Tag: planning

Stress-Free Holiday Feasts!

Good Morning. Since the house is still buried in boxes to some extent I am not focused on decluttering. Instead I have decided to focus on activities and areas of my life where I am currently feeling more accomplished and competent: stress free holiday planning, crafting, and reading.

I pretty much straight up brag about how I pull off the holidays and bragging is not really my thing at all. Like pretty much everyone I used to stress out over all things holiday and pretty much had a pretty stress-filled miserable time. I worked my butt off decorating, shopping, wrapping, and pulling off ‘the big meal.’ I would spend Thanksgiving day cooking and cleaning up and be utterly crushed when the meal took about 30 minutes and then everyone went back to video games or football or whatever. Christmas was similar but more so. I would get so stressed that I was miserable and I was also no fun to be around. Part of that was perfectionism, that insane mindset that makes you feel like one little thing going wrong negates Everything Else that went right, another part of it was that I was disorganized and going about things the wrong way.

It took a while, it didn’t happen overnight, but over the years I have completely transformed my experience of the big Fall/Winter holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas are now virtually stress-free for me and I have way more time to relax and enjoy them. The crazy thing is that what I do to have these stress-free holidays isn’t complicated at all. Normally, I would shop for Xmas presents over the course of a whole year, squirreling away gifts one by one as I found perfect gifts at very low prices and carefully noting down each gift and who it was for in a notebook. 2020 being the non-stop dumpster fire that it has been so far, I haven’t been out at the charity shops or stores running crazy sales, I just started shopping about 1 or 2 weeks ago… when I finally realized it was October and I was rapidly running out of time. So this year is different. I have started shopping at the same time I have started planning the feasts. (I started thinking about the feasts about when I usually do)

Stress-free celebrations are easy:

  • Plan Ahead
  • Stay Organized

Right about now is a good time to be finalizing the menu for Thanksgiving. This is the easiest part, just make a list of all the foods you want to serve for your feast. Here’s my list:

  • Gordon Ramsey’s Christmas Turkey & Gravy
  • Stuffing
  • Mashed potatoes
  • Broccoli casserole
  • Cranberry sauce
  • Rolls & butter
  • Butternut squash
  • Chocolate chip sour cream coffee cake
  • Apple pie
  • White wine
  • Sparkling cranberry juice
  • Hot cocoa

There is plenty to do there, and I do spend the morning cooking, but I am calm and happy anyway. The obvious thing is that I do everything ahead of time that I possibly can. I make the cranberry sauce a day or 2 before, I do all the baking a day or so before, I oven roast the squash ahead of time and use the stovetop for reheating and the final touches. I assemble the broccoli casserole the day before, and peel and chop the potatoes in between turkey prep steps. At this stage, I would also note on my list the cooking temps and baking time for each item that needs to go in the oven that day. Then I pick a sort of average temp, since I have just the one oven, and adjust all the cook times down the list. Then I make a note of what time each thing will need to go into the oven on the day of the feast in order to have everything ready all at once. If I had too many things needing to go into the oven at the same time I would have to rethink things a little and do a bit of oven tetris. With what I have planned above my son and I will spend the morning using Gordon’s YouTube video to prep and cook the turkey and make the gravy. I will also make the mashed potatoes, rolls and stuffing and do the final steps for a few other things. I’ll have music on, I’ll be sipping white wine, and I’ll be relaxed and happy as I have been for the past several years.

Our Christmas feast is similar, really, some of the foods will be different, but the planning and making ahead are the same. I should have the xmas feast planned shortly after Thanksgiving. This is the planner I used to use: https://christmas.organizedhome.com/printable/christmas-planner/holiday-menu-planner I just ignored the fiddly little categories and put all my ‘sides’ wherever. My form is a lot simpler. 


<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} -->
Feast Plan:
 
 
 
Drinks:
 
 
 
 
Sides:
 
 
 
 
Main:
 
 
 
 
Dessert:

Tune in next time for a rundown of my simple plan for keeping Christmas craziness at bay. ^_^

Holiday Prep

Is it that time again? Yep! It’s actually a hella late start for me I try to start my holiday prep in January so I can pick away at it all year. That is a habit born of being broke for several or more years of my adult life. I would shop all the crazy after Xmas sales at Michael’s and Jo Ann’s and snag craft items I could whip up for the next xmas, or decorations I could give as gifts or add to our collection. (75-90% off was my jam) I also spent the whole year visiting tag sales and secondhand shops looking to luck out on clothes, books, toys, etc, that were in excellent condition and perfect for the people I was shopping for. Our Christmases were always pretty amazing despite the bad financial times. Anyway….

This year, due mostly to the pandemic, I am starting now in mid-October. Eek! We need to save money this year for sure. Everything is unstable at this point; jobs, the political climate, the actual climate, just everything, so we are trying not to spend too much, trying to build up a cushion in case we need it. In a shocking development, to me at least, I am pretty much forced to buy all our presents new. There has been no browsing the aisles at charity shops, no tag sales, nothing like that. I have to order everything online to be safe. So were doing a category thing:

  • One thing you Want
  • one thing you Need
  • one thing to Wear
  • one thing to Read
  • one thing to Eat
  • one thing to Drink
  • one thing to Play
  • one thing to Make

That seems like a lot until you realize that our ridiculous “normal” was 15-20 presents each thanks to my shopping strategies. So this is a significant cut back BUT I will be forced to get it all new so that kind of shifts the cost back up. I’m still looking for deals, of course, and I’m doing ok. The categories are mostly broad and a lot of the items will end up being cheap, like something to drink is going to be tea for a few of us and rootbeer for a couple, only my hubby will get expensive as he wants scotch. Something to eat is cheap too. I have requests for chocolate, pretzels, ‘fancy’ ramen, smartfood, and crackers so far. I expect my remaining daughter to request dill pickles. My son asked for underwear for something to wear, my husband needs jeans, one daughter asked for a jacket. I’d pay a lot less if I could shop second hand but hopefully the novelty of getting stuff brand new will make it worth it this year. Yikes.

Stockings will be stuffed with mostly practical items; hand lotion, toothbrushes, shampoo, etc, and food treats like cocoa packets, mints and so on. There may be socks, or gloves, probably a few homemade items. I love the stockings, I like to get creative and fancy with them, make them specific to the recipient and all, but this year will be a little different and that’s ok. We will be surrounded by all the decorations, and we will have our little feast. We will play games and watch movies, and read aloud, and it will be lovely.

Soon my son and I will begin planning said feast. He will peruse our Harry Potter cookbooks and surf Youtube cooking videos and come to me with suggestions. He wants me to make spotted dick for dessert this year, I suspect mostly because of the name, and I will. It has raisins in it and it sounds kind of awful but I’ll make another dessert as back up and it will all be fine.

Oh, I need to get holiday crackers, I need to put that on my list! I have a whole binder that keeps me on track for Yule/Christmas. It’s a thin binder, nothing overwhelming, I used to just use a few pages of a spiral notebook. For years and years I used a notebook and all I wrote in it was a list of gifts for each member of my little family and a list of their stocking stuffers. Since I shopped all year and hid things away I really needed those lists of I might forget which gift went to which person. It also helped me keep things even as far as number of gifts and $ spent for each of them. As each present was wrapped and tagged I would cross it off. It was really helpful for knowing if something was missing and I needed to hunt it up but as systems go it was very, very basic. In 2017, after visiting Diagon Alley in FL, I got it in my head to make us a Harry Potter Christmas and nothing was going to get in my way.

I made us all House Stockings and scarves and I made a bunch of decorations. Google search was my best friend as I looked for ideas on how to create this first themed Christmas. I cooked up a storm too, making a Hogwarts/English Christmas feast complete with butter beer and other such treats. It was all this crazy activity that lead me to improve my system. Instead of just present lists I needed to keep track of many projects I was working on and create a schedule for myself for both the crafts and all the cooking. It’s kind of funny, I used to stress out horribly on the big holidays and now I am relaxed and enjoying them. I am on track to be finished with all but wrapping and meal prep by the end of October!

Lessons from the Summer

Summer Reading is over. This year was my first attempt at running a Summer Reading Program. I became a teen librarian in December and felt like I started out several paces behind where I needed to be. It’s been pretty challenging managing the collection and running the teen programs. The first couple of months I barely managed to run the Teen Advisory Board and a craft or two. The YA writer’s group, which had run for a couple of years, was the first casualty of my inexperience. We floundered for a couple of months but couldn’t make it work. I think it might be something that could be started up again at some point.

I thought I was prepared for Summer Reading. I’d helped manage an SRP before as a Library Assistant but being in charge was a whole other thing. The theme this year was Space, more specifically it was: “A Universe of Stories.” So I made a schedule of six sci-fi movies showing one a week during Summer Reading. I also planned six craft workshops, roughly one a week as well. The movies were an abject failure. Virtually no one came to any of them. I think Friday was a bad choice of day and 6pm was an even worse choice of time. Four of my craft workshops were very successful and two were an adventure in frustration and disappointment. The two that failed were knitting and crochet. Tons of kids signed up, and they were very well attended but they were still failures. The kids did NOT learn to knit or crochet. If I ever try either again I will hire a professional instructor and block out more time. OOF. Four workshops went well, 2 of these I hired outside instructors for and 2 I ran myself.

I had a woman come in and teach some hand sewing to which I added suggestions for decorative touches that the kids were very enthusiastic about. We had some neat projects come out of that. The other instructor taught the kids to make some artistic sorts of books and the kids did amazing work. Heads down, working away, making beautiful art. I ran the Galaxy Ts and Space Mug workshops and it was fun, the kids were creative, they left with wearable art and everyone asked for more programming like that. Yay.

Next up I’ve got Harry Potter crafts for August and December, some computer coding workshops run by Holyoke Codes coming up in September and October, also in October I hope to have a sleepover at the library for Halloween. November is a bit up in the air still. I might take it easy and just have a board game night. In December I’m planning on showing the first Harry Potter movie and serving butterbeer. Then 2020 will be upon us. I have been working on it, just a little bit, for months!

Next summer’s theme is “Imagine Your Story” a fairy tale theme. This will be much more of a hit than space/sci-fi with our local teens. Learning from my mistakes this summer, I am not going to have weekly movies, instead I am going to have monthly movies starting in January. Every month I will show a fairy tale themed movie and sort of extend the theme all year long. Also starting in January will be “Book Boot Camp” where we will read a different genre every month and get together to talk about what we liked and didn’t like about it, it’s basically just to challenge the teens to read outside their comfort zones. I’m planning a fairy tale writing contest for the summer as well as a themed escape room and a series of at least five crafts. (NO KNITTING OR CROCHET)

I’ve already written a “How to Write a Fairy Tale” brochure and almost finished my SRP flyer and write ups. I just need an actual schedule of events, and approval for all of it, and I can finish writing it and start working on organizing it. I am not going to be doing anything in a state of last minute panic next summer.