Happier Holidays with Home Management

{By Sara Kelly}

Holidays have decorations, once a year recipes, guests and gatherings, and at the core of it all is my favorite thing….systems. 

Systems create comfort by reducing the guessing game and thereby creating ease. A common example of a system we often use is recipes.  When you go to make your grandma’s famous pecan pie- do you guess at how many cups of pecans to add? And what temperature to bake it? Or do you pull out a recipe card as a guide to reduce the guessing and make your life easier?  Sure, you can add a little more cinnamon or check it 5 minutes before the suggested bake time. You have flexibility within the recipe, but you aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel each time.

Systems are the recipe cards for your home management. Here are a few ideas of systems to be used around holidays:

• Keeping all of your decorations for each holiday together, easily accessible, and with their manuals (for those that need assembly)
• Knowing that you need your gifts by a certain date so you can have them wrapped and shipped 2 weeks before the holiday so they arrive in time (without having to pay the last minute overnight fee that is more than the cost of the gift itself)
• Making note of that one relative you only see every other year who is REALLY allergic to rice products. Like, GO TO THE HOSPITAL allergic.

All of these holiday system suggestions offer an opportunity at a holiday experience without using some non-holiday friendly words.

By now this might all sound way too idealistic, pie-in-the-sky thinking. But, it really is about making your life easier. You don’t find a new way to drive to the airport each time you fly. You find the one that works and you do that. And if you need to adjust, you have an established framework to go off of. Just like with grandma’s pecan pie recipe, you don’t have to follow it exactly, but you have a good idea of where to start.

Holiday seasons are a lot. A lot of joy, a lot of activity, and a lot of stuff to remember once a year. Give yourself the gift of creating systems that will make your life easier next holiday season, so you can enjoy more of the good stuff.

What holiday home management hassles do you experience? Email [email protected] and share your frustrations. She loves to help find solutions!

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