Episode 214 – Preparing for the festive period

It’s November and that can only mean one thing one thing - festivities are coming for lots of us! Wouldn’t it be nice to take the stress away a little and feel calm on the run up to whatever you will be celebrating. In this podcast we are going to talk all about preparing for the festive period.
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[00:00:00] Ingrid: It's November, and that can only mean one thing. Lots of festivities are coming our way, and wouldn't it be nice to take that stress away a little and feel calm in the runup to whatever you will be celebrating. In today's podcast, we're going to talk all about preparing for the festive period.

[00:00:23] Now Leslie, it's November. How did that, how did that happen? 

[00:00:28] Lesley: Yes. So it is exciting because we're gonna be celebrating, but it can also be a little bit stressful as well. So we're gonna talk a little about, a bit about taking the stress away of the festivities that are coming up between now and the end of the year.

[00:00:40] So the ones that we're gonna focus on are Christmas, because we feel that we're kind of experts in Christmas. We've celebrated it for many, many since class. Ingrid, we're gonna talk about ACIN class, which happens at the beginning of December in various countries around the world where they celebrate St.

[00:00:55] Nicholas. We've got Thanksgiving, of course, in Amer in America at the end of November. We've got Hanukah coming up in December as well, and so, and I'm sure there's loads more that we've not even mentioned, but basically they all vo about, they all revolve around preparing ourselves, preparing our homes.

[00:01:14] There might be gift giving that goes on that might be wrapping. There's a whole lot of things that we need to think about. Isn't 

[00:01:20] Ingrid: it? Food? Food. We need to do food. Well, of course Food, yes. Leslie. Lots of celebrating to do so we thought, let's do this podcast at the beginning of November so everybody's got time to get organized and to plan.

[00:01:38] Lesley: Do you know what I want to say first of all, before we say anything else? And this for me is rule number one. You don't have to do all this yourself. We kind of, there's always typically one person that takes the brunt of the workload, I think when it comes to these family celebrations, isn't there? Mm-hmm.

[00:01:56] And so rule number one, Delegate. There must be little things even, you know, some people love doing it. Do you know what I mean? Let's be fair, some people are not a kind of, I like, I like doing it myself. I don't want anybody else involved. I just want to do it myself, and that's fine. But if there are little things that you can delegate, go for it for me.

[00:02:13] That's the first thing. Don't take all the workload on yourself. 

[00:02:17] Ingrid: Yes. I think that's really good, and I think maybe what probably will help is to maybe create a little list and then go through the list and go, what can I give to another person? What, yeah, like the rubbish stuff. The 

[00:02:30] Lesley: rubbish stuff. 

[00:02:31] Ingrid: Yeah. You know what I mean?

[00:02:31] What's my least favorite job that I can delegate to somebody else? Yeah, 

[00:02:35] Lesley: exactly. Like going to the supermarket. Something like that, that that will be what I would delegate. I would do all the kind of nice things at home and maybe some of the food preparation, maybe some of the gift buyin, all that kind of stuff.

[00:02:46] But yeah, I definitely delegate going to supermarkets 'cause that's rubbish. I hate gonna supermarkets. Not everybody does. So let's talk first of all about how to prepare your house. 'cause that's something that we really need to think about in advance, isn't it, Ingrid? Yeah. 

[00:03:00] Ingrid: I think, you know, Uh, we know that probably over Christmas and over the whole festive period, we're gonna have people around either dropping in because we've invited them or they're gonna come round unexpectedly, and you just, the last thing you want is to feel embarrassed about your house.

[00:03:19] So if you're thinking to yourself, Hmm, yes, cleaning has fallen off the radar recently a little bit because we've been busy with lots of other stuff. Maybe now's the time to think about, okay, what. Areas can use some extra attention. You don't want to be the one, you know, a day before a festive celebration to be scrubbing your loose and mopping your floors and trying to tidy up everywhere and all of, and dusting everywhere.

[00:03:46] Start to put a little bit of extra housework time in from now onwards to kind of get caught up a little bit. 

[00:03:54] Lesley: You know, we talked about family coming round and dropping in and doing it for other people. I think it's really important to do it for yourself as well. Even if you're spending Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah alone, then.

[00:04:04] You owe it to yourself to have the nicest possible space around you. So it's not just for other people, it's also for yourself. Mm-hmm. Even if you're on your own, it might be that you're going elsewhere for Christmas, but Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever, um, that you're celebrating, but really just.

[00:04:18] Think about, you know what? I wanna make it nice myself. That's important too, isn't it? 

[00:04:21] Ingrid: Yeah, for sure, for sure. Another thing that really will help a lot is to get caught up on laundry and ironing. Don't leave that all these piles to the last minute. You can really start with, you know, tackling your laundry.

[00:04:37] Now if you know that you've got piles everywhere. Now's the time to go. I'm going to do an extra load every couple of days. Just gonna to get caught up on all this stuff. I. Yeah, and you 

[00:04:49] Lesley: do need to give yourself plenty of advanced warning. I think the, the nice, the reason why it's nice to catch up on your laundry and your iron is so that if you do get the chance to take some time off, and not everybody does, not all of these celebrations have time off associated with them, but often you get at at least a day or a couple of days to relax a little bit.

[00:05:06] The last thing that you want to be doing is doing your standard daily. Resets and housework and iron in a laundry. You want to be able to chill out and relax and enjoy the time, don't you? Yeah. So do a little bit of stuff in advance. Really important. Mm-hmm. And of course, it's also really important, Ingrid to prepare if you are having guest over, to think about that in advance and prepare the space for guests to 

[00:05:28] Ingrid: stay.

[00:05:29] Yes. Where are they sleeping? Where's the bedding? Where's the spare duvet? Do you need to, um, wash the, the bedding from the spare bedroom? Have you got towels for people? What else kind of prep do we need? And it, it, it also, you know, involves maybe hovering out the dep spare bedroom as well. You know, all of those things.

[00:05:50] You wanna make it a welcoming place for people to stay. And, um, yeah, it takes time. These things. 

[00:05:57] Lesley: It does. And so if you want to prepare your house festive period, you're gonna have to do that a little bit in advance. So we're here, it's the beginning of November, and we've all, even if we, if we're talking about Thanksgiving, we've still got a few weeks before we need to embark on that.

[00:06:10] The earlier you start, the absolute better. Does that make sense? The earlier you start, the absolute better. Yeah. That 

[00:06:17] Ingrid: I completely get what you're saying. Yeah. 

[00:06:19] Lesley: I don't think it's grammatically correct, but you know what I mean. 

[00:06:23] Ingrid: Well, we've done a bit of house prep. Now let's think about food, because I think food is crucial for celebrations and, uh, whatever you're celebrating.

[00:06:32] I think there's always food involved, so you can do some prep work on that. Don't leave it until like a day before your, your party or your, or you're happening because you need time to organize yourself. 

[00:06:45] Lesley: Yeah, and I think rule number one is preparing for what's coming. So if you are hosting, typically you're gonna bring a lot of additional food into your, um, house for meals, for parties, for gatherings, whatever you do.

[00:06:57] And so you need to make sure that you've got space for that. So you kind of almost need to declutter your pantry, your fridge, your freezer in advance, that you've got space to put the overwhelming amount of stuff that typically comes in for celebration. So, Eat out your pantry. We love to eat out a pantry, eat out a freezer, use what you have, shop from home, whatever you want to call it.

[00:07:21] Start to look at what you've got in November and start to use that stuff up so that you've got space for more stuff to come in. It's a good thing to do at any time of the year to give yourself these odd weeks throughout the year where you take down the backlog of things that you've put in your, uh, pantry, in your freezer, in your fridge.

[00:07:37] Maybe not quite so much. But really important for you to, to look at those things and to, to make space and to just use up what you've got to clear down and keep it under control. 

[00:07:47] Ingrid: And a great way to save some money as well, Leslie. And this time of year is expensive enough as it is. So, um, yeah. Great way to kind of go, ah, that's, I've got, actually, I've got two or three meals here lying about that Saves me a nice chunk of money this week when I do my grocery shopping.

[00:08:01] So definitely, um, also start to think ahead about. If you're hosting, what am I cooking? How many people, what do I need to buy in advance? What meal am I going to make? What recipes am I going to use? If you're going to other people, am I going to bring something with me? When do I need to prepare that? Look at the diary, look at your meal plan, all of these things.

[00:08:28] You don't have to do that two week, two days before you go. You can do that now and start to think ahead a little bit. 

[00:08:35] Lesley: Definitely all involves a lot of planning. You also need to think about what you want your table to look like. So if you are hosting, you're hosting, you know, sometimes for these things we have like.

[00:08:44] 15 people around the table. So even just thinking about how to get the tables and chairs is a chore in itself, isn't it? You know, getting them down, borrowing them, bringing them from wherever, gathering from different rooms in your house, and really start to think about what you want your table to look like.

[00:08:59] So are you gonna theme it up? Are there new things you know? Did a tablecloth that you use last year get very stage and you need to replace it? All of those things. What do you want your table theme? If you've got one to look like, now is the time to think about that. Now Ingrid, we are whizzing through preparations for the festive period here, aren't we?

[00:09:17] We're really kind of like going for it and going, these are some of the things that you need to think about. But we have got a course, haven't we available where we go into this in a lot more detail. So, If the kind of countdown to Christmas or Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or whatever it is that you're celebrating is typically quite stressful for you.

[00:09:37] We break things down into the individual categories and we go into a lot of detail about the types of things that you can do to take the stress away. 'cause sometimes if it is all on one person's shows, it can be quite hard. So what sort of things are there in our countdown to Christmas that we wanted to highlight?

[00:09:52] Ingrid? Yes. We talk 

[00:09:54] Ingrid: about presents and cards and wrapping. We talk about. Decorations about preparing yourself. We talk about food and drink. Obviously. We talk about preparing your space in a lot more detail, not only the guest bedroom and do a bit of cleaning. There's a lot into it. And of course, we also talk about saving money because you can save a lot of money when you do our course by finding and using what you have.

[00:10:19] Lesley: Yeah, definitely. So we have, we've talked about it in the last few podcasts, haven't we, in the breaks. And so we just wanted to explain a little bit more what that is. It's a self-study course. You will go through it one module at a time and you'll say, you know, I'm gonna do decorations this week. I'm gonna do food and drink this week.

[00:10:35] And really homing and, and honestly, people who've done it before have gleaned so much useful information on that countdown to Christmas. Yeah, our members do it every single year 'cause it sits already in the membership and we make it available for people who. Just want to prepare for Christmas, who are not members as well.

[00:10:51] We've obviously got a special offer going on at the moment, as always, at this time of year, normally it is 49 US dollars. At the moment, it is 19 US dollars. It's an absolute no-brainer. You'll save that money in a heartbeat with the things that we explain to you to do while, while Ingrid. 

[00:11:08] Ingrid: Yes, and I think it's such a lovely course.

[00:11:10] It is seven fantastic videos with lots of information. You're gonna learn loads, you're gonna get a checklist, you're gonna feel much more prepared. So it's absolutely fantastic. Yes. 

[00:11:21] Lesley: So. Decorations that you've already mentioned, Ingrid? Yes. Let's give a couple of little snippets about the types of things that you need to do from a decorations perspective.

[00:11:30] Well, 

[00:11:30] Ingrid: I think it all depends, Leslie, if you're a big decorator or if you've just got a tree or just got something a bit smaller. But I mean, we go all out these days, don't we? We used to only really decorate for the end of the year, but now we decorate with, so this information actually in our course is super helpful for not only Christmas because we also have decorations for Easter and for the 4th of July and for St.

[00:11:55] Patrick's Day in Ireland and for RA class, as you said before. So we decorate our houses now when we've got special occasions, and it's really nice to do a little bit of planning in advance. And also we tend to hold on to a lot of the decorations, although they're kind of getting a bit past their best.

[00:12:16] Lesley: Yeah, so decluttering decorations is not something that people typically do, and so we're big advocates of that. Every time that you get those decorations out or put them back, make sure that you know that you're keeping the right things, the things that you are gonna use, because we get fed up of decorations in the same way that we get.

[00:12:32] Fed up with other things and we want a change and we want that throughput quite often with decorations as well. We do like to keep things traditional, so some people do like to keep hold of things as well, but often there are things, there are definitely things that can go that are past their best. So decluttering those decorations at the right time is a really good idea and we really love the idea of, of decluttering those decorations so that you can donate them in good time before the festive period so that they can be used by somebody else.

[00:13:01] Ingrid: Yes, absolutely. And you need to really think about, if you know you are a big decorating person, you're gonna need to put time in the diary to get that all up and get it all down. I mean, that's, that's the getting it up. It's like, yay, yo, they're getting, it's like, oh, why do I, so, exactly. Yeah. So you need to spend time in your diary.

[00:13:22] So, and, and, and, and look, you know, realistically, when do I have the time to do this? Do I need help? How long is this going to take? And, and be realistic about that. 

[00:13:32] Lesley: Yes. And so, um, we need to give ourselves as well time to think about what theme we want. You know, some people go all out on Decker and, and have different themes and they rotate those themes every few years.

[00:13:42] And so you need to give yourself time to bind new and need to, need to give yourself time to bind new at the right times when things are on sale, hopefully. Mm-hmm. So all you know, doing advanced planning is really gonna help with those kind of things. So, and also, of course, when it's decorations do.

[00:13:58] Allow yourself the opportunity to ask someone to help. Quite often decorations are in awkward places, lofts, basements, garages. They can be quite heavy, they can be quite cumbersome. So sometimes it's a two person job. So do think about it in advance and make sure that you've got help. 

[00:14:13] Ingrid: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I, I, I always need help because I buy.

[00:14:17] The, the biggest possible tree that fits in my living room. So I always need help getting it in the stand and getting the lights in and stuff like that because I could never just do that by myself. So I always make sure that I've got some people that here that around that can help me with that. And then, um, yeah, and, and it's really nice moment because I, I kind of.

[00:14:36] Planet in advance. And I know, and I take the time to do this because I really think, I really like to have a nice tree in my, in my house, and I've got a lot of, um, antique decorations that I use. So it's really special to put it up every year. But yeah, like you said, all my decorations are in my loft, Leslie, it always has to come down via a tiny ladder.

[00:14:55] It's, it's always a bit like, woo. 

[00:14:58] Lesley: I think Ingrid, that's what the Countdown to Christmas course is all about. It's about preparing in advance and so that those kind of special moments of preparation, like putting your Christmas tree up, like putting the stockings out, all of those things don't just get passed by because we're so stressed, stressed out by everything, and it's just one other thing that we have to do.

[00:15:17] So we really want to sort of spread the time out a little bit so it's more controlled and easier to manage. Mm-hmm. So you can really enjoy the things that you, that are supposed to be there to be enjoyed. Yeah, 

[00:15:27] Ingrid: yeah. Now, of course another big thing is of course, presence, present, giving, present, buying, present shopping, present wrapping.

[00:15:37] Ah, yeah, yeah, 

[00:15:39] Lesley: yeah. Now not all celebrations involve presents that we've spoken about, um, but I think there are some that certainly do, and sometimes it might even just be buying a present for someone who's hosting. So it might not be buying an abundance of a crazy amount of Christmas gifts. It might be just buying presents for your host.

[00:15:56] And so how can we manage presents because it is a real, particularly if you've got kids at home, it can be a big deal thinking about this influx of what's gonna come at Christmas and try as we might, of course, we are all about. Sustainably. We're about buying less. We're about intentional shopping. We want to get your kids involved and not get crazy amounts, but the reality is stuff is potentially going to come in.

[00:16:20] Yeah. So we need to make space for that, Ingrid, don't we? And we need to get that decluttering done early. I think it's important as well to get your kids involved in this process. Make sure that they understand when they write, say a, a Christmas list for Father Christmas. That they know that something needs to go to make space for that.

[00:16:37] That a, a toy that they have loved before needs to go to someone else to make space for the new one that they want. Yeah. You know, it's really important to get that message across. And so we need to do some decluttering ideally with our children, with that in mind, that they understand the meaning of getting more stuff means that something else has got to go out.

[00:16:54] Start them early on the decluttering process and understanding that there needs to be this continual process of recycling. Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:17:01] Ingrid: and I think it's nice. I think what we see a lot is that, um, people want to declutter after it's all come in and then there's like, it's, there's mountains of stuff everywhere.

[00:17:11] And we say you, you know, ideally you would declutter right before a festive period or before a birthday or before a special occasion to create a little bit of space and we're not talking. A, a kid can have five toys here. Absolutely not. But we're talking about, let's get some of the stuff that they've outgrown.

[00:17:30] Older books, older puzzles, older board games, things that don't play anymore, things that have broken. Filter those out to create a little bit of space. So the stuff that comes in has a home that, that it can live in. And I think that is like half the battle one, isn't it? Because there will be gifts. 

[00:17:48] Lesley: There will.

[00:17:48] And honestly, on Christmas morning, the amount of times that we hear people going, What on earth is all this and where is it gonna go? Yeah. And if you've preempted that, that's the important thing. You don't wanna do that. You don't wanna be overwhelmed on Christmas morning when you wanna spend time with your kids playing with these things, thinking that stuff's gotta go somewhere.

[00:18:06] To this day, it's done. That's the difficult thing. We've all been there, we've all done it. But if you can do some advanced preparations, that's really, really gonna help. Yeah. You also really need to think about where this, where. These things are gonna go before you give them to your children. So you're gonna need to create a hiding space, aren't you?

[00:18:23] Somewhere out of sight so that you can put these presents and that's no, if you, if you've got a house that's kind of full, it's no easy job, is it? To find space, but sometimes quite big gifts. But we do need to have a think about 

[00:18:37] Ingrid: it, don't we? Yes. And we need to make sure that we remember where we hide stuff.

[00:18:41] Because if we forget that we bought stuff and we're like, have to. You know, actually turn the whole house upside down because we're sure we put it somewhere in a safe space, but we forgot what the safe space was then it's, it can be really problematic. Or we end up buying double or triple because we completely have forgotten that we've bought stuff before.

[00:19:02] Um, so, and then we end up finding it later. So you need to be kind of clever about that a little bit. 

[00:19:08] Lesley: Definitely. And another thing that becomes super stressful is, and how many times have we done this wrapping at like 10 to midnight on Christmas Eve or something like that, where you're still frantically wrapping and it kind of takes the fun out of it again, doesn't it?

[00:19:23] Because. Do I enjoy rapping? Not really. Some people really do. Some people are so creative where they're rapping. I don't really enjoy it. It's just the thing that I have to do. But the more controlled I feel about what I've done, writing lists, who's got what, where are the things, do I know what I'm gonna do with 'em when I'm, you know, bringing them out on Christmas morning or Christmas Ebo, or however you do that?

[00:19:44] Um, then. It just makes things a little bit easier, doesn't 

[00:19:47] Ingrid: it? Yeah, yeah, I know. And I think that's the whole reason why it's the start of November and we're talking about all of these things because we know that we want to help you. And I think that, again, that's why our course is just brilliant because it will help you think all of these things through in detail and it will just save so much stress and save you money, and I think that's just a super win-win.

[00:20:10] Lesley: Yeah, absolutely. So if you are interested in our countdown to Christmas course, all the details are at decla to hub.com/countdown. You're gonna find a lot more information about the kinds of things that we've spoken about to see whether it's something for you and do, of course, think about our special offer where you get it slashed.

[00:20:29] To like that word, England splashed from $49 down to 

[00:20:32] Ingrid: 19. I love it. So listeners, are you ready to think about all the festivities and lovely times that are coming your way, and are you thinking to yourself, yes, I need to get organized, I need to get this course. I'm gonna write a list, I'm gonna make a plan, and I'm going to enjoy everything that's coming my way.

[00:20:54] Then we've done a great job. Yes, 

[00:20:56] Lesley: we have. So let's talk about next week. I am very, very excited 'cause I've got a fantastic guest on the podcast. I'm not gonna tell you much about it, but I'm just gonna say he is the founder of something called Story Terrace. Now I'm sure some people are gonna go and Google that and see what it is, but we're chatting all about.

[00:21:14] Stories and making memories all will be revealed on next week's podcast. I can't, 

[00:21:19] Ingrid: I'm so, I know. I'm like, can I just maybe sneakily listening to your recording because I know you're recording it and I'm like, I'm so excited about this. So yeah, I can't wait for next week. So thanks everybody for being here, and we're gonna see you soon.
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