The Working Mums Podcast

Ep #42 - From Chaos to Calm: Planning for Christmas

• Nicky Bevan

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Transform your holiday season this year into a calm and enjoyable celebration by learning the art of thoughtful planning and mindful decision-making. 🎄


Think about it, what if you could have a calm Christmas instead of one full of chaos? Unless you like it that way of course. 😁


This episode offers you just that—practical tips to eliminate common stressors such as last-minute shopping and wrapping. 


Learn how to effectively organize your Christmas tasks, from gift shopping and wrapping to food preparation, by setting specific times in your calendar. 


We explore how engaging your higher, more thoughtful self can not only make the holiday season manageable but also genuinely enjoyable. 


Discover my ABC method, a powerful tool for making mindful decisions that align with your long-term goals and create a peaceful holiday atmosphere. This strategy focuses your energy on small, intentional actions that ease the stress of the weeks ahead. 


By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with the skills to approach holiday decision-making with curiosity and care. Stay tuned for future episodes where I'll dive deeper into managing holiday interactions with family and friends. 

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingMumsLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Speaker 1:

welcome, welcome, welcome, my friends, to this week's episode, and we are talking about christmas. We, like it, know that christmas is coming it's just a few weeks away, months away and I think the reason why a lot of people find christmas stressful, well, there's two reasons. One of the reasons is they leave everything to the last minute. Think the reason why a lot of people find Christmas stressful. Well, there's two reasons. One of the reasons is they leave everything to the last minute, and the other reason is because they spend time with people that they wouldn't normally spend time with. I'm going to address that in another episode.

Speaker 1:

What I want to talk to you about today is Christmas planning and how, actually, when you sit down ahead of time and you look at the month ahead of you and you plan in what you're going to do and when you're going to do it, it just makes Christmas so much smoother, calmer and so much more enjoyable. So this is going to be very practical tips which you then have to manage your mind and emotions around following, but it's actually really straightforward. So, when you think about Christmas, it's things like presents, buying all the food, getting the house decorated, wrapping the presents. So what I love to do, and what I have already done is I sit down and I go right, what have I got to do? And I say to my boys please can I have your Christmas lists so that I can start preparing for Christmas, so the father Christmas knows what he needs to buy. And so I actively encourage them ahead of time to make their list. Once I've got that list, obviously that's going to be sent off to the North Pole, but for everybody else in the family I want to make sure that I plan for when I'm going to go shopping. When am I going to sit on Amazon and order everything? When am I going to wrap those presents? Because what I hear so many people doing is they leave it to the last minute. Then everything's sold out, the shops are really busy and it's a really stressful experience, and then we dislike Christmas because of it. And then people don't even think about wrapping until Christmas Eve, and then they're up till midnight and beyond wrapping ready for Christmas Day. Of course, if you do it that way, I get why you would think Christmas would be stressful, but Christmas can be the most enjoyable, calm time of the year if you plan ahead of time.

Speaker 1:

So look at your calendar. When are you going to sit down on Amazon and buy your presents? When are you going to go to the shops and buy what you need? And I do this for food as well. So in a couple of weeks my husband and I we've got our shopping day blocked out, so we are going to go together and do Christmas shopping. I've got that in my calendar. I also have in my calendar blocked out the morning.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to sit and do my wrapping and honestly, I'm not a huge fan of wrapping. So what I tend to do is I put my fire on, I light a couple of candles, I get my favorite drink, I put on the most cheesiest Christmas movie, which Netflix is brilliant for, where you know the plot ahead of time. Two strangers bump into each other, they have an argument, they hate each other, they fall in love. They hate each other, they fall in love, they fall out of love and then they get back together right at the end on Christmas Day Always the same, you don't have to concentrate on it and it just makes it so enjoyable. So I sit in my lounge and I make it a pleasant experience for myself, but I block that time off in my calendar. I do the same with food shopping. I know that I like to do my food shopping the day before Christmas Eve, so the 23rd, and I block it in my calendar and I get up early. It's one of the only times that, and a holiday is the only time of year that I love getting up early I'm not an early bird and I block it off in my calendar and that's when I go and do my shopping, so that by the time I get to Christmas, everything is done, everything within my ability is done.

Speaker 1:

Because here's the thing you cannot control Christmas, you cannot control the holiday seasons. You cannot control the amount of stock that is on the shelves, virtually, or in the shops. You can't control any of that. So stop focusing on trying to control any of that. Focus on what you can do and focus on controlling the only thing in your life that you can control, which is you. So thinking ahead is using your prefrontal cortex. This is your higher, most wise self, and so when you plan ahead of time, this is the part of the brain that we're engaging and it always gives you the best advice, whereas what most of us are doing is listening to our primitive brain, which doesn't give a crap at all about the long-term circumstances or consequences and it just wants to feel good and it wants to feel it now. And sometimes that's avoiding oh I'll do that tomorrow, I'll do that later and it never comes. So when we engage our higher wisdom and we plan ahead of time, that's what gives us our control, that's what gives us that calm in control feeling.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to do a separate episode on how to deal with people, which will come out a little bit closer to Christmas. So keep an eye out for that. But right now it's coming. Christmas is going to happen. So think through. Give yourself permission just for half an hour.

Speaker 1:

This planning doesn't take long. Through. Give yourself permission just for half an hour. This planning doesn't take long. But give yourself time to go right. What have I got to do?

Speaker 1:

And even if you need to give yourself time to sit and figure out the menu for Christmas or the food that you want over the Christmas period, put that in your calendar. Choose when you're going to go shopping, choose when you're going to wrap it, choose when you're going to do all of those things ahead of time. Put it in your and then all you have to do is manage your mind when that time comes, because if your mind is anything like mine, it's going to moan, it's going to groan, it's going to have a huff and a puff about wanting to do that thing that we plan to do. That's the point. That's the opportunity that you get to build the strength of managing your mind. So acknowledge that that part of your brain is telling you. You don't want to do it with compassion, not with judgment, criticism or beating yourself up. That is not the idea of this work. It's to acknowledge what your brain is saying. Go, oh, isn't that interesting. Thank you, brain, for giving me that opinion. That's good to know.

Speaker 1:

Take a deep breath and then you choose, because you're in control of your life. Not Christmas. So you take a deep breath and you choose. You know what I'm going to honor my calendar because, actually, whilst I don't really want to do that thing now, I also don't want to be leaving it to the last minute, because how I want to spend Christmas Eve is relaxed, focused on my kids enjoying Christmas Eve. I don't want to be stressing about having to wrap a load of presents, and this is where your control is.

Speaker 1:

So the ABC method acknowledge what your brain is telling you with fascination and curiosity, taking that breath that just gives you a second, and then choose what do you actually want to do for the long-term good? So you're making a decision for your future self here, because whatever you decide in the moment, you're going to have to deal with later on. So what can you do today that helps you in a couple of weeks and that's really straightforward, my friend, just focus on that and that's going to enable you to have a much calmer, much more controlled, enjoyable Christmas. And I'll talk to you about dealing with people in a couple of episodes. So keep an eye out for that Short and sweet this week. Have a wonderful week. I'm going to be getting my Christmas now's done, so I should have waited and recorded this episode with my Christmas now, shouldn't I? But you'll get to see those next week if you're looking at me on YouTube. Have an amazing week. Bye.