Episode 169: A Holiday Message from your Fairy Godmother
What You’ll Find
Do Less.
All those hopes...all those dreams...all those GREAT ideas...say no to them.
Your brain is going to argue with you and tell you how really good all those things are.
It's probably going to tell you how impactful, how meaningful, and how memory-stacking they're going to be for your kids, for you, for your family. But the truth is, kids are going to whine, someone's going to lose the things they need to get out the door, siblings are going to find a reason to argue, or they're going to be jealous of each other, and you're going to come home tapped out.
And that's okay for some things that are actually worth it, but for all the rest, it won't be.
No, because it's just going to leave you feeling a bit resentful, tired, and asking why you even do these nice things if your kids are just going to complain about it and fight the whole time.
The Calendar (01:05)
This one is really important because we need to preemptively make boundaries, right? There's so much stress. We live very reactive lives as moms, and when you're living that way, it's like being in a constant state of survival.
So in order to combat that, we need to actually think about the situations that are going to come up and create boundaries that we can stick to in the moment.
This will allow for more peace and stop us from reacting to every little thing that happens because there are a million things to react to with our kids.
For example, you KNOW you’ve got that one child who’s going to feel jealous, and when they do, you can have a boundary in place. Such as, “I know you feel really jealous of your sister right now and the thing that she got to go do with her friend. I understand you feel frustrated, but I can't allow you to be mean to your siblings. If you continue to behave this way, you will not be going with us wherever. Or when we get home, I will be walking you to your room, and you may stay there for the rest of the evening until dinner.”
If you have boundaries, you can stay calm and NOT be reactive to that child in the moment.
And many years of parenting have taught me that if kids are going to say anything ridiculous, it's going to be in front of someone else. This is simply how it goes.
They're humbling, aren't they?
Oh, so that's why just be careful if anyone's like, your kids are so well behaved. Here's how you respond to that. You tell them, “Yes, you caught us at a good moment.”
Holding boundaries keeps you from being someone who wants to say yes to everything, and it will save you.
In addition to considering these boundaries for your kids' behaviors, another thing you can do is set boundaries for how many things you're adding to your calendar. A good goal (for a large family) could be two events a week. Taking it a bit further, is could mean you’re not scheduling events back to back, OR perhaps you draw the line and choose no events after you've been gone all day.
Honestly, all three of these are pretty valuable.
Two events a week means I'm not going to pile everything into our schedule. This keeps the bar low so that when other things come in, we have space for them (even last-minute). This can be a special surprise like an invitation to look at Christmas lights with some dear friends (and if you’ve kept some open space on your calendar, you can give a GOOD yes!) The idea here is to protect our capacity and allow for flexibility.
That's my ultimate goal with my planning with my family, because I feel like that's how we have to live as moms.
We have to have some flexibility. And then we also need to not completely overwhelm ourselves at the outset.
Another thing is NO events back to back.
I find that after a function, either after doing something for the day or after one event, I really need to go home and be done with going places and doing things for the day.
So, if we have a big party at our homeschool group, I'm going to go home and let the rest of the day be low-key. Or if we're gone all day, that's a huge sign for me to be like, okay, I'm not tacking on another event at 4 p.m. when we've been running errands since 8 o'clock this morning, because that's a surefire way for me to completely abuse my capacity all at once.
Another thing to consider is how long you will stay at any one event. For example WE are a two-hour family. That's our thing. It doesn't matter how many events we have in a week…we are simply a two-hour family.
Prayerful Discernment (05:11)
Pray about it. What? We can pray about stuff?
You knew we were going to talk about this, right? Because honestly, our faith is so, so important and there is so much value in prayerfully discerning, especially when you’re choosing between two goods. And discernment is much simpler than it sounds.
It is just, “Lord, do you want us to do this? Will it benefit our family?” That’s it!
There is so much value in inviting the Lord into our decision making in the smallest ways.
And what better way to introduce our children to right and good judgment and right and good discernment for the rest of their lives, but to bring them in on this while we're trying to pray over some of these great events.
Then, if you go to this event and you've prayed and you're like, you know what, I feel peace about us going. Because that's where God talks in discernment in case you were wondering.
Some people are like, I don't hear God. (That’s ok, like many things…it takes practice). I had a sister tell me once that God speaks to you in peace. And that was very impactful. Then I just listened. When I pray about things, I just listen to my heart and my body. What is my heart and my body telling me right now?
Like, how am I physically responding when I talk about this?
Currently, we've got a cookie exchange coming up. Every time I think about it, my chest is in knots. I already feel stressed about the fact that I've got to take into account allergies and that half of my kids won't be able to eat what's available, and we're going to take home a ton of sweets that I don't want, and I already feel stressed about that.
Sometimes you can be like, yeah, I feel a bit stressed, but this is such a good thing, and I still feel peace about going, even though there's this kind of top level of anxiousness, right?
Or you might be deciding on going to someone's house for Christmas, and there is just not a peace about you. There’s an unrest that’s unsettling in your gut or in your chest, and those are the moments where you know, okay, maybe this isn't the right decision for us this year. Maybe I need to do the hard thing and say no.
If you have that peace and you go to that event—even if your kids are jerks—you could be like, you know what? This is still for the good. I prayed about it.
God said this is good. So even though my kid is having a really hard time with jealousy tonight, even though my kid spilled that whole bowl of punch and I could not be more mortified, it's still for the good. God is doing good work here.
And when you have that in the back of your mind after you've taken a little time to discern, it is SO powerful.
The Best Yes (07:40)
Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.
Yes, because if you've ever been around a Minnesotan, then you know that they have a no yah or a yah no.
Yah. No. Yah.
Yeah.
See.
It is a real thing. And there are reels on it. Feel free to look them up.
We'll share some someday. But it's very true. But just like Brittany said, when you were praying about something and then you have that peace about it, I'm going to tell you right now, John Acuff says it all the time. “Clarity is kindness.
It's much better for you to say no to an invitation right away than get to the day that you're supposed to go to someone's house and they've already planned a meal for your family of a million children and yourself, and you're like, I just can't. I can't do it. This is too much.
Better to say that no early.
I agree. And really, I know a lot of people have said this, but “No,” is a sentence. Not everything has to be explained.
A lot of of people-pleasing, is explaining away why we've made the decision we've made. Usually, it isn't necessary. Just say, “No, I really appreciate the invitation, but that's not going to work for us this week.”
Well, and something that happens to me or happened to me in the past when people would invite me places is I would say no. And they'd be like, “You should come, you should come!” But I knew that was going to be over our two-hour limit.
It was going to ask more of me than I had to give. So as the inviters, we have to learn to accept a no.
Yeah, I agree. It's hard hearing no from your friends too, especially when you know you're hosting something lovely or beautiful and you really want to share it with them. But it is okay to hear no from our friends and to really, really let them off the hook for that.
No guilt, no shame, no nothing. We're here to support other moms. And if someone says, “Hey, I don't have it within my capacity to do that this week,” I'll just pour love on her because chances are she's running low on capacity anyway.
The guilt is not helpful.
Absolutely. And then also, how do we say no to our family, Brittany? Like maybe our moms.
Graciously. Lovingly. It's okay to say no to family too.
It’s important to have proper discernment in this, because there are a lot of challenging relationships that we deal with. The family that we are gifted by God, he has a purpose in all of that, even in the hard relationships. But it's important to discern where you need to make decisions or where the yes needs to fall, and where the no needs to fall.
But always, ALWAYS a “No,” can be delivered graciously, lovingly, and with kindness and respect for the person. Even if they don't respect you back, you have to be able to hold yourself to that standard.
Because we don't get to decide how people respond. We only get to decide how we respond, right?
Right. What's in our own locus of control? Our thoughts, our behaviors, our actions.
That is what we have control over, and that is what God is asking you to make decisions for. Nothing else, no one else. And sweet mama, you're a good mom.
You're doing enough.
Your family is not going to be hurt by anything you say no to this year. You missing out on any event is not going to hurt your family. And your yeses will be so much more beautiful if you decide what’s right for your family, and you don't just let all of those yeses happen to you, or you don't let them be led by guilt.
Less Chaos Through Planning Like a Mother (11:35)
There is a way to make sure that you're saying yes to things that you want to say yes to, and saying no to things that you want to say no to, right? We can sit down and think about that.
You absolutely can. Grab a piece of paper. Just start writing it down.
If you want something that's more formal and that's going to walk you through it, we've got our Holiday Planner, and it walks you through these steps to preemptively think about and discern meaningful things like, “God, what do you want on our schedule this year?”
It will encourage you to ask questions, such as, “Husband, what do you find so valuable and so important? Like, what memories do you want to make?” And, “Kids, what memories do you want to hold? What traditions have been special to you in the past?”
Because if you're anything like me, we've tried a lot of different traditions through the years.
Past me would have been like, we have to keep it up or it's not a tradition. But the truth is, we get to try anything out all the time. And then the things that stick and are really special, those stay around.
We have this beautiful little wooden candle holder that is, oh gosh, probably at least four feet long. And it goes down the center of our table. And we have these tiny little taper candles.
One candle for every day through Advent up to Christmas. And every night, we light one candle. So as we get closer to Jesus being born, there becomes more and more and more light at our dinner table and in the world.
And it's a really impactful (but small) thing that I just totally did on a whim. Literally, the piece of wood was in my backyard just being winter soaked and weathered. And I just pulled it in, sanded it down, and I took this other little broken piece of wood and glued it to the top, and then did some janky little screw holes in the top.
And that has become one of my family's favorite traditions. They talk about it all the time. We've even introduced it in Lent now because it's become so special.
In Lent, we actually go backwards. We light all the candles, and then we go down one candle each time. And it's just a really visual way that we've brought the light of Christ and the feeling of the light of Christ into our home.
Now that's something that goes on that page every single time. That's one of the first things I put down. So is our St. Nicholas feast day.
That is something super special to my kids. Also, our stockings. I know those are super important to us.
And so for me, when I write those things down ahead of time, I know, OK, I need to order those candles. So I'm not only getting ahead of it as far as boundaries go and everything, but I'm getting ahead of it as far as planning and organizing go, because the way that our good traditions and ideas go to die is when we're not prepared for them and we're flying by the seat of our pants, because it's just honestly, it's too hard to do that as moms. We need a little pre-planning.
And this planner, it can do that for you because it's going to walk you through a lot of those steps. It's going to help you see visually on a piece of paper. These are the things we're prioritizing.
And it's going to take a lot of weight off of you also. Because when you get these things written down, your no can be no without guilt. And that is a really, really powerful thing for us because we as moms, I think, hold a lot of guilt.
I know I do. I don't like to disappoint my kids. And it's hard because I literally told actually one of my coaches, I was like, I feel like I just have the disappointer tattooed across my forehead.
And like all day long, I just get to disappoint people. That's not what we are. We're saying yes to some really good and beautiful things every day, but we don't get to see it because we don't take time to write it down.
And you're going to get ahead of so many other things because there's planners for feasting, there's planners for gift giving, there's planners for thank you, there's a whole slew of different planning pages. But if you do nothing else from this holiday planner, just do those first three pages. And I'm telling you, it will give you a different holiday experience this year.
It absolutely will. And you can find it right here.
Sweet mamas, I hope you have a beautiful holiday season, a wonderful Christmas, a blessed new year.
And always we want you to remember, you are doing beautiful work.
