Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / Holiday Bonus Episode 5 : Rethink Your Holidays - Keep Joy, Drop Obligation

Transcript

Holiday Bonus Episode 5 : Rethink Your Holidays - Keep Joy, Drop Obligation · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the Joy Living Home podcast. We are in the middle of a holiday
• 0:04
  bonus series that is five episodes long if you want to go back and listen from
• 0:08
  the beginning if you're just discovering it.
• 0:10
  But today is our final day of what I was calling the five golden rings,
• 0:14
  which is just a shorter play on what I did years ago called the 12 days of Christmas,
• 0:19
  which is still really valid if you wanted to go back and listen.
• 0:21
  But for those of us who were procrastinating this year and we were just trying
• 0:25
  to get everything in shape by December 12th, if you're listening in real time,
• 0:31
  today is that last day that hopefully if we did sort of the skimmed overview
• 0:36
  of these five things, we can pull off Christmas in a really happy and wonderful
• 0:42
  way for ourselves and our families.
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  And so today's last day, I was leaning into wanting to just have a little discussion
• 0:49
  on traditions. It's interesting if we kind of pause today and take an...
• 0:54
  I don't know, a backed up view of what traditions are really meaning in our home.
• 1:01
  Think about the ones that just mean so much to you and you are not willing to give up.
• 1:06
  You're allowed to have those traditions for yourself.
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  Look at the ones that are meaningful to your family and then really evaluate
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  how many of these things are we doing out of obligation just because they've
• 1:20
  always been done and are they actually still bringing us joy?
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  Are they super meaningful?
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  Are they, you know what, I'm not going to be the generation that stops this.
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  Or I am going to be the person who says, you know what, this has run its course
• 1:37
  and we can be grateful for it, but it's not a tradition I'm going to carry into
• 1:41
  future Christmases or force onto the next generation if we're not feeling it.
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  And sometimes you do things because it's meaningful to others.
• 1:50
  And I love that we can be just empathetic that way. And that's great.
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  But sometimes everybody's dredging through to do something and nobody even knows
• 2:03
  why or who you're all still doing it for.
• 2:06
  So I guess I'm just asking you to sort of back up and consider a bird's eye view.
• 2:11
  Interestingly enough, some things that you don't even see as traditions,
• 2:15
  other people in your family might.
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  So if your kids are of an age where you can sort of ask them,
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  what are your favorite parts of the holiday?
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  If you can get them past just presents, you might be really eye-opened to what's super special to them.
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  And you're like, oh, I didn't even think of that as being special.
• 2:37
  For instance in our house Christmas morning involves monkey bread and it's just,
• 2:44
  I don't know, it's just something to fix for food for me. And it's like the
• 2:47
  one time a year we have it. And so to them, it's like, we look forward all year to monkey bread.
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  And things like that can, you're like, well, I didn't really think of it as a tradition.
• 2:57
  It might be in their eyes. So it might be kind of good to have a little conversation
• 3:02
  amongst your family and see what is meaningful to them or is not.
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  Also, know how to sort of pivot a tradition if it just needs adjusted a little.
• 3:14
  Years and years ago when my kids were little, we were gifted an actual Advent
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  box that has like the little doors you could open and it was pre-filled from...
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  People I call their quote-unquote aunts and uncles, even though they're not blood-related.
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  And it was so special for them to open each little door.
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  And they had carefully curated what was in the boxes, and they had done little
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  Bible verses that they rolled up on little scrolls, and they would open.
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  And I have four kids, and the box is 24 doors.
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  So they even had specialized some of what was behind each door for each kid.
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  And they even came with a card that said, you know, these are the numbers that each kid gets to open.
• 4:00
  And so they got to learn a little patience on it's not my turn,
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  or it's not my day, it's this other person's day, and we can get excited that
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  this kid gets to open that door.
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  That next year, I've always kept the box, but I became the one who needed to fill it.
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  And I was realizing, I liked being able to teach the it's not your turn role
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  as part of this little Advent tradition,
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  but I also had pretty small kids and for some of them it was really hard to
• 4:29
  not understand that it wasn't their turn.
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  So I started buying 100-piece puzzles that I would put together ahead of time
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  and then break apart so that the four pieces actually interlocked and I would
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  drop four pieces into every box and then I would do a specialty item that was just for each kid.
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  And we had certain turns they had to take. So each time we opened it,
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  they knew they each got to put a puzzle piece in place. But-
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  Item in the box was just for one kid. So it kind of softened that little blow
• 5:02
  of there was a little bit of sharing and there was a little bit of it's not your turn.
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  As they aged, a hundred piece puzzle was becoming a little silly.
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  And so I was able to increase it and shift it and change it.
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  And as they got to become preteens, it just became a little silly.
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  All of a sudden we switched it to we were playing Scrabble and I found this
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  big wall melted Scrabble that I would bring out every year And inside would
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  be the letter for the next kid to play.
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  And they would all kind of get excited to see how many points does that person
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  get with this new letter they picked for their, you know, their board.
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  And they had, they were competitive.
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  And they would keep score and it adjusted. So the Advent has gone through these evolutions.
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  And when I got ready to pull the Scrabble out, none of them are living at home all Christmas anymore.
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  So we started with when they were leaving for college as little FaceTime videos,
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  and it was a great way to touch base with them.
• 6:00
  But then it got harder and harder to coordinate with schedules and who was home
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  when, and we're missing the FaceTimes, and it became more of an obligation.
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  And at the time you realize something's an obligation and not a joy,
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  you sit there and go, huh, do we need to reevaluate?
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  So this Christmas, I didn't pull it out. And there's a little,
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  are we not doing anything Advent-related? And...
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  So it's making me sort of brainstorming. I got a great idea that I'll give a nod to my sister.
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  She has had her kids living away a little longer than me,
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  and she last year got pre-filled Advent-themed calendars that she had mailed
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  to each kid and started a specific group text based on Advent.
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  And so everybody opened a little
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  box and then shared photos of it or
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  little mini videos of it in that group text so
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  they all five of them knew they were going
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  to hear from each other during each day in advent and I was she also bought
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  one for my mom so my mom could participate in it and I was like that is just
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  lovely I loved how much joy they got out of that last year I wish I had thought
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  of it in time to do it for my family this year but I didn't and that's okay
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  so in those little notes I was writing myself,
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  I'm making sure to drop with that little Advent box a note that says,
• 7:30
  pre-plan your new Advent calendar.
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  Honestly, I probably need to see that by Halloween. Maybe I'll drop that note
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  in my Halloween candy bucket.
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  But I would love, and you know, some of those can get super expensive,
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  but I did kind of play around with it this year.
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  And I noticed on Etsy, you can buy empty boxes full of Advent stuff.
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  It will take a lot more planning, but I think it could be a lot cheaper for
• 7:55
  very cheap. You could get the boxes sent to you, assemble the boxes.
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  You could personalize what you're putting in all of them and then get them mailed
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  out to the various locations.
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  So anyway, it's on the horizon. It's something I hope to do in the future.
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  But my point being, it's okay to see things that you hadn't really noticed as
• 8:14
  traditions before. It's okay to create new ones. It's okay to,
• 8:19
  adjust ones so that they fit your family as it's growing and changing.
• 8:24
  So there's my little blurb on tradition.
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  But before I get off, I do want to lean in and ask you to go back to that day
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  one pending list that you created.
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  And if you haven't looked at it since Monday, that's really okay.
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  A lot of times we write lists and either we lose them and then stumble upon
• 8:43
  them later, or we don't actually look back at them.
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  And the beauty of this sort of movable, nonlinear list that we created on Monday
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  is I want you to open it now.
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  And look, how many things can you shift from one side to the other?
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  How many things can you cross off? How many things actually got done even though
• 9:05
  you weren't looking at it? Because our brains are sort of amazing.
• 9:08
  Once we wrote them down, we remember, even if it's sort of in the background.
• 9:12
  So look at how many things you accomplish, shift things over, get that.
• 9:17
  Jolt of dopamine that you finished all of these things. And then look at what was left behind.
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  How many things can you move over? Because you're like, you know what,
• 9:26
  it's okay that I didn't do them this year, but I want to move them over and
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  save them because I might have more energy to do them next year.
• 9:34
  The tackled part of that pending was it was a decision. You made the decision not to do it this year.
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  Move them over. Is there anything on there that you're like,
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  huh, I just actually need to give that up.
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  I didn't give it another thought. I don't have any pull to get it done.
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  I actually don't see any joy in it anymore.
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  Take those and go and throw them away. Let them go.
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  Sometimes things are meant to just have existed for a season and maybe that
• 10:03
  season in your family has passed.
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  And see if you can get that left side of that folder or
• 10:08
  because I showed you one where I'm moving
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  them across empty because you've made
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  all the decisions to either wait for another year
• 10:17
  to revisit in the future to get rid of altogether or you actually did them and
• 10:22
  accomplished them and you're done because closing that folder and tucking it
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  into one of your pens is going to feel really great that you you did it you
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  did what you needed to do to make this Christmas work and I hope that that's helpful.
• 10:37
  A couple last things I want to wrap up. If you have enjoyed this series,
• 10:41
  this is just a little snippet of something that's sort of unique in the year.
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  But all year long, this podcast goes over things to just evaluate in our home
• 10:52
  and work towards in our home. And I do different ideas.
• 10:55
  I do not have a one-size-fits-all way to get your home together.
• 10:59
  Our ADHD brains need novelty. So I literally see my home and this podcast is this grand experiment.
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  And I make suggestions for you to try and I talk about different mindset things.
• 11:12
  And if that interests you, please follow or subscribe because I'm going to take
• 11:16
  a little Christmas break.
• 11:18
  And then my podcasts will show up in your feed when I start up again.
• 11:23
  Secondly, I do have that free community. I'm trying in my 2026 goals to have
• 11:30
  that be a more active place.
• 11:32
  So if you wanted to join that, you still can by going to bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity.
• 11:38
  I run a membership program, and
• 11:42
  you can find all about it by going to joylovinghome.com slash membership.
• 11:45
  I am about to change that drastically, and I might have to shut it down for a bit to,
• 11:51
  restart it in a new way but if you're wanting to find out about that or know
• 11:56
  about that please go into joylovinghome.com join my newsletter i'm going to
• 12:03
  inform anybody who is interested at all.
• 12:07
  Through the newsletter, which I am trying to also spark in the new year.
• 12:12
  I have lots of goals for myself in the new year.
• 12:14
  So just things that if you want to keep in touch with me or,
• 12:19
  you know, you could always just email me.
• 12:21
  I'm joyatjoylovinghome.com and just say, hey, let me know when you start things
• 12:24
  up because I actually am interested in being part of this as the new year starts.
• 12:29
  So that's sort of the little
• 12:32
  update on joy loving home existence and then the final thing i wanted to say
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  is if you have enjoyed this at all and you want to give me a little christmas
• 12:42
  gift if you go into your shows and scroll down to where it shows reviews it is a two seconds to.
• 12:52
  Click and give me five stars and walk away like that would just be a gift to
• 12:57
  me and helpful what would be an even greater gift is if you have 30 more seconds
• 13:02
  and you wanted to actually type up a little review i love reading those i love
• 13:07
  seeing how this podcast is affecting those that are out there the interesting thing about.
• 13:12
  Of podcasting that is different from other social mediums is there is not an instant feedback.
• 13:18
  In Instagram, you can comment. In YouTube, you can comment.
• 13:21
  I don't get to see those things as a podcaster, and I've tried very hard to stay off.
• 13:25
  I am on Instagram as joylovinghome, but I don't actually participate in it.
• 13:29
  You can always DM me there as well, because I do read my DMs.
• 13:33
  But I've been, just the way my brain is and gets sucked into things,
• 13:38
  I just don't get myself involved so
• 13:41
  I don't get to hear your all's feedback unless you
• 13:44
  make extra effort and that extra effort is a podcast review or an email to me
• 13:49
  and those of you who have done that in the past I so appreciate it you can always
• 13:53
  comment or reach out to me in my Facebook group as well I am hit or miss in
• 13:57
  there anymore lately because I have been trying to limit my time on Facebook.
• 14:03
  And I've had several of you email me with feedback that you're trying to let go of Facebook too.
• 14:08
  And so one of the things I'm evaluating is, is there a better way for me to
• 14:12
  run a group than Facebook?
• 14:15
  So I'm going to send some evaluations, not evaluations, questions, like a poll.
• 14:21
  I'm going to put some polls before I make all my decisions so I can hear from
• 14:26
  you about your favorites and things you wish that this group had or the membership might have.
• 14:32
  And if you could give me your feedback there, that would be so,
• 14:36
  I would be appreciative as well.
• 14:38
  All right, I'm going to shut myself down, quit rambling. I want to say I hope
• 14:43
  that you have the best holiday, and I will be doing some fun things to get you going in the new year.
• 14:50
  So until then, continue to choose joy.