'm so looking forward to like waking up on January first, going for a run to the beach. So super exciting.

00:11:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, run on the beach around here on January first to be a really terrible, terrible experience. The upside of Florida, right, Yes, many upsides of Florida. There's competition for taking the Christmas working slot and you get to run on the beach on New Year's we will not have any of that, but we are. We're staying around here this year and we are going to host some family right after Christmas, so that will be good. So gifts and I recognize you as we're thinking about this and telling planning gifts. Hannik is actually starting pretty soon, like within the week, correct from when this is airing? Really, oh, put this on your list from when it's airing. Okay, yeah, I remember, No, no, not from when we're recording it, because November, Sarah, I was like, I'm behind on my shopping. No, sorry, it starts panic there.

00:11:53
Speaker 2: It starts right around Genevieve's birthday this year, so which she has told us many a time she needs her separate presence.

00:11:59
Speaker 1: But oh really, so how does she feel about that? Because she also then her birthday is almost always going to overlap with Yeah, she's not thrilled.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: I mean, but I'm not thrilled about my birthday being smacked between my anniversary and Mother's Day.

00:12:11
Speaker 1: So we take what we get. We take what we get, We get what we get, and we don't get upset. But how do you guys handle the gifts for that? Do you do stuff for all eight nights then?

00:12:20
Speaker 2: Or we do? We do? I mean the kids kind of like insist on it. Last year, we told the kids we're going to Montana, this is a very big trip. We're going to be more minimal, and they were like really grumbly about it. And this year, we're not going anywhere fancy or fantastic for that trip. So I think they're expecting, they're.

00:12:34
Speaker 1: Expecting you to kind of top it up in that category.

00:12:36
Speaker 2: But what I do to make it a little bit more reasonable is I use family gifts for some of the nights. So if my parents send something that's one of the nights. If we have a Hanaga party with my in laws, that's one of the nights. So that might mean that Josh and I are only supplying like four or five gifts instead of eight, and then they're not all large gifts like usually there's book night. Sometimes if the kids have bought one for each other, like that can be a night, and then usually try to get like one kind of more substantial thing for each kid.

00:13:02
Speaker 1: Okay, is that like the eighth night? Then how does that work? Is that it's kind of random.

00:13:07
Speaker 2: We might even ask them like do you want your big gift now? Do you want you know, your grandparents' gift tonight or whatever?

00:13:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you said that Annabel had a Google doc of her requests.

00:13:17
Speaker 2: Annamel's Google doc is like awesome, because I mean, I just think she has good taste. I'm not going to, like, you know, share too many specifics because you can't do that, but I would gladly accept almost anything on her personal list as a gift for me. And that's like a marker of maturity and good taste, I guess. So I was pretty impressed. And then she helped gen of you make a Google doc so I think will be kind of like in a good shape in terms of like having a lot of guidance as to what they want. I am trying to see if anybody wants any kind of experiential gift, Like people have expressed interest in like seeing Olivia Rodrigo in concert, and that is not cheap. So I'm like, well, that could be a good Hanukah gift, but we'll see.

00:14:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you haven't really done that so much like the experience gift does a gift.

00:14:04
Speaker 2: Now, I've never really done it, but I feel like they're getting to the ages where that would make a little bit more sense.

00:14:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really think that's a good gift for tweens and teens, and they get harder to buy stuff for. Obviously some kids like clothes or there may be some sort of electronic thing they have their eye on. But given that, you're probably not going to just be able to go to Target and find six toys that they'd be happy with at that age. Coming up with some sort of experience that they are really excited about can work. And so I know Jasper, for instance, has asked for a trip to New York City. He wants it longer this year, it's upping the game. Last year he wanted to go to a Broadway show and also be able to take a friend, so he was able to do that. Last year as his present, Sam and I went to Acadia National Park. We went to Bar Harbor, Maine and had lobster and hiked in Acadia and that was a lot of fun to do. Ruth has expressed some interest in having an experience gift, but I don't know that she's narrowed it down to what she would like to ask for this year, so we'll see if she winds up putting that on the list as well. We have a couple of rules for it. One is that everyone has to unwrap about the same number of things, and this requires more effort than you might imagine to make a list of Like, Okay, this person has seven things wrapped up. Uh, oh, this person only has five. We need to find some other little thing that they can wrap up just to keep it even. I wrap everyone in different paper, so every person in the family has their own color. Michael and I share a color, Sarah. Do you wrap things up?

00:15:43
Speaker 2: Do we wrap things up? Some things get wrapped, like when I get stuff for my niece and nephew because when we have that little party usually it's just customary to wrap things. But we don't always wrap the stuff for the kids. I think Josh likes to wrap it. I grew up not having things wrapped, so everything was hidden and you only got one thing at a time, so there was almost as much fanfare in like sitting there and waiting for your parents to come out and like, you know, pop it in your face versus having to unwrap it. So I'm not always into wrapping the kids gifts because it's like one extra step and I think it works okay without it again because it's this one at a time thing anyway, but we do wrap it for certain other events.

00:16:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I wouldn't naturally wrap stuff, but I kind of feel like it's the final step that makes it seem special, and especially if you put a lot of pretty bows on it. I mean, it's just more fun to get a present that's got lots of little bows and things on it. It's the aesthetic experience as well. So remembering that, I try to wrap things up somewhat nicely for all the kids. But in terms of the cost of the gifts, do you manage this if like each kid gets the same roughly price amount or how do you do that?

00:16:55
Speaker 2: I feel it well, a lot of this Josh did last year, so like this is often like vertical ownership thing where I'm like, you're in charge of gifts and it's worked pretty well. So harder for me to answer, but I feel like he does try to make it pretty approximately close. I don't think he tries to like match it exactly, but I feel like I feel like he does try to make it pretty even.

00:17:15
Speaker 1: So the way I view it more because I mean, little kid gifts are just cheaper than big kid gifts almost always, and so you know, Henry could get huge toys and it still would not equal the cost of a trip to New York City. I mean, that's just the reality of it. But I do want at least one present for each kid that they're like wow, you know that they feel like it was a big thing, and so that might be a different price level for each kid, but it's something that they are really excited about receiving. I know that my in laws, when my husband and his three siblings were growing up, would make it exactly even, like to the point where if they spent less on one kid, they would like give them the dollar difference between what they spent, which I find interesting. You know, I guess that's that's one way to keep it very very on the even.

00:18:10
Speaker 2: I don't think we spend equal amounts on the kids ever, so like why would a holiday you know what I mean, Like everyone gets what they need, but there's certainly no like, oh, your piano lessons were more expensive than your ballet class, so I'll increase hair allowance to compensate.

00:18:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's true. Stuff like that. It would be harder to make even in any sort of way. One thing we've we've tried it.

00:18:33
Speaker 2: We've not taken a break yet. So we love this gift conversation so much that we could keep going. But we're going to be right back in just.

00:18:40
Speaker 1: A couple of bee back. Well, we are back talking about presents for December holidays, whatever holidays you happen to celebrate this time of year, especially if they involve gift giving. One thing we've been trying to do, which is I mean you guys naturally have with Hanukkah over eight nights, is spreading stuff out a little bit, because if you know, you don't get gifts for months and months, and then you open everything on Christmas morning. It's almost a little bit overwhelming. So we tend to have the kids give each other sibling gifts, which then they open on a different day. The gifts from grandparents get opened when they see said grandparents, so that's either before or after Christmas, but whenever we see those people, that's when we'll open them. Sometimes we just you know, we open the Christmas pajamas on the twenty fourth so we can all wear them that night and then the next morning, So that kind of helps to spread it out a little.

00:19:51
Speaker 2: That kind of makes sense because I mean, honestly, you can't play with everything at once anyway, so I always kind of wondered about that, and it can be a little bit overwhelming to just have like a gift daily, like a little tit. Yeah.

00:20:01
Speaker 1: Well, we've had to take breaks at different times too, I mean, so they open their stockings first thing, then we have breakfast, then we start opening presents, and often, especially if the little kids are playing with stuff that they don't want to stop playing with whatever they just opened, we may pause for a while and come back to it an hour later. When everyone's a little bit more like, Okay, now we'll do the next round. I know people have even had to put stuff away and open it later days just because their kids are so into whatever it is that they open that everything else will be forgotten. And you know, if it's not put it at a different time. So yeah, depends the age of the kids, but that's definitely happened to us.

00:20:43
Speaker 2: So sibling gifts, you guys have kind of a complex. Five is a lot because that mean each person is buying four gifts. That can kind of the multiplication like it gets high fast exponentially.

00:20:56
Speaker 1: Really as well, it's yes, four three two, No, it's each person buying four. So yes, that does a lot. Funny, No, yes, it is twnny I have something like that. Yeah, true, So that is a lot of gifts, which is one reason to spread them out, have it on a different day than the Christmas morning sort of thing. And I wind up taking this on as sort of I mean, the older kids can take cash into Target, can do it themselves, right, like buy this for this person and go to the checkout aisle and do it themselves, and so on some level, it doesn't need to involve me, but they do sort of ask me like do you think you'd like that? So I sent right up standing there in target with three or four kids, depending on what it is. And it's a lot, and.

00:21:52
Speaker 2: Then you have to prevent them from seeing what each other is checking out.

00:21:55
Speaker 1: I guess it is. But then I had this idea one year of like, well, let's just do it as a secret san a gift exchange, right, like everyone will get somebody's name out of a hat, and you know, like you would do if you were working in an office maybe with five people, right, like you'd all draw ning. And it brought out all the worst in my children's like personalities, Like literally within two minutes, everybody knew who had who they were complaining about, Like that person's not going to think about it for me, Like they don't get anyway it didn't go well.

00:22:26
Speaker 2: They don't have the maturity of office workers and they are not able to hold back.

00:22:30
Speaker 1: They're not able to hold back on it. So we just did everybody uys for everyone. I'm pretty sure we'll do that again this year, which means that I'll wind up maybe I think I think I would have Michael Handel Henry because then he could just you know, then he's just shopping with him. And but the problem is chopping with the little kid is they don't have the emotional intelligence to think about what somebody else wants to be. Like Jasper wants Plato, and so it is Ruth, and so does everyone. Everyone wants Plato this year. I wonder what Henry wants for Christmas. That's the thought that counts, sort of the thought that counts. I mean, well, I gotta say. Ruth wears a dress that Alex bought her with some help from me. But we were looking and he was like, I want to get Ruth some clothes. I know she likes these clothes, and so we looked at it and shows a dress together, and she loves it. She still wears it. So that is excellent for adults shopping for adults. So you might consider a gift of the year for people who are not kids. And on some of this sounds like, oh, now we're going back into simplifying the holidays, which this episode is all about not simplifying the holidays. But I will actually say that this might wind up working better because in many cases, if it's something that you truly like and enjoy and then you find a way to personalize it for everyone. It just narrows the options a little bit from the entire universe of gift options where you might accidentally go awry, to a more narrow category that everyone's generally gonna like, and you can personalize within it. So, for instance, maybe everybody gets a nice umbrella, but different colors because you know all your friends and families favorite colors, and you find it in that everyone gets a fleece, Like one year I gave everybody fleeces from American Giant and just chose different colors for different people. Everyone gets an ll Bean boat bag because who doesn't love Llban boat bags? And then you could put gifts in it, right, little tiny gifts that people might like that are personal to them. But then you're not thinking like, oh does my aunt what should I get my aunt? You're like, well, which boat bag would my aunt like? And of things that you can put in a boat bag, what would my aunt be most excited about? Right, So it just makes it a little bit more streamlined. So that's one way to do it.

00:24:47
Speaker 2: We don't do a lot of adult gift buying, like, yes, we give Christmas like or holiday bonuses or like cash to lots of like staff type people r nanny or teachers or things like that. But like the adult gift buying is very limited in my sphere. But when I do have to do it, I love. I love the standardized idea, and I love consumable stuff, like you know, like a pretty fruit basket with like gourmet food items because then you know, like, you know, who's not going to like that, like if you get something that actually tastes good and is good or like, I don't know, Like I mean, gift cards are always nice. I was saying if I was a jillionaire, Like if I was really a billionaire, I would be stow upon everyone I know, like a massage gift card somewhere good.

00:25:28
Speaker 1: You know, Well, it's if you think about the universe of people you do give gifts, so it's not that huge, and it's like you wouldn't actually have to be a jillionaire, not that you necessarily do it, like it might not be a budgetary priority. But I always think of this when people like total tangent here. But with Halloween, sometimes people like oh, you know, go to like the mansion where they might be handing out full sized candy bars. It's like, actually, full sized candy bars are not that expensive. You wouldn't have to be living in a mansion to give out full sized candy bars. You'd have everyone think you're like incredibly rich just by buying two hundred full size Snickers bars. But they're like what a dollar apiece? It's like not.

00:26:05
Speaker 2: Actually, there are multiple houses in my neighborhood that we're bragging on the what's up about? And this is not a jillionaire neighborhood that were like, no, we have full size candy bars.

00:26:13
Speaker 1: We have full size. You're getting the full thing here, and people like, wooh, they're wealthy.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: Apparently.

00:26:19
Speaker 1: Call it costUS two hundred dollars to make people think that if you wanted to, I don't know. I've never wanted to have people think that, so we give out snack size. But anyway, so you could also do everyone a favor. You can make it a little bit easier for other people and make a list of things you want. And yes, you are an adult and can probably buy yourself anything you do want, but being easy to shop for is kind of a gift you can give other people in your life. So you might just consider either having a list of stuff, or if everyone knows that you collect X or always shop at a particular store, or love anything in the color blue, that'd be great, or you know, specifically ask people for time, like so any you know local relatives, be like, how about you take my kids for a Saturday afternoon. That's what I want for Christmas Orhonica or whatever. Love it I don't. I don't usually get.

00:27:13
Speaker 2: The only holiday gift I usually get is from my college friends because we do a little fun exchange like that. And yeah, you're right, you'll probably be good if we were like I want something in this category or something like that. We generally just give each other cosmetics and call it a day.

00:27:28
Speaker 1: But you guys also know each other really really well. I mean from twenty plus twenty five years at this point. So yes, and it's a good thing to figure out. I would say, also plan out your holiday break so you can sometimes go from busy busy busy. In the first three weeks of December, test, Sarah was saying, like having nothing around the holidays and your kids are off of school, if your daycare is closed for some number of days, or if your nanny or you know, you're after school, babysit or whatever is on vacation, Like, you're going to wind up having a lot of time with your kids, and especially if they are young kids, that can get kind of tiring. So you might want to consider planning this out to give yourself at least a few breaks. Maybe you and your partner each give each other days off. That could be something you guys could do.

00:28:26
Speaker 2: I have definitely in the past taken advantage of like local camp options. I think last year even I had the kids in like two or three days of like one off gymnastics camp just because my husband was working, I think he was working New Year's and I was off, and I was like, this is a really long stretch of days, Like it was saying like sixteen days or something, and I'm like, a gift to me would be three days of my kids not being home and I can like plan the year and organize. They're like, do whatever I want, and it was it was fantastic. I didn't do that this year because it's a lot less of a long stretch because of the days my husband's working and the kids getting a little bit older does make it feel a little bit less needed. But give yourself that gift, especially if your kids are in that really young phase and you're going a really long stretch without daycare. I promise you'll still get a lot of time with your kids. Count up the days. It may be fifteen days. Giving yourself the ability to have two of them for you is not selfish. It is absolutely allowed, and I am very glad I have done it in the past.

00:29:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's a good idea. Or again, if you have family visiting that they're willing to take the kids for a little bit, just you know, booking a date with your partner at that time, or a get together with a friend who's in a similar position. Maybe coordinate that you guys can go for a run together or a lunch together or something like that. What also suggest putting a little bit of fun into January, so one way you can kind of get more of the holiday fun, but maybe have less of it on any given day. Like if you're you know, if the first three weekends of December are getting really booked up for you, you might consider if any of that could be done in early January. So maybe it's that you and your close friends do a gift exchange that's more like a twelfth night sort of gift exchange, you know, around January sixth or some holiday light displays actually stay up through the first weekend in January, whatever that happens to be. And it may be that you have a lot fewer things going on on January seventh than you do on December fifteenth, So that might be a way to still go see the cool light display or go to the botanical garden thing, but you're not trying to cram it into a weekend that already has three kid concerts and your spouse's office party and everything else.

00:30:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I know a lot of people get that sort of letdown feeling when you've done all these fun things. Maybe you've taken a trip and then you're like, wait, now what do I have to look forward to? Like spring break is really far away. Maybe you're not traveling. So having some little bright spots in the calendar in January can be such a nice thing to do for Yourselfely plan on making sure we have a good date night for January and probably booking like a massage spat dight with my friends. So just want to have some little bright spots on the calendar to look forward to after all the action is kind of over.

00:31:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, We're planning on going to Disney in February, so I guess that's something. I don't know if I'm so much looking forward to that, but I know the kids are, so I guess they'll have something fun to look forward to. Maybe I need to put some massages or other things, or maybe somebody will need me to speak at a conference in like southern California in mid January. I'll throw that out there. Anyone's looking or Hawaii would be really excited about that, Hawaii, yes, exactly, all right. So these are just some ways to have fun this holiday season. And you know, again, it's fun to do things to make holiday memories. And when you're considering like, oh is this too much, like, you know, you can rest a little bit in January, it might be fun to do that extra thing. Get together with your friends, get together with your family, go see that fun light display, you know, get the family out moving around at night for even if it is a Tuesday. Because that's what the holidays are all about. It's not just about pairing things back. It's also putting in more fun stuff and really enjoying that experience. So moving on to the question section, which is somewhat related, this listener asks how do you involve the kids or do you in holiday and vacation planning?

00:32:27
Speaker 2: So, Sarah, So for us, it's mostly in the brainstorming phase. I have been known when we're like out to dinner to whip out a piece of paper and be like, hey, what does everyone want to do this summer? And then they're not necessarily going to be the ones to decide when to do it or how to do it, but at least I've gotten some crowdsource ideas to kind of decide to make sure that they see something that they picked on the calendar. So we do it in the brainstorming phase. And then for travel, we have done this thing that I've talked about where I just decided, like, when you're ten, you get to pick a destination for the family to go to. It has to be domestic forty eight contiguous states, and Annabel picked dec.

00:33:04
Speaker 1: I'm only talking about Hawaii here.

00:33:05
Speaker 2: We all want to go to Hawaii, yes, but not for your tenth birthday. So, but this is like a family trip, so it's not like a one on one thing, but it was more like Okay, you picked the destination, and Annabel's was kind of like delayed because of COVID and stuff. But she picked DC in partly because she wanted to go to the Aeron Condrance store, which is a very good call. Now the store that store is gone, so she timed it well. And we are asking Cameron like what he wants to do and kind of trying to plan around that for an upcoming trip. So that's one way to kind of have the kids have some buy in, feel like they have some agency in what we do as a family.

00:33:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, we definitely had some brainstorming over the last few years. I know, we did an episode on Your five Year Travel Plan and I asked my older children where they'd like to go, like what they'd like to see, and you know, because of that, we've wound up taking several family trips to cool destinations. We went to Paris in two we went to London last Christmas, and went to Norway this summer, so they've gotten to see those places. We still have to get to Hawaii and some people want to go to Japan. That'll be a different trip. Not all of the older kids. Only one of them wants to go to that one bitbull. We'll make it happen at some point, and we have spring break plans with that too, So yeah, definitely asking them and trying to figure out what they'd like to see while they're still home with mom and dad. And I know that there will be many other opportunities. I'm sure many of them will study abroad and I'll get to go visit whatever awesome countries they're in while they're there. So I know there will be plenty of kid travel in the future, but there's sort of a limited window where I can like guarantee they'll be part of it. I do ask about the holiday fun list, so some of my children were a little bit more into this brainstorming than others. Ruth was definitely willing to have that conversation with me, and we made a list of having a holiday baking extravagananza. She wants to go ice skating, and she wanted to go to Dutch Wonderland, which is a amusement park that's about an hour from here that they do Christmas lights and have some of their rides open, and so that's just a fun thing to do for you know, two hours or so. So I wound up getting tickets for it. I wouldn't have thought of that like it. It wasn't ever on my list of like a really cool thing to do, But knowing that one of my kids does in fact want to do it made me do it. Also, they had mentioned breakfast with Santa as being something they want to do, so I made sure to get tickets for a breakfast with Santa. So you know that's involving them with that. But you know, I am to a degree the family cruise director, so it's not like I'm making my kids get online and buy tickets for stuff on a certain day or anything like that.

00:35:48
Speaker 2: Well, I think it sounds like you're going to have a very fun holiday season, and the kids definitely put some input into that, so it worked out.

00:35:55
Speaker 1: It worked out. Love of the Week, Sarah, what are you loving this week?

00:36:00
Speaker 2: I just had a really good experience with batch baking, which is like not something I do. I mean, I don't even bake that often, but I gotta say, like, one day, we had family coming over, so I was like, I'm gonna make apple curs. I'm like, oh, but I also want to make muffins. Oh but I also want to make protein balls. I'm like, would it be that hard to just like do it all at once? And it was surprisingly easy because like, once you have the cutting board out, once you have the food process or ound, you can just like rinse your bowl and like reuse it because it's just like the same type of stuff in it. It was surprisingly efficient to do multiple things at once. I've done it with cooking before, but I've never really tried it with baking. But I feel like, I don't know, I have up Danny Now I feel good about maybe trying to make a couple things at once when I decide to bake.

00:36:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds great, sounds yummy. I'll say that my love of the week can be protein balls. I wonder if I got this from you. I don't know. I made some.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: It sounds like my recipe. It doesn't have like chia seeds and stuff in it.

00:36:49
Speaker 1: Well, I don't own any ts seeds, so I don't put tis seeds in it. But you could just make whatever. I mean, call it a protein ball. I put peanut butter oats, honey, vegan chocolate chips, and a little cinnamon in it. I think that was probably what was in. Maybe a little salt or something like that. Anyway, it was good. You know, you roll them up, make little balls, put them on a cookie sheet, put them in the fridge so they harden, and then eat them a lot of them. I like them. They were good.

00:37:17
Speaker 2: So love of the week anything with like peanut butter being the main ingredient is good.

00:37:20
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, good.

00:37:21
Speaker 2: Well.

00:37:21
Speaker 1: I like stuff that's sweet but not too sweet. I think the combination of sweet plus salty is like, oh, really good, and you know it's always I second love of the week would be like when people bring savory stuff to holiday gatherings, because you can go a little bit overboard on the sweet. I was once at a reception where literally everything was sweet. I mean I think they had soda and juice and cookies and brownies, and I'm just like, a.

00:37:44
Speaker 2: Like, where's the pretzels and the salted nuts?

00:37:47
Speaker 1: Yes, I know you need something else. That's a lot otherwise you're just like all in a daze of sugar coma coming into whatever you're doing. So yes, that could be another love of the week, because anything at least reasonably savory or sweet with a side of salty for the holidays as a big win in my book. Love It well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking about how you don't need to simplify the holidays. You can just celebrate and embrace the holidays, whatever holidays you happen to celebrate in your family. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:38:23
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.

00:38:31
Speaker 1: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.