The 5 Step Action Plan for Traditions [Episode 6]

Heidi  0:55

Hey there, friends. Welcome back to the Holiday Headstart Podcast. Today we are talking about holiday traditions and how to make them more manageable. And later in the episode, we have a tip for keeping track of important holiday items.

 

Emily  1:04

Traditions are powerful, whether they are family customs handed down from our grandparents or brand new creations. Traditions are an important tool in building a healthy, happy, connected life. This week, we have a tradition from Heidi, involving potatoes. Let’s hear it. Heidi.

 

Heidi  1:21

Okay, well, I don’t know if this qualifies as a tradition, since I’ve only done it once, but I am planning on repeating it this year.

 

Emily  1:28

Okay, so it counts, then.

 

Heidi  1:29

Okay, good. Last year, I saw an Instagram post about a man who offered trick or treaters the choice between candy or a potato, and over the years, it’s just become a running joke in his neighborhood, and so now he does it every year. And I thought that sounded ridiculous, so of course, I had to try it. And I think he did like big baking potatoes. I just got little red potatoes so kids weren’t lugging around a giant vegetable all night. But the kids thought it was awesome. And I quickly went through my little bag of potatoes because so many kids wanted them. I had kids come back and ask for another potato. I had neighbors come up to me for weeks after saying how funny it was.

 

Heidi  2:08

So obviously I need to do this again. I’m just not sure if I want to do potatoes. I think part of the fun is that it was just so surprising. And if I repeat potatoes, they’re going to be expecting it. So right now, I’m leaning toward broccoli, but I’m not sure if I should venture out of vegetables and do something random, like a car air freshener or a plastic fork.

 

Emily  2:31

Oh, that could be fun.

 

Heidi  2:34

Or maybe I should just play the hits, because I know it works. I don’t know. We’ll see, I got a little bit of time still.

 

Emily  2:39

Well, it’s hard being the neighborhood’s favorite aunt, so you’ve got a lot of pressure on you.

 

Heidi  2:45

Well, this week, we are diving into holiday activities and traditions.

 

Emily  2:50

And we love Christmas traditions. They are a big part of what makes Christmas feel like Christmas for many of us.

 

Heidi  2:57

So it’s probably not a surprise that Emily and I both got high scores for tradition in the Christmas profile quiz.

 

Emily  3:03

And if you don’t know your holiday profile, you can take the free quiz at quiz.holidayheadstart.com.

 

Heidi  3:11

Traditions are central to a lot of what happens around the holidays. They’re a way of connecting the past with the present. They help us mark time and help us mark our place in time, they give us the thrill of looking forward to something and the satisfaction of looking back.

 

Emily  3:26

And they are frequently the things that tip us from managing the holidays into being overrun by the holidays.

 

Heidi  3:33

Now, technically a tradition is anything you repeat. So that might mean that you have a tradition of using festive plates in December, or that might mean you have a tradition of an afternoon of sledding with the extended family. Those are both traditions, but one of them is going to require a lot more planning and coordination than the other.

 

Emily  3:50

Yeah, most holiday traditions aren’t something you can just unpack from a box and be ready to go.

 

Heidi  3:56

But what if we could maybe get closer to that? What if we could just open a box and have exactly what you need?

 

Emily  4:02

Now, we might not have a box that fits sleds and thermoses of hot chocolate and getting your sister-in-law to actually pin down the date so you can make the rest of your plans, but we want to get as close to that as we can.

 

Heidi  4:15

Enter the action plan.

 

Emily  4:18

Feels like you need some superhero intro music there.

 

Heidi  4:23

I do, because the action plan is here to save the day. If you aren’t familiar, this is an idea that comes from the business world. An action plan is a roadmap of the work needed to achieve a goal. It outlines the needed resources, the timeline of events and the specific steps needed to complete a project.

 

Emily  4:42

And basically, each holiday tradition or activity that you undertake is a project. You’ve got deadlines. You need to coordinate with different people. There are negative outcomes if you drop the ball along the way. It can be a lot to manage.

 

Heidi  4:55

If holiday activities have caused you grief in the past, it might be due to insufficient planning. But we are going to put a stop to that right now by rolling out our Holiday Headstart action plan. If you have our playbook, there is a template action plan in section three. All you have to do is duplicate the page for each tradition you want to plan.

 

Emily  5:15

If you don’t have the playbook, you can still create an action plan. Just grab a piece of paper or open your notes app, and you’re good to go.

 

Heidi  5:22

But you know you want the playbook.

 

Emily  5:24

It’s true.

 

Heidi  5:24

It would be such a relief to have all of this already formatted for you. So head to theholidayheadstart.com/playbook to grab your copy.

 

Emily  5:33

Our Action Plan has five steps. Step one is to start by clarifying your goal. You want to identify the purpose of doing this activity, and get clear about the type of activity you want to create.

 

Heidi  5:44

Step two is to gather your resources. Start by listing everything you need. List the supplies you already have and the ones you need to get. Bonus points if you put as many of the supplies as possible into one central place so you can describe them all when you need them.

 

Emily  5:59

Step Three of our action plan is to prepare. List all the tasks needed to prepare for your activity, then schedule those tasks based on when they need to happen. We want to do as much as possible ahead of time, so pay close attention to tasks that can be done well in advance.

 

Heidi  6:15

Step four is to monitor and adjust. I had to borrow that term from my years of teaching because it fits this situation so well. As your event gets closer, monitor how things are going, revisit your plan to make sure that you’re on track and adjust as needed.

 

Emily  6:31

Step five is to reflect and improve. This happens after your activity. Take a minute to reflect on what went well, so you can repeat those things in the future and identify what was bumpy, so you know what to improve.

 

Heidi  6:43

Now that doesn’t sound too difficult, does it? And just to show you how easy and useful it is, we are going to fill out an action plan today.

 

Emily  6:52

Last December, we had a Friday night of what we called reindeer games. Such a fun night that we want to make it a tradition. So let’s set up our reindeer games action plan so we’re ready to do it again this year.

 

Heidi  7:04

And because we always start our planning with our why, let’s start by clarifying our goal. The first question is, does this activity feel like it’s worth doing?

 

Emily  7:14

I think we’ve decided yes, for sure.

 

Heidi  7:19

Well, that was easy. I was gonna type in our action plan as we went, but I don’t know that anyone wants to wait while I type.

 

Emily  7:26

Yeah, don’t do that.

 

Heidi  7:27

Yes, I’ll just have to go back and listen to our podcast later and get all of our information.

 

Emily  7:32

Perfect.

 

Heidi  7:34

Okay, so the next question is, what is the purpose of this activity? I think something that kind of like brings us together for fun.

 

Emily  7:42

Yes, and that really caters to the kids’ interests, but that we can enjoy as well. Because there’s certainly traditions that super cater to the kids that we don’t really enjoy, but we do it for them. This is one that we can all enjoy together. And all of my kids like playing games, but it’s hard to do them as often as they would like, because we don’t have a lot of time. So if it’s on the schedule to have a whole night of playing games, then everybody’s happy. And the games don’t even have to be Christmas related, although you did find a cute Rudolph game that we played last year.

 

Heidi  8:11

It’s really cute. Oh, and you had the one that was a taco, cat pizza version.

 

Emily  8:16

Oh that was Christmas. It was like, Santa, cookie, elf, snowman or something like that.

 

Heidi  8:20

Yes, that was a fun one.

 

Emily  8:21

It was good and hard. I will say, I think this could be really fun to do, like Minute to Win It activities, if you are the type of people that like Minute to Win It activities, but we aren’t. So we’re gonna do card games or board games, because that’s what we like to do.

 

Heidi  8:36

Okay, well, let’s get to specifics. So where, we’re gonna do this, at your house, I’m assuming.

 

Emily  8:40

Yes.

 

Heidi  8:41

When, we’ll probably have to pin down a date, a Friday or Saturday night?

 

Emily  8:46

Yeah, once I know all the kids schedule,

 

Heidi  8:48

Yeah, the people involved, me, you, your kids. It’s a party!

 

Emily  8:52

Yes. Maybe we’ll extend the invitation, and other people can join us if they want to.

 

Heidi  8:58

We’ll see if they make the cut. Okay, the benefits. So our options are that it creates connection, it promotes generosity, it’s tradition, it’s a fun experience, it’s spiritual, or it’s magical. We can choose as many of these as we want.

 

Emily  9:13

Well, I think connection and fun for sure.

 

Heidi  9:16

Yeah, absolutely. I think those are both, both right, hit it, and if we repeated enough years, it will be a tradition.

 

Emily  9:22

Yes, I think, I think the kids already consider it a tradition. My kids are good at because we do so many traditions, especially at Christmas, but even year round, if we do something once, it becomes a tradition, right?

 

Heidi  9:32

That’s just the expectation now. Okay, at the end of this activity, I want people to feel….

 

Emily  9:39

I’m trying to think of the word for, I mean, just, I think satisfied that like, that was so fun that we had this time together and we got to play games, which they love to do, and just feel like, Oh, that was a really fun evening. Last year we watched the old Rudolph at the end, and I felt like that was the perfect little like button on the day.

 

Heidi  9:58

Especially when we realized that the children hadn’t seen that before.

 

Emily  10:00

I know, that was shocking.

 

Heidi  10:04

Yes, we were laughing at all the very, the jokes that haven’t aged well.

 

Emily  10:08

There is a lot of that that has not aged well.

 

Heidi  10:12

But it’s a classic. Okay, so moving on. Now we have our why, let’s get into more of the specifics. So our atmosphere. So we want to think about ways to include the senses. We have, sight, sound, taste, touch, smell and a sense of fun, of course.

 

Emily  10:26

And I feel like this is the part of Christmas planning that I care the most about, of how a tradition feels, how an event feels, is kind of what I care most about. I came to realize after doing that quiz, I think I care a lot about this.

 

Heidi  10:39

Oh, interesting. Okay, well, let’s dive into it then. All right, so, sight, you got that cute banner last year?

 

Emily  10:45

Yeah, we have little reindeer reindeer decor, not a ton, but, like, enough we could put up just for a day or two, and then take, you know, add it to the Christmas decor, then take it out of the mix after the reindeer games.

 

Heidi  10:57

And I found that that has been really important to me is to have, like, I can add a little touch for this activity, and then it can go away. And it doesn’t have to be a regular part of the decor, but it fits with what we’re already doing, what’s already up.

 

Emily  11:09

And we have a lot of traditions. And so if we were like, just layering it all on each other as the month goes on, by Christmas Day, it would be a real overwhelm of the senses.

 

Heidi  11:21

But we’ll limit it to putting it up and taking it down. Which also means that we have to pick stuff that is easy to put up and take down.

 

Emily  11:29

Yes, which we, I think we got our reindeer stuff last year from My Mind’s Eye, because they always have a lot of cute like paper goods, which is what we used, and that’s also what we used for, like the plates to eat off of and things like that.

 

Heidi  11:42

Yeah, that was perfect. Made such a cute table. Okay, the sound, I have been working on a reindeer games playlist, which we didn’t have last year.

 

Emily  11:50

No, we didn’t.

 

Heidi  11:51

All set for this year. It is full of songs about reindeer, there’s way more than I expected.

 

Emily  11:56

Go figure.

 

Heidi  11:57

I know. And because it was, weirdly, a lot of the reindeer songs kind of had, like a a rockabilly vibe. So the playlist is, like, rockabilly hits, some big band numbers, really proud of this. Each of the reindeer has their own song.

 

Emily  12:12

Oh, I’m excited.

 

Heidi  12:13

Except dancer. I’m having a hard time finding a song that fits, that has a dancer, but…

 

Emily  12:19

Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

 

Heidi  12:23

That does not fit with the vibe. But Blitzen got two. I found two Blitzen songs, wouldn’t you know it.

 

Emily  12:29

Go figure.

 

Heidi  12:30

Okay, taste. So last year we had corn dogs, for dinner, because the kids will eat them and we put little plastic antlers on them, so they were cute.

 

Emily  12:40

And the kids liked them. It was easy, easy peasy. I can’t remember. I know we did some of, oh, we made the little reindeer treats with the pretzels and the Rolos.

 

Heidi  12:49

Oh yes, I forgot we did that as part of the night. Yeah, that was perfect. It’s the perfect treat because there’s tasks that you can assign everyone to do that are not involved but are important. So like, kids can unwrap the Rolos. Some kids are separating the M M’s out some you know, then we all have to lay the pretzels on the sheet pan. So what you do is you lay a layer of the square pretzels onto a sheet pan, put a Rolo on it, put it in the oven for like four minutes, maybe as soon as the chocolate starts melting, you pull them out and you put red M M’s on top, and we call them Rudolph noses.

 

Emily  13:24

Yep. And they’re tasty and they’re easy to make. Those were super fun. And we like to make those at Christmas anyway, because the kids can get involved. So it was nice to have, like, a specific day that we do it as part of this tradition.

 

Heidi  13:37

I know there have been years where it’s like, ah, we’ll do it for Valentine’s Day, because we bought the stuff, but didn’t get to it in December.

 

Emily  13:43

Yeah. So it’s good to have this on the schedule, and to have an auntie who lives nearby and will be interested in coming and helping us do these things.

 

Heidi  13:52

And we also did, I made some root deer bottles.

 

Emily  13:55

Oh, they were so cute with the like, pipe cleaner antlers on a bottle of root beer.

 

Heidi  14:01

Googly eyes and some little scarves that I got in Amazon. So I already bought the root beer for this year, because I realized I could buy that in advance.

 

Emily  14:09

Way to go.

 

Heidi  14:10

Thank you. That should be, get that done. Okay, touch, that’s always such a tough one.

 

Emily  14:15

I don’t know with touch that we’ve really got anything for this.

 

Heidi  14:18

The cards that we’re holding.

 

Emily  14:20

Yeah, maybe.

 

Heidi  14:22

Smell, again…

 

Emily  14:24

A candle, maybe, or the baking of the chocolate.

 

Heidi  14:29

And then, of course, fun, we’re playing games and watching movies and just having a light hearted night.

 

Emily  14:34

Fun is easy for this one.

 

Heidi  14:36

So then we have a section about how I as the adult here want to show up to this activity. So this is taken from a stylist who came up with, like, three words to describe your style, and I adapted that to thinking about how I want to show up, not so much physically, but how I want to show up emotionally to an activity. So. A word to describe how I want to show up on a practical level, an emotional level, and a word about how I aspire to be at this activity. So practical level, I think I want to be prepared.

 

Emily  15:09

That’s exactly what I was thinking, is that, you know, we have so many different traditions we do, and this one was a new one last year, so it was more on the thrown together side, because we thought about it like a week or so in advance. So this year, I’d like to feel like, more prepared, like, we got it already. So when the day rolls around, it’s not like, oh shoot, I have a bunch to do to get ready for that.

 

Heidi  15:28

And it’s so hard to be present at an activity if you are worried about, like, what are we doing? What’s happening? What are the things I need? Like, now that we’ve done it once, and we’re taking the time to kind of make a plan going forward, it’s gonna be so much easier just to enjoy the time together.

 

Emily  15:43

Yeah, for sure.

 

Heidi  15:44

Okay, and how to show up on an emotional level, I think I want to be like, warm and engaged, enjoying the time with the kids and not worried about, you know, the next thing in the to do list and the all the things.

 

Emily  15:57

Yeah, I would say, like, present.

 

Heidi  15:59

That’s a good way to put it. Okay, and then how I aspire to be at this activity. I would aspire to win some of these games, because the kids always beat me.

 

Emily  16:08

Yeah, you really got stomped on last year.

 

Heidi  16:10

I don’t even let them win!

 

Emily  16:12

No, I am opposed to letting children win. My children know this that, like we don’t let the little kids win in this household, at least anymore. We used to maybe, the loudest, youngest one, we would let win sometimes, but more often than not, she just quits if she’s not winning. And that’s fine, that’s her choice. But we don’t let, we don’t let them win. We go hard if we can, but Heidi does, doesn’t have as much practice playing games.

 

Heidi  16:36

That’s the truth.

 

Emily  16:38

Yeah, I think that’s the same kind of words like, I just want to be like, engaged and show up with a fun attitude.

 

Heidi  16:46

Which can be hard at the end of a long week.

 

Emily  16:48

100%. I remember I was tired on the day we did this last year.

 

Heidi  16:53

The next section gets into some of the nitty gritty, so we’ll just go through this really quick. Supplies on hand, I said we got the root beer, got games, got the plates and stuff left over from last year.

 

Emily  17:04

Right, so the decor we already have, and the antlers for the corn dogs, we still have.

 

Heidi  17:10

Yeah, that was like a pack of, like 500 so we’re good for a while.

 

Emily  17:15

And the scarves you already had, too for the root beer. So I think you probably need to buy more brown pipe cleaners, unless you still have some.

 

Heidi  17:23

Nope, it came in a kit and they came in a set. So I should still have some.

 

Emily  17:26

Oh, you got a kit that was specifically for making reindeer?

 

Heidi  17:28

No, I mean, I just bought a pack of pipe cleaners. But I have, plenty ahead comes back to bite you when you assume you have something and you’ve not checked that. So I definitely I need to check ahead of time.

 

Emily  17:39

Lay hands on them or eyes. You have to know you really have them. But otherwise, I don’t feel like we need a ton. I mean, obviously the stuff for the food, so the pretzels, the Rolos, the and, and it’s good to get the M M’s early in the season, because sometimes the holiday M M’s get hard to find, because everyone wants them for their holiday cookies.

 

Heidi  18:00

Pretzels! Pretzels are something I’ve had a hard time getting.

 

Emily  18:03

Those square pretzels.

 

Heidi  18:04

I remember having to call mom and be like, Hey, if you’re getting groceries can you look for pretzels? I can’t find any around here.

 

Emily  18:04

Yeah, so getting those, and luckily, as soon as those hit the shelves, we can get them early, and the pretzels can be extra early because they’re not seasonal.

 

Heidi  18:11

Yes, those are all nice. Okay, so I think we’re good on supplies. We know what we need to get. Okay, so now we’re gonna look at preparation. So it breaks it down into months before, two weeks before, a week before, two days before, day before, day of, right before.

 

Emily  18:33

Oh, boy.

 

Heidi  18:34

I know, we won’t get into all of the nitty gritty here,

 

Emily  18:36

But it’s good to know those lists are in there for you when you’re doing the planning for your own tradition.

 

Heidi  18:42

So I’m going to make the root beer bottles because I can do that way in advance. I don’t think anything else really needs to be done besides buying the food.

 

Emily  18:51

No, not really. And we have the decor like already. So I mean, maybe this time, I’ll either try and put the decor up earlier in the day, because we were putting it up like right before we ate, so maybe either on the morning of that day or do it the night before, just so it’s ready to go already. The kids know in the morning, oh, it’s Rainier Games Day, and then it’s not such a scramble.

 

Heidi  19:13

Yes, okay. Our next section is, is there anything that we could simplify? I think we’ve broken it down pretty far.

 

Emily  19:19

I think the only reason we were able to add this to our already busy tradition schedule is because it’s not a super overwhelming thing that we added. It’s a fairly straightforward and simple tradition as it is. So I don’t know that there’s anything that needs to be like, delegated or skipped or, you know.

 

Heidi  19:39

I think we did a good job last year being like, okay, we know what our capacity is. We know what our schedule is. How do we fit in this time? It is really nice to have something, I realized, when we were doing this, it’s nice to have something just, it was kind of grounding, almost. It’s fun, quiet, low stakes, time together.

 

Emily  19:57

Low stakes is a good word for it, like it was just about having fun. So that was nice.

 

Heidi  20:02

Okay, now we’re gonna look at anything we need to fine tune. And again, I think we’re pretty good here. I don’t think we need to adapt anything.

 

Emily  20:09

I might have made notes. I’m gonna look because sometimes I do that after we have an event. Nope, no notes, so it must have gone well.

 

Heidi  20:18

Okay, no notes, I’ll take it. Anything we need to make sure to do ahead of time. You mentioned maybe decorating?

 

Emily  20:27

Yeah, I think that’s the main thing.

 

Heidi  20:29

Maybe choosing the games ahead of time, so it’s not up for debate amongst the children.

 

Emily  20:34

That’s probably a really good idea to choose the games ahead of time, or at least, like narrow the selection much smaller ahead of time. But it might be smart to just consider myself the Game Master for the evening, and I have decided what games and in what order we’re going to play them.

 

Heidi  20:47

There you go. Okay, is there anything you need to keep this enjoyable for yourself and for anyone else?

 

Emily  20:53

Don’t think so.

 

Heidi  20:54

Just having a happy attitude, yeah, going back to our three words to describe how we want to show up, you know.

 

Emily  21:01

Yeah.

 

Heidi  21:02

Then we have the section for don’t forget. Since we don’t need tickets for this, obviously we don’t worry about that. We don’t have anything we need to remember for next time so far. We didn’t do any kind of like, special photo with it. Did we take photos?

 

Emily  21:15

I think we did. I think we had photo props that you have, you brought, I don’t know where you got them, but they were, like, on sticks.

 

Heidi  21:24

No, that was New Year’s Eve. But we had the kids were reindeer headbands.

 

Emily  21:30

That’s what I’m thinking of. Yes, we have reindeer headbands that they could pick from. And they’re they were just left over from preschool, weren’t they?

 

Emily  21:39

Yes.

 

Emily  21:39

When we taught preschool, we would photograph each of the preschoolers wearing a festive head adornment of some kind, either antlers or hat or or Santa hat or whatever, and put that in a frame for the parents. And so we have amassed quite a collection of headgear. So we had a lot of cute reindeer headbands that they could pick from. Antlers, there we go.

 

Heidi  22:02

Yeah. So this year, we’ll have to make sure we probably got, I’m sure we got pictures of the kids last year.

 

Emily  22:06

We did. So I’m sure, yeah, I should look at last year’s photos, because that will probably help me make sure we don’t forget anything.

 

Heidi  22:13

Maybe we need to, like, make a print, a photo album of kids and antlers every year, or something.

 

Emily  22:18

That’s a cute idea! Let’s do that. Put it on the to do list.

 

Heidi  22:21

Perfect. Well, we’ve got a to do list on this form, so if you have your own copy of the action plan, you can see exactly what we’ve gone through. And then on the side, because I just want to be able to, like, open it and be like, Okay, what do I need to remember? Oh, it’s all right there. I didn’t have to comb through it for information.

 

Emily  22:37

Right, the information on the left is more I feel like, for like, working through everything we just worked through. But then on the right is more like your quick reference of like, what do I need to do?

 

Heidi  22:47

Yeah, what needs to go in the grocery order? What do I need to remember to grab at the craft store? What do I need to remember to set up so all of that can just be in one handy place?

 

Emily  22:55

I love it.

 

Heidi  22:56

I think we did it.

 

Emily  22:58

We’d love to hear about your favorite December traditions. You can connect with us on Instagram @theholidayheadstart.

 

Emily  23:04

Now it’s time for a get a head start tip. Each week we leave you with a small actionable tip to help you get a head start on your holiday planning. This week’s get a head start tip is make a need to know box. Tell us more about it, Heidi.

 

Heidi  23:11

Well, I would be happy to. I’m excited for this one. The idea for this comes from our teacher lives. So at the end of the school year, teachers often pack up a box of things that they’ll need first when they come back to school. This is where they put materials for setting up bulletin boards, labeling supplies and basically anything else that they will need first. And after I spent a frantic Christmas Eve afternoon one year trying to round up all of the odds and ends I needed to set up for our dinner that night, I realized that I was missing a Christmas version of a need first box, and so I’m going to call it a need to know box, because it houses anything that you need to know exactly where it is. It might be something you need first, like the advent calendar you need for December 1.

 

Emily  24:05

Oh, I’ve been burned by that before when I didn’t know what boxes had the advent calendar so they didn’t come out until the fifth.

 

Heidi  24:12

Or it might be the cookie plate you need for Christmas Eve. Anything that you absolutely need to have at a certain time, but that might not have a defined home, goes in your need to know box.

 

Emily  24:23

Oh, I love it. If you have a petite visitor to your home each December, being cryptic here, this might be a good place to store that visitor, then you know exactly where it is on November 30, so you’re not in the garage at 11:30 at night, crying and digging through boxes because you don’t know exactly where that visitor was put. And I have been there.

 

Heidi  24:46

So start thinking about what should go into your need to know box. And then in a few weeks, as you are pulling out all those Christmas boxes, you can set aside those things that you want to put in this box, because you need to know where it is.

 

Emily  24:59

I love it. Brilliant. And of course, we have a page for this in the Holiday Headstart playbook. It’s in the Traditions and Activities section, and you can get your copy of the Holiday Headstart playbook at theholidayheadstart.com/playbook, or just click the link in the show notes

 

Emily  25:15

As a way to keep ourselves accountable and give you some ideas of what you can do in advance for your own celebrations, we are sharing what we’re working on this week. Heidi, what’s on your to do list?

 

Heidi  25:26

I am working on getting new canisters for my pantry. I have some pretty canisters that are actually a pain to use, and it’s only taken me nine years to admit this. They’re just too narrow, so trying to scoop out of them, like it inevitably makes a huge mess on the counter. So I am switching over to more functional but less cute canisters with a really wide mouth, so hopefully they will be easier to use. They’re called the live lab easy to use dispensers, and I will put a link to them in the show notes.

 

Emily  26:02

Awesome.

 

Heidi  26:04

Yeah, hopefully I can get some baking done and frozen for December, but I won’t do it if I know it’ll make a mess. So, hopefully this will help. Okay, Emily, what are you working on this week?

 

Emily  26:17

Well, this week I’m picking up Halloween candy. I hate waiting until the last minute and not being able to find what I want, and often I can snag things on sale if I shop early too. So trying to decide if I’m going to put out some non candy items too, not planning to do potatoes. But last year, I did put out some Halloween slap bracelets that were very popular. So trying to decide if I want to have two options this year.

 

Heidi  26:41

Oh, that’s fun. I usually do stickers just I don’t have to worry about it. Yeah, that slap bracelet sounds like a lot of fun.

 

Heidi  26:48

To wrap up. The show, we are sharing our nice list. Emily, what has made it on your nice list this week?

 

Emily  26:53

I am adding my filtered showerhead to the nice list. I heard about it from one of my favorite Instagram accounts, young house love, and I like it because it’s really affordable, and the filters are affordable too. It has a few different modes that work great, and it was super easy to install. And I do feel like the filtered water has been great for my hair and my skin, and right now it’s even cheaper than when I bought it. So I picked up another one for my kids bathroom. Because my oldest has been preferring to shower in my shower because she prefers my shower head. So now she’s gonna have one in her own bathroom.

 

Heidi  27:26

That’s funny. I was just, I got an ad for one of these on Instagram, and I was looking at it like, oh, this might be a good thing. So now I know.

 

Emily  27:32

Well, if it’s still on sale when I send you the link later today, it’s only like 20 bucks right now. Oh, nice. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. What is going on your nice list, Heidi?

 

Heidi  27:42

I’m putting the Shark hair dryer on my nice list. I’ve had my hair dryer for about a year now, and I really love it, as much as I hate having to dry my hair. I got it on a Black Friday deal, and it costs way more than I have ever spent on a hair dryer before, but my stylist recommended it, so I took a risk, and thankfully, it paid off. I really do love it. It’s so fast and my hair is so soft, I would never have guessed that a hair dryer could really make that big of a difference, but it’s kind of a shocking amount of difference to what my hair was like before. I had no idea what I was missing out on. But since Black Friday is coming up in a few weeks, I wanted to mention it in case anyone else wants to snag one while it’s on sale.

 

Emily  28:24

Oh, that is a good idea. Maybe I need one. I don’t even have a hairdryer at the moment. Mine died and I never replaced it.

 

Heidi  28:31

Well, this is definitely a winner. You can try mine out if you want before you decide if you want to buy it.

 

Emily  28:35

Good idea. And we’re, between a filtered showerhead and a shark hairdryer, your hair is going to be looking nice, ladies!

 

Heidi  28:42

Yeah, follow us for more beauty tips.

 

Heidi  28:48

That is it for today’s episode. Use an action plan to plan out all of the details of your holiday traditions, and don’t forget our get ahead tip for setting up a need to know box.

 

Emily  28:58

Thank you so much for joining us, we hope you will be here again next week. If you enjoyed the episode, please do us a big favor and leave us a five star rating and a review on Apple podcasts so that we can reach new listeners who would also love to learn about planning their holidays.