For years…okay, maybe decades, I’ve entered the holiday season with all of the business of a full time working mom, with multiple other obligations, as well as a love of making the holiday magic that we (moms) are famous for. I love baking, cooking, crafts, creating, decorating…all those sort of “Martha Stewart” style things that are generally not that easy every day, but are made more difficult and also more high stakes, at the holidays.
A few of the things that I’ve done in the past as the holiday season hits me like a tidal wave and I try to “do it all,”
Created a full block of homes in Church Hill in gingerbread. Complete with black royal icing ironwork everywhere. (This one landed me on the news in the ’90’s)
Another year, I did my mother’s childhood home and church in gingerbread.
Gold jewelry for everyone on my list when I was a jeweler. (Started this project somewhere around the first week in December.)
Taught myself how to quilt and made quilts for both parents and in laws.(Again, started after Thanksgiving)
Compiled all of the family recipes and a few of my own into a cookbook, also begun after Thanksgiving.
Anyway, the list goes on. You might be getting the picture, though- I get very inspired, very late in the game, and push through with late nights, lots of coffee, and a good amount of stress, and often could have done these things well in advance, but they didn’t occur to me until later!
Finally a couple of years ago, I began doing something of a post mortem on the holiday season, just after it is over, but while it’s all still fresh in my mind. Calendar in hand, I review anything that could have gone better, usually as a result of lack of time, planning, or both, and I schedule it out better for next year. Want to make homemade liquor? Vanilla extract? Fruitcake, etc? It can take months, but once the holidays are over, the idea flies right out of my head.
I wanted to make homemade Vanilla extract last year, but waited too long. This year, when August rolled around, 
buying the beans, bottles, etc, was already on my calendar. So I actually did it! With no stress, because there is not nearly as much going on in August as in December, it was easy to put this simple gift together and make a bit of a wow come December.
So today (it’s 12/26 as I type) I’m going over the gifts, the wrap, the notes, and the recollections, while they’re fresh, and putting them on the calendar for December of 2025.
Things like:
- Buy butcher’s twine for the tenderloin (so I’m not scrambling).
- Also Christmas lunch/dinner related- take my own salt and pepper, and BIG pans (why are all of her pans so small??), to my Mom’s on Christmas Day. Seems ridiculous, but it’s so much easier to cook with things I know work, rather than improvising everything.
- Buy giftwrap early, and have a plan for that too, so there’s not just one roll left at the store when I’m ready.
There are a few more things I know will come up as I do this, and I know now that 2025 Cindy will thank current me for thinking ahead and making a plan. If there’s something I want to make, I can do it early, and I’ll overall have a more relaxed, lovely, delicious, and most importantly, a lower stress holiday season as a result.
Do you do this? If not, will you try it? I can pretty much guarantee it will help you tremendously!
Merry Day after Christmas! Wishing you a very Happy Hanukkah and a joyous New Year!