Save Your Holiday Preferences
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
I am so lucky to have a family and the ability to travel to be with them during Christmas. For about a week around that joyous holiday, we all gather in one house to make merry together. People from 3 or more households are living under one roof for an extended period of time, which means quite a few logistical concerns need to be handled.
My magical mother tends to be the genie that gets the logistical details conversation started each year. A couple of weeks before we all gather, she’ll send an email to me asking what kind of food we should have and what kind of baked goods we should make as a family. For a number of years, I would think long and hard and create fresh lists for each. But I noticed after a number of years that I pretty much always wanted the same hearty comfort foods and to make the same popular treats. So instead of reinventing the wheel every year, one year I just saved my email back to my mom, and I plagiarize myself each year by borrowing the same lists I used in the past and editing it if needed.
In addition to reusing my food and family baking preferences, I have a list of holiday pastimes to choose from as well. Each year I take note of the activities that we have enjoyed as a family, and I try to schedule the times when we can do those events. New items are added to the list, and some are subtracted, but I no longer have to start from scratch to think of ways to have fun during our time together.
Keeping emails and lists of our family’s holiday preferences has saved me a lot of time and brain energy through the years. If you have similar holiday gatherings, consider saving the logistical information you come up with this year to make next year’s planning easier.
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Joyously Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team