Holiday Magic: It’s Simpler Than You Think

“Christmas is a togethery sort of holiday. That’s my favorite kind.”

— Winnie the Pooh

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Twinings - Winter Spice Tea (Caffeine-Free)

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Transcription of the podcast episode:

Hello and welcome back to the Elegant Balance Podcast. It is so great to be here with you today and yeah, life is good. It's a Friday afternoon and we don't really have much planned this weekend aside from a pool party on Sunday for my son's ninth birthday. So some fun stuff planned. But other than that, just some relaxing and getting into the holiday spirit.

I don't know about you, but I love Christmas so much. And typically when it starts to be Christmas season, which for me starts, it starts after my birthday, which I know is ridiculous, but my birthday's November 14th and then after my birthday we can then shift to Christmas mode. But once I kind of make that shift into Christmas mode, I want everything that I see, that I listen to, that I do to have some sort of holiday flair to it.

Whether that is listening to holiday themed podcast episodes like this one or, you know, getting a Starbucks drink in the the fancy little red and green cups that they have at Christmas time, or just simply just sitting by the tree with the lights on and just absorbing the fact that it is Christmas. It is indeed Christmas. Yeah, I just love it.

I even read novels like, you know, like fun romance rom com kind of books that are Christmas themed during this season. Because if I can't watch all of the Hallmark movies, which I can't because my husband and my son are just not interested in watching those movies. So instead I read them. So the other day I went to the library and checked out about five different Christmas romance novels.

So we'll see if they're any good. If they're good, I will share them with you over on Instagram. But yeah, so all that to say life is great. We're enjoying the holiday season and I wanted to invite you if you're interested in just the unintentional extra intentional this holiday season, especially during this Advent season as we wait for Christmas Day to get here.

If you're interested in joining me for my Advent Book club, it is not too late. I will leave the link to the group me in the show notes and you can join inside the group. Me There's also a link to the book that we're working through. It's called Emmanuel by Ruth Chew. Simmons And yeah, there's a, there's, it's a little reading for each day, but if you don't have the book and you have to wait a few days to jump in, that's totally fine.

You can jump in whenever you get the book and whenever you're listening to this episode and we would welcome you. And it's really a very unstructured book club because more than anything, it's just an accountability group where we can check in with each other, you know, post a picture of us reading the book and just let people let everyone know like, Hey, I showed up today.

I was intentional about spending time with God and thinking about what this season of Advent actually means. And participating Christmas as well. So if that sounds like anything you'd be interested in, The link is in the show notes to join the group. Me and I would love to have you there. It will be. I think it will be fun.

Today was our first day and like I said, you can jump in at any time and you would be most welcome there. So today's episode is kind of a follow up on the last episode, which if you didn't listen to it, the last episode was all about how to be intentional this holiday season. And like I said, I love to just consume holiday themed content during this time.

So I figured, you know, I might as well just make some holiday themed content for you in case you feel the same way. But I wanted this episode to kind of be a part two or a follow up to that episode because I took my own advice and did some of the things that I recommended there and wanted to kind of share with you what that looks like for our family and just how truly simple creating holiday magic can be.

It does not have to be chaotic. It does not have to be overwhelmed, overwhelming or frustrating. In fact, it is actually quite simple, and I think you'll be surprised if you do talk to your husband, talk to your kids about what they really want to do during this season and what they really want to make sure what the traditions are, that they want to make sure that they they get to do, or the things that just kind of stick with them from things that you've done in the past.

I think you'll be surprised by how simple it is and how we tend to just overthink it and try to make things too perfect or Pinterest worthy. When this is real life. We do not have to do things to that extent. Unless you're like a Pinterest influencer, which I am not. So I'm not posting pictures of my tree or anything like that, so I think I'll be all right.

So in last the last episode, the one all about the intentional holiday, the first step that I suggested you do is to get really intentional with what you want to do this Christmas, and specifically not just what you want to do, but also like what is your spouse want to make sure you accomplish for this holiday season? And what are the traditions or memories that your kids really want to make?

And so like I said, I took my own advice and did just that. I sat down with my kids the first day of Thanksgiving break and said, Hey, okay, we're kicking off the holiday season. What do you guys want to do? What memories do you want to make sure that we make? What traditions do you want to make sure that we that we keep?

And they came up with a list of ten different things. And I think I'm going to share them all with you and kind of explain what we're going to do for each one. But I think you're going to be surprised by how simple these things actually are. In fact, several of them, I think at least four of the ten actually take place on Christmas Day.

And they're pretty simple. So there's not even a whole lot leading up to Christmas for me to be worried about or stressed about. So yeah, so my kids are almost nine. My son will turn nine here in a week on the 10th, a week and a half, and my daughter is five. And so that will kind of give you a reference point for where they're coming from in terms of the things that they're excited about.

But honestly, the things that they listed were also the things that I am excited about. And I'm 35, so I think it will fit for anyone. So I wanted to share this with you one so that you can see how simple, you know, an intentional holiday can be. And creating this holiday magic for your family doesn't have to be stressful.

And too, maybe some of our activities will inspire you to, you know, adapt them for your own family. I don't know. Maybe you you if you hear something and you're like, Yeah, I really want to make sure we do that too. So I guess the reasons I'm sharing these are twofold. One, to just show the simplicity of it and to to maybe give you a little bit of inspiration.

So after talking to my kids and making our list, this is what we came up with. So the first thing they wanted to make sure that they did was to watch the Thanksgiving parade. Clearly, this is recorded after Thanksgiving. And so we have already done this one. And it was a super simple one, right? They both went on and on about how much they enjoy watching the Thanksgiving parade every year.

In fact, my son went as far to say that he thinks Thanksgiving might be his favorite holiday. And a big part of that is because he loves watching the Thanksgiving parade and then eating dinner together as a family. So, yeah, super simple activity, tradition, all I had to do was log in to YouTube and find a livestream of the parade so that they could just watch it.

We don't usually watch like the the official version of the Thanksgiving parade because there's a lot of just commentary or they like commercial breaks or, you know, it just gets boring. The kids don't love that all they really want to do is to see the floats and the dancers and the costumes and stuff. So we just did a livestream and it was super simple.

We sat around in our bathrobes by the fire and watched the parade. Okay, The second thing that they said, they wanted to make sure that we got to do this holiday season was to drink hot chocolate or hot tea. We have already done this multiple times and it's super simple and as well. Right. In fact, I will sometimes just make a pot of hot chocolate and then stick it in the fridge and whenever we want, a cup of hot chocolate will warm up one cup at a time.

And that way it's super easy. Or, you know, with hot tea. I ordered some hot tea off of Amazon. I can share the link below in the show notes. It's Twinings tea and they've got a winter spice one that's caffeine free. So that's the one we use for the kids before bed when we're sitting around by the fire.

But they also have one has caffeine. I think that one's called their holiday their holiday spice or something like that. But anyway, I'll show I'll share the notes there, share the link in the notes if you want to find some good holiday teas for you and your family. But again, you know, this is number two and their top ten list of things to do this holiday season.

And it's just drinking a warm drink together. And so pretty simple activity there. Number three was to sleep by the fire. So in our living room, we have a gas fireplace in our Christmas trees right next to the fireplace. You know, you've got the lights in the o the stockings hanging from the mantel and it's just super Christmasy.

And they love to just, you know, bring a sleeping bag or a mat down and sleep in front of the fire. And so that is one of the top things on their list. And we've already done it multiple times during Thanksgiving break. So super, super simple. Number four was to watch Christmas movies. And we've already done this one a couple of times.

We've watched a few Christmas movies. We typically do family movie nights on the weekend. It's hard to do on a school night, but we have already watched White Christmas, which is one of my favorite Christmas movies, and that was our first one that we watched. And we've also watched Elf. That was another one. They mentioned the other ones they wanted to make sure that we watched were the Santa Claus.

Yeah, which is my favorite Christmas movie, I think, because I grew up watching it and I just think it's nostalgic and funny. I always like Tim Allen, but so the Santa Claus is still on our list Star, which is a really cute animated film about a donkey who belongs to Mary and Joseph, and he saves the day and gets to see Jesus born.

And I don't know, it's just a really cute film if you haven't seen it. And then the other one they wanted to make sure we watched was A Wonderful Life. So we've got two down, three to go, and I think we'll be able to do that in the next few weeks before Christmas gets here. Number five was to make gingerbread houses.

Now, some of you may hear that and you're like, Well, that sounds really complicated and I don't want to spend a whole day making gingerbread houses. Let me just explain briefly. Making gingerbread houses means that we go to Target and we pick out a pre made gingerbread house and then we just put it together with the icing and the decorations that are included in the box.

So if you haven't seen those at Target, they're super fun. They have lots of different options. I think my son picked out a log cabin and my daughter picked out a tree house maybe I can't remember. There is also a donut shop and a hot chocolate stand and a beach hut. I mean, they had all sorts of different cute little gingerbread houses that the pieces are all there.

You don't have to bake any gingerbread. You don't have to go and buy separate icing or candies or anything. It's all in a box. And so all they actually will be doing is putting it together and decorating it, which we will probably do this weekend because we don't have a lot of plans this weekend. And they like to do it earlier than later.

That way they can display them on my counter during the holiday season. So I know that one might sound a little complicated, but like I said, it's an all in one kind of thing that you can just buy a target. They probably have them at other places too. You see, the number six was to bake Christmas cookies and give them to our neighbors.

So this one was actually one of mine because I have been really wanting to try to bake shortbread cookies like the really pretty shortbread cookies that you see in the Christmas tins. And yes, it'd be easier to buy them at the store and then give them to your neighbors. But my kids like to bake. I like to bake and try new recipes and new techniques.

And so we're going to try this one. And this is one of the more complicated ones on our list. Number seven was to have a Christmas Eve dinner party and attend church on Christmas Eve, which is what we do every year. So I think that's why it came up on their list. But we don't make a big fancy meal for Christmas Day.

 We don't live near family. And so Christmas Day is really just the four of us and maybe a few church members or friends that might come over. But I'm not going to cook on Christmas Day. I want to just enjoy the time together as a family and not feel stressed about trying to make sure everything gets done and everything is served.

And it looks nice and there's lots of dishes to do. Like I'm just not interested in that. So instead we do our fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, so we all get dressed up. In fact, this year my daughter and I bought matching Christmas dresses. They are like a champagne, sparkly gold and so fun. Kind of ridiculous, but also super fun.

And then my son has his little black suit, and I don't know if I'll convince my husband to wear a suit or not, but we have a big dinner party. I don't know what we're going to make it this year, but my kids help me set the table with like gold chargers and cloth napkins, and we light candles and just make it a really festive event.

And then we eat the leftovers on Christmas Day. So. And then church, we always go to church on Christmas Eve. They have a short Christmas Eve service. And that's just been a special tradition that we've done forever. I remember doing that as a kid. In fact, I think our church had it at like 11:00 at night so that we could like ring in the Christmas Day.

So it was like it got over at midnight and it was Christmas Day when you went home and so grateful our church doesn't do that. But that's a side note anyway, our Christmas Eve service is typically at like 5:00 in the afternoon. Okay, Now we're getting to the these last ones are just things that happen on Christmas Day and again, are super easy.

The first one is having cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I don't make homemade cinnamon rolls. Like I said, I don't want to be baking and doing a bunch of stuff on Christmas Day. So we literally just get some Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls and I bake them on Christmas morning and we eat them with, you know, some hot tea or some hot chocolate or coffee, whatever people want.

So super simple. But that made their top ten list for their holiday season. So again, this whole idea of creating the perfect, most magical holiday doesn't have to be complicated. And then number nine is to have a birthday cake for Jesus with party hats. So in our family, we don't do this, Santa. We don't do Santa Claus. Instead, we try to really make it a birthday party for Jesus.

And so since my son was born, so nine years ago, actually, we probably didn't do it when he was newborn. So eight years ago, we started just having a birthday party and we've done it both ways. I've bought a birthday cake at H-E-B or the grocery store or we've also made birthday cakes. We'll just kind of see how things go this year.

Even if we do make a cake, it'll be like a boxed cake. Something super simple that the kids can do on their own, or at least just with supervision and enjoy the process of making a birthday cake. And then we have party hats that are just stored in our Christmas decorations and we'll pull them out. We'll sing Happy Birthday and that will be our dessert on Christmas Day will be birthday cake again, super easy.

And then the final one is what you would expect. A nine year old and a five year old to say is on the top of their Christmas list, and that is to open presents and play with them. In other words, they don't want me dragging them around to a bunch of different celebrations. They don't want me making a bunch of plans on Christmas Day.

They really just want to be at home where they can eat cinnamon rolls, have a birthday party and open presents and play with the presence that they get. Simple enough. It's actually our Christmas morning Christmas Day is usually pretty relaxed, and because of that, because we've been intentional with creating these different memories throughout the whole season and doing these simple things throughout the season, Christmas Day is actually really enjoyable.

So like I said, I wanted to share their top ten list in the things that we're trying to do this holiday season with you, because I want you to see that it's not super complicated and lots of these are easy things. If they're not easy, they're things that I actually want to do. I'm not doing things that I feel like I should be doing.

You will notice that there is no send you no Christmas cards to the people that came to your wedding, even though you don't talk to them anymore kind of thing. Like, we're not doing that. We're not doing traditions or activities that really just don't bring us any joy or that aren't really important to us. And so some of these maybe sound awesome to you and maybe some of these are like, I have no desire to do that, then don't don't do don't do what I'm doing just because it was on my list or my kids lists, but instead take some time to define what you want your holiday season to look like.

If you're married, talk to your spouse. If you have children, talk to your kids. And like I said, I think you'll be surprised by how simple the memories that you really want to make, how simple it actually can be. It doesn't have to you don't have to go above and beyond. Nobody's grading you on your holiday season. Right.

And so I hope that this episode is just inspiring for you to get intentional about your holiday season. And then also just maybe liberating in a way that you're like, you know what? I don't have to do all the things to actually have a magical holiday season with my family. So yeah, that is all I have to share with you all today.

I hope you have a beautiful joy filled week and oh, I did want to remind you that I created a holiday gift guide for you. Some of you have probably already checked it out. I'll take it in the show notes. It is just a list of several of my favorite things or things that are actually on my Christmas list that I have asked my husband or my family for.

So I hope that it's helpful. I know sometimes it can be stressful to come up with ideas for gifts for people, or even to put on your own list. When people ask you for ideas of what they want, what you want. So check out the list. There might be some things on there that you like. I've tried to organize it in a way that it's like people who love office supplies because I love some good office supplies, some beautiful office supplies.

But there's things for people who like to travel. There's things for people who like self-care and beauty kind of products. There's also some ideas from your spouse or for your kids, some things that my family and I have really enjoyed. So check it out if you're needing some inspiration there. Again, have a beautiful joy filled week and I will talk to you soon.