The holidays may still feel a little ways off, but if you’re a mom, there’s a good chance they’ve already started taking up space in your mind.
You might not have bought a single Christmas gift yet. The decorations are still packed away. You haven’t made Thanksgiving plans or started thinking seriously about Christmas dinner.
But if you are like me somewhere in the back of your mind, the list is beginning.
Who are we buying for this year?
What will the kids need for their school parties?
When are we seeing family?
What traditions do we want to keep?
What needs to be ordered?
What are we wearing for pictures?
What should I bring to Thanksgiving?
When am I going to get all of this done?
And that list gets added to everything you’re already carrying.
Meals. Laundry. School calendars. Appointments. Work. Activities. Birthdays. Groceries. The house. The bills. The million little things that keep a family moving.
Before we ever reach the holidays, many of us are already carrying the mental load of the holidays.
But maybe preparing for this season doesn’t need to mean doing more.
Maybe it means creating a little more room.
You Don’t Need to Get Ahead on Christmas
There’s a lot of advice this time of year about getting ahead.
Start shopping early.
Make the lists.
Create the budget.
Plan the meals.
Buy the gifts.
Schedule the pictures.
And there is absolutely value in planning ahead. I love a good plan.
But I also don’t believe the answer to an already overwhelming schedule is adding another list of things she should start doing.
If you’re already carrying too much, adding Christmas tasks to September and October doesn’t necessarily create peace. Sometimes it just makes the Christmas season longer.
Instead, I want to approach holiday preparation differently this year.
Rather than asking:
How much can I get done before December?
I’m asking:
What can I put in place now that will help our home and family feel more grounded when December comes?
That’s a very different kind of preparation.
Here are five simple rhythms I plan to start now.
1. Stop Using Your Brain as the Storage System
One of the hardest parts of the mental load isn’t necessarily doing everything.
It’s remembering everything.
The permission slip you need to sign.
The birthday gift you need to order.
The appointment you need to schedule.
The groceries you’re almost out of.
The school event next Thursday.
And soon we’ll add gifts, parties, plays, holiday meals and traditions to the mix.
That’s a lot of open tabs running in your brain.
You don’t need an elaborate planning system to fix this. You simply need one trusted place for things to land.
It could be a notebook, your phone, a planner or a simple running list.
When something comes to mind, write it down.
Don’t organize it perfectly.
Don’t immediately turn it into another project.
Just get it out of your head.
Creating a place for those thoughts to land can quiet some of the constant mental noise.
2. Decide What Matters Before the Season Gets Busy
Before invitations arrive and calendars fill up, take a few minutes to think about what you actually want this season to look like.
Not what Pinterest says it should look like.
Not what you’ve always done.
Not what everyone else expects.
What matters to your family in this season of life?
Maybe you want slower weekends.
Maybe you want more evenings at home.
Maybe there are a few traditions your children absolutely love.
Maybe you want your family to spend more time focusing on the meaning of Christmas instead of rushing from one event to another.
You don’t need a perfectly planned holiday vision.
You just need a few anchors.
Because when you’ve named what matters, it becomes easier to recognize what doesn’t.
Intentional living isn’t about controlling every detail of our lives. It’s about making decisions with purpose instead of constantly reacting to whatever comes next.
And the weeks before the holidays are a good time to decide what you want to protect.
3. Strengthen the Ordinary Rhythms
This might be the least exciting holiday preparation advice you’ll hear:
Don’t start with Christmas.
Start with your regular life.
What are the few rhythms that help your household function when life gets busy?
For me, I believe simple rhythms can create so much more peace than trying to follow a rigid schedule.
Maybe yours are:
A quick Sunday reset.
Checking the family calendar once a week.
Planning a few dinners before grocery shopping.
Resetting the kitchen before bed.
Choosing one day to catch up on laundry.
None of these things are revolutionary.
That’s actually the point.
When life gets busy, we don’t need complicated systems that require even more energy to maintain. We need a few dependable rhythms we can return to.
The goal isn’t to have a perfectly organized house before the holidays.
It’s to create a home that has a rhythm to return to when things inevitably get a little messy.
4. Make a “Not This Year” List
We make plenty of holiday to-do lists.
Maybe we need another kind.
A Not This Year List.
There are probably things you’ve done every Christmas simply because you’ve always done them.
Traditions.
Events.
Decorating.
Baking.
Gifts.
Hosting.
Activities.
Some of them may still be meaningful.
Others may simply be expectations you’ve carried from one year into the next without ever stopping to ask whether they still fit your family.
Give yourself permission to ask:
Does this need to happen this year?
Maybe you don’t decorate every room.
Maybe you buy the cookies instead of baking them.
Maybe you skip an event.
Maybe you simplify gifts.
Maybe a tradition gets put on hold during a particularly full season of life.
Removing something isn’t failing at Christmas.
Sometimes saying no is exactly how we protect the things we’ve already decided matter most.
5. Leave Room for the Season You’re Trying to Create
We often say we want the holidays to feel peaceful, meaningful and connected.
Then we fill every available space.
There is no margin for a quiet evening.
No room for an unexpected invitation.
No Saturday morning with nowhere to go.
No time to sit together without thinking about the next thing that needs to happen.
If we want a slower season, we have to leave some of it unscheduled.
This is where I think intentional living and stewardship meet in such a practical way.
Stewardship isn’t only about how we manage our money.
We’re also entrusted with our time, energy, attention, homes and relationships.
We can’t say yes to everything and still give our best attention to what matters most.
Sometimes the most intentional thing we can put on the calendar is absolutely nothing.
A Different Kind of Holiday Preparation
Maybe you don’t need to start Christmas earlier this year.
You don’t need another complicated system.
And you certainly don’t need another impossible standard to live up to.
Maybe the best thing you can do before the holiday rush begins is create a little breathing room.
Get things out of your head.
Decide what matters.
Strengthen the simple rhythms that already support your home.
Choose what you’re willing to let go.
Protect some margin.
Then, when the holidays arrive, you won’t be trying to build peace in the middle of the chaos.
You’ll already have rhythms to return to.
Because the goal isn’t to perfectly organize the holidays.
It’s to create enough space to actually be present for them.
And maybe that’s the kind of preparation we need most.
Start with one simple rhythm.
If the thought of the holiday season already feels heavy, you don’t need to organize all of Christmas today. Start by creating a little more breathing room in the week you’re already living.
My free Sunday Reset Starter will help you create a simple weekly rhythm for looking ahead, resetting your home, and preparing for the week without adding another complicated routine to your life.
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