“Live, and be happy, and make others so.” – Mary Shelley

Have you been able to get into the holiday spirit yet this year? I sure have! After really struggling to feel jolly last year at this time, I’m in full blown holiday mode! Honestly, if it wasn’t for Tyler being home, I think I’d be watching Christmas movies already by now. But I’m respectfully refraining until after Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I’ve still found plenty to be happy about this week!

1. New movies starring Dwayne Johnson. In the past week I watched The Jungle Cruise on Disney+ and Red Notice on Netflix. Both are basically live action cartoons (Red Notice is more for just adults due to some strong language and lots of guns). Both movies have over the top action and fight scenes with plots that really ask you to suspend belief at times. But I’d recommend either one if you are looking for a movie that is just pure entertainment and isn’t going to really ask too much of you as a viewer. I call them action/distraction movies because they are designed for you to take your mind off the real world and just sit back and enjoy. (Also, I recently rewatched San Andreas while folding laundry and it also falls into the action/distraction movie category.)
2. Christmas decorations. I received an amaryllis bulb from my mom this week which feels like an unofficial kickoff to the Christmas season. I feel like I need to decorate my house for the season! Since we are traveling a bit next week, my plan is to put up some holiday decor before we leave so the house is nice and festive when we get home. Then I’ll finish up with all the outside stuff. And I think I’m going to get a tiny little real tree this year, I just have to figure out exactly where it will be completely out of reach of the cats!
3. Lessons from the Lazy Genius. I listened to a book called The Lazy Genius Way last summer and I think I gave it a lukewarm review. The truth is, I’m still thinking about things that were discussed in that book on a regular basis. The idea of the Lazy Genius Way is to, in a nutshell, stop making things so hard for ourselves! The two of her twelve principles that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently are “Name what matters” and “Decide once”. The idea behind naming what matters is to not get caught up in all the things that we “should be doing” and I think this is especially important during the holidays. So as I’m looking at spending a lot of time with family in settings that will take me out of my normal habits, I am naming what matters to me in terms of things that will keep me sane, but also not trying to do my full daily routine on top of spending time with people. Things like meditation and journaling will matter, but spending time writing every day while we’re with family will not. As for decided once…in the stretch between mid-November and Christmas, I not only have to buy gifts for parents, siblings, in-laws, and nieces and nephews. I also have six family birthdays to shop for. It’s enough to drive me batty if I let it. But thanks to the Lazy Genius, earlier this year I decided once that everyone gets something from a certain category for their birthdays. Which helps take the stress of gift shopping down to a reasonable level, but since it’s in a category, I can also have some wiggle room on personalizing the gifts. Win/win if you ask me!
4. Budgeting! I know I’ve mentioned budgeting on here before, but it is such a lifesaver and joy giver this time of year. Because I’ve been putting money every month into my Travel and Gifts categories, I don’t stress about the added expenses that come with the season. The money is already earmarked for the jobs and I just have to spend it. Now that being said, the online budget tool I’ve always recommended is going up in price next year and I’m not sure if I’m going to continue with it specifically. But the concept is basically a version of the old-school envelope budgeting where you take cash and divide it into envelopes labeled with specific expenses. The idea is that you only spend the money available in that envelope or budget on that category rather than looking at your account balance to see how much you have available. It’s probably explained a little better here.
5. Thanksgiving with family. As referenced above, we will be spending Thanksgiving with my husband’s family and I’m excited to see everyone and just be along for the ride, rather than trying to plan everything myself. Last Thanksgiving it was just Tyler and I up in the mountains, which was lovely and relaxing, but I think we are both looking forward to the hustle and bustle of a big family celebration.