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Halloween merchandise has been up for months and now Christmas items are up too! All of this feels way too soon! Here are my biggest two tips to lessen the planning stress of holidays.
It’s September 15th. Despite being just halfway through September, and despite the fact that we are technically still in the season of summer, there are fall and winter holiday displays everywhere! Halloween, Thanksgiving, and winter holidays like Christmas and Hannukah decorations and accessories are in every store and being served to us online all day. It’s wild how early all of this starts, and how extreme some of these holiday “traditions” are becoming.
I am Type A. Obviously. I love planning ahead and thinking about being as efficient as possible in all aspects of my day, my week, and my year. But spiritually I like to complete a season before beginning another. I feel like I’m just getting over the back-to-school season and now it seems the world is asking me to start planning my winter holidays…
The thing is that I do understand why we’re getting all this holiday pressure now. The biggest reason we’re seeing holiday items so early is that the merchandise is literally seasonal. That means that it’s offered for a short period of time and if you don’t get it then, you won’t get it again that year. This is especially true for kids’ items like clothing – if you don’t buy kids’ warm sweaters and pants this fall it’ll all be gone by the time February comes around when you really need it to get you through the depths of cold winter weather. Also, again, since the items are literally seasonal, that means the companies selling these items need to sell as much of it as they can so they aren’t hanging on to it for the rest of the year when no one wants flannel Christmas pajamas (except for my son A(4) who will only wear Christmas pajamas no matter the season!).
I know that there isn’t anything we can do to slow this holiday merchandise creep into summer, I know that we do need to purchase things for the upcoming holidays, and I also know that doing this prep work for each holiday means when we’re in the thick of them I can focus on the fun and not stress about the “things” we need to get for that holiday! With that in mind, I want to highlight 2 things I’ve learned in my 11 years of parenting through numerous holidays.
- The biggest thing I want to highlight is DO NOT START A HOLIDAY TRADITION UNLESS YOU WANT TO CONTINUE DOING IT FOR YEARS AND YEARS. If you have one baby and you start a tradition with them the tradition will go as long as they’re interested in it (10 years?). But then if you have more kids you will most likely feel that they need to enjoy the same tradition, so that means that you’ll be committed to that tradition for years and years… So, if you want to do something cute for each holiday then just make sure you can keep it up for as long as your kids enjoy it – which, if you have multiple kids, could go on for many years!
- I made a mistake one year when my kids were 6, 4, and 1. I loved the personalized family advent calendar that you hang from your wall and that you get to fill with little treats or items (that you must provide - no gifts come with the calendar) for the kids to have each morning. Well, the advent calendar is 24 days long and when you multiply that by 3 kids, it is not only expensive but it was SO TIME CONSUMING. On top of figuring out the kids’ actual Christmas gifts, their school holiday events, gifts for family, and all the holiday parties I had now added finding cute gifts that were “fair” for each of my 3 kids for 24 days in a row! After that self-induced stressful season I have since packed up that cute personalized advent calendar and will never bring it out again. The kids now each get a prepackaged Lego advent calendar and I can just set it out on December 1 and be done with it!
- But the biggest mistake I made is Elf on a Shelf. I thought this idea was super cute and fun when my oldest son (now 10) was 2 so we started the Elf tradition then. But now we’re about to enter our 9th year of Elf on a Shelf, and since I have a 4-year-old we may not be ending this tradition for at least another 5 years… it’s been much more work than I ever imagined. Our already busy December is now also filled with my husband and I constantly reminding each other to check on the whereabouts of/move the Elf which often means panicked middle-of-the-night wakeups or rushing around before the kids wake up in the morning to make sure he’s moved! Our Elf set-ups aren’t even elaborate like the ones I’ve seen on Instagram who have a new “scene” each day, and yet it’s still stressful and a lot of work! While a cute tradition that the kids look forward to, I do wish we had never introduced this but now we’re stuck with it…
- So please, when thinking about adding “traditions” to your family’s life, remember that you have to keep up these traditions for years and years, and potentially for multiple kids. Lately I have been seeing “Boo Basket” assembly videos on Instagram. A Boo Basket is a newer idea in the last few years that a lot of people are loving – it is a Halloween-themed basket filled with activities, toys, clothes, candy and more, that are all Halloween related. While yes, Boo Baskets are super cute, they can be a lot of work (and cost a lot of money, add extra sugar, and bring clutter into your house!). If you’re considering adding a Boo Basket for your kids on top of the stress of figuring out all the Halloween costumes, parties, trick-or-treating plans, getting candy for you to hand out at your house, remember that once you start a Boo Basket tradition, the kids will most likely remember it and you’ll have to keep making them for years to come… for me, it’s just a bit too much to add to Halloween!
- ORDER/BUY YOUR HOLIDAY ITEMS AT LEAST ONE MONTH AHEAD OF TIME. This can alleviate the stress of places selling out of what you need and the stress of shipping delays! And if something doesn’t fit, or you don’t like it, you can exchange it before the holiday starts. I also like getting holiday items early because then you can be done with most of the behind-the-scenes work of that holiday which gives you more capacity to focus on enjoying that holiday!
- For example, have the kids’ Halloween costumes figured out (and ordered/purchased) by September 30/October 1. That way you won’t have to worry about getting the costume in the right size by the right time! Something to note is that getting kids to stick to their costume choice a month before Halloween might be a challenge, but if you have to buy a second costume you’ll use it for dress up or for one of the many Halloween parties the kids have before Halloween actually arrives! Or, for Christmas/Hannukah, purchasing gifts at least one month out usually coincides with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales so it behooves you to plan ahead for those holidays!
- Right now, I am doing the following to help my family:
- I’ve ordered matching Christmas pajamas – these always sell out and if I want to get the right sizes in matching pajamas for each kid then I need to plan ahead
- I’m finalizing what costumes my kids want for Halloween and I’ll order at the end of the month – if I start asking now it gives them time to think about their choices and then naturally narrow it down which means I’ll hopefully be ordering exactly what they want
- I saw Lego advent calendars when I went to Barnes & Noble this week – these are super popular and often sell out (and I need 3 different ones so each of my kids has their own theme) so I checked the price and will now go check against Amazon and Target to see who has the best deal and will order soon (and then hide them from the kids until December 1)
- As your Type A Mom friend, I will do my best to remind us all about these holiday “deadlines” throughout the year as they approach so we can all be organized and order things early and be done with that part of each holiday. Follow me on Instagram for those reminders!
Ultimately my goal with prepping for holidays ahead of time, and for reminding us all to only take on traditions that we can keep doing for years and years, is so that we can focus on the fun of these holidays! Stress inevitably comes with the holidays, but preparing what can be prepared ahead of time always helps lessen stress, and only taking on what you can commit to and know you can do well also helps stop things from getting too stressful!
