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Self care after Christmas, think of it as your New Years preview

mother and four kids on beach

Today is December 26th. Every December 26th I feel excited. I know a lot of people who feel low after Christmas, but although I love Christmas, there is something, a feeling like relief that I feel the day after Christmas.

December 26th is like my preview of New Years day, my fresh beginning. My family and I are currently in Florida, enjoying a much-needed family vacation, but we haven’t escaped the hosting, the visiting or the busyness of the holiday season.

My family is here too. Everyone. So instead of spending time with Mike’s family, we have been spending time with mine. We hosted Christmas eve and Christmas brunch and then went to my parents place for Christmas dinner. It was all wonderful and long overdue… 8 years to be exact.

But by the time we finished dinner last night, I hit a wall. The exhaustion took over. Our twins were unravelling too. Although we hadn’t played games yet, I know the three of us were done. So, I thanked my parents for dinner and told Mike to stay with the big kids as long as they would like, and then snuck out the door for the short walk back to our place.

Self care for the remainder of my trip means reading my book when I get a minute (loving A Stranger Next Door right now) and writing. I am also picking up my exercise starting today. I went for a run/walk this morning, and we are renting bikes for our family tomorrow.

What are you doing for yourself during the holidays? How do you feel after Christmas?

In today’s video I am sharing some practical tips that anyone can do.

5 Tips to stick to your holiday shopping budget

This post is sponsored by RBC. All expressed opinions and experiences are my own.

I confess. There have been some years where we have completely blown our holiday shopping budget at Christmas, shopping for gifts. Whether it’s lack of time, lack of planning, or emotional shopping, there have been years where my husband Mike and I have blown it…big time.

In the moment we think, “we’ll deal with it later”, but when later comes in January and you have to face the bills you’ve racked up, it feels awful. Not to mention, there is a ripple effect for months.

Finally, we’ve gotten to the bottom of this out-of-control spending and have learned not only why we were doing this to ourselves, but also how to avoid making this same mistake again. Here are some real-life tips to help you stay on track with your holiday spending.

1. Don’t shop with your kids
Whether it’s online shopping at home, or in-store, avoid shopping with your kids at all costs. They can distract you and rush you into making a purchase that you really didn’t think through properly. I think the biggest challenge with holiday shopping while your kids tag along is the pestering.

shopping with kids

Oh the pestering!

Fun fact… as a young child, I pestered so much that my parents banned me from stores for two years. TWO YEARS! This was way before online shopping, so how my mother followed through with this is beyond me. But my hat’s off to her, because that gave her some serious street cred among my siblings and me.

So, how exactly do you shop without your kids? Do your online shopping while your kids are napping, in school or in bed for the night.

Shopping in-store can be a little trickier. Hiring a babysitter for a few hours, and heading out the door with a clear list and plan is worth every penny.

Don’t have the luxury of being able to get a sitter? Try doing a swap with a neighbour or a friend. See if you can each watch the other’s kids while you get your holiday shopping done.

2. Simplify who you are buying for

At what point do you stop buying for all of your grown siblings and their kids? It’s worth the conversation with family members. You never know, everyone might be thinking the same thing, but everyone is too nervous to bring it up. Start setting some boundaries, and drawing the line.

Would switching to secret Santa for all of the relatives make more sense? What about capping the budget? We’ve slowed down the spending with our extended family and it has made a huge difference for our budget and all of the work that goes into figuring out what to get.

Replace that tradition with something new. We have started to host my brother and his family each Christmas for brunch and have a potluck style meal. This new tradition gives us something else to look forward to and plan.

3. Use lists and tools to track your spending.

Lists are imperative. Walking around a mall aimlessly without a list can do some major damage to your set budget. Have a plan and stick to it!

Our family uses RBC’s NOMI to help track our spending. Mike and I split up our spending and will often tackle our lists at separate times. NOMI helps us co-ordinate our spending by tracking gift buying while also monitoring our spending in other areas to compensate and make sure we aren’t going overboard.

RBC NOMI

Gift buying isn’t the only thing that puts a strain on your budget during the holidays. All of the entertaining and outings ramp up and can easily get out of hand. To keep on eye on this spending, we also use NOMI to track everything from our grocery bills to how much our family is spending on entertainment.

holiday shopping budget

4. Shop early and use your points.

I grew up in a house that always decorated for Christmas and did our holiday shopping well into December. Two of my siblings’ birthdays are in late November, so it was kind of an unspoken rule in my home.

But as an adult, and then as a mom, I started to realize that this wasn’t a rule that I had to follow and it was actually adding to my stress.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve begun my shopping in November and have completed everything by the second week of December. This has been a game-changer for my stress level and has helped me stick to a  holiday shopping budget, because I’m not rushing around.

Another thing I do is redeem my RBC Rewards points for gift cards including Amazon, Starbucks and Tim Hortons that we give to our kids’ teachers (teachers love gift cards), Home Depot and Bass Pro Shops for my brother-in-law (he loves anything DIY and sporty), and Cineplex for my mom (she loves movies).

5. Don’t guilt shop.

This has been a big lesson for Mike and I, and we’ve done it more than once.
When our son Holden was two, and our daughter Beau was a baby, we went completely overboard with the gifts.

Christmas morning

You see, our son Holden had a language delay and Sensory Processing Disorder, which was so challenging during those first few years. We were constantly battling feelings of defeat, because we didn’t know exactly how to help him, and guilt, because so often life seemed so very hard for him.

Looking back, we compensated what we were feeling with buying him lots of toys. Although Holden is now nine-years-old, and thriving, we still battle this feeling of wanting to spoil him because of the trauma we felt as parents during those years.

We have even guilt shopped out of nowhere. Every few years we spend Christmas in Florida, and the last time we were there, we ran out to the store and bought a bunch of extra toys for our kids because we were worried they didn’t have enough to open on Christmas morning.

We were so wrong!

They played with those bonus guilt toys for a few minutes before asking us to play with them on the beach.

All they wanted was us.

mom with kids on beach

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by RBC. While compensation was provided, all opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily indicative of the opinions of RBC.

I was chronically busy and it had to stop

busy mom

“How are you?” a friend asked me at a conference a couple weeks ago. I could feel an inner push and pull as to how to answer this question. I had just checked into the hotel and was crossing the threshold from frantically getting deadlines done, making lunches, breaking up my kids’ fights, and keeping my home afloat, to two days away, to take a minute, reflect and reassess.

“Truthfully,” I started, “I’m burnt out.” I immediately felt guilt bubble up inside of me, scolding me for complaining about life, when I had it so good on paper. My business was booming, my kids were healthy and doing well in school, my marriage was solid and my house was in the midst of getting much needed upgrades and renovations.

But then if you scraped just below the surface, you’d see that my work was so busy that I was neglecting myself and my kids, leaving my body feeling tired and out of sorts, and my kids edgy and vying for my attention. Although date night was keeping my marriage copacetic, Mike and I have been craving more day to day free time to play with our kids and be intimate with each other.

And then there’s our house, oh our house… every room told a story. Whether it was my dining room table, unrecognizable under the boxes of products, random fall and Christmas decor scattered throughout leftover from hosting and filming videos, or my seven-year-old daughter’s room, so messy it was begging for little critters to find it, each room was screaming “I NEED ATTENTION.”

As I continued answering my friend’s harmless question, I heard myself robotically say, “works crazy, and life is a bit off balance, but that’s a good problem, right?” a nervous giggle followed.

“Not always,” she replied.

As I sat in on inspiring panels, and delighted in a mid-afternoon nap, (which only happens when I am away at conferences), it became clear what I had to do going home.

I had to fight for balance.

Balance, less stress, less frantic, how ever you want to put it, wasn’t going to walk up to me one day and say, I’m here! No, it was up to me to fiercely fight for time and to create a life which is less busy, but more manageable and healthy.

So, how am I going to fight for what I so desperately need?

I am going to say no.

I have a lot on my plate between now and Christmas. Social gatherings and work commitments and piling on top of each other. Now, it’s one thing to properly tackle what you have committed to. It’s another thing to close the flood gates and say, “I’m at capacity.”

I am going to drop perfection.

I can tend to have this personality that is very all or nothing. As a kid and teenager it made me tip into the “I don’t care” category, leaving me failing classes and skipping school. But as an adult, it’s tipped the other way. Perfection with work, neglect with myself and home. I will leave a little on the table when it comes to work. Know that I am putting my heart into everything, but quitting the second guessing and the tinkering and just get on with it.

I will make plans.

We’ve booked a BIG vacation. I will document it all, don’t you worry. But what this has done has created a hard end date to my busy schedule. I will take time off a hit the reset button coming back.

I will stop wasting time.

I know, I was squeezing them lemon pretty hard. But guess what? I have been setting my alarm pretty early each morning and doing a pathetic workout and playing on my phone. But today was different. I went to a 6am fitness class where I was held accountable and phones were not allowed. I plan to go to these classes every weekday.

I will stick to my work hours.

Although I may have to still do some work on the weekends due to the nature of the projects I am working on, I will stop working after my kids get home from school and shift into mom-mode. Even if I am not entertaining them, (which isn’t my job), I can be a listening ear while prepping a healthy dinner, making lunches, or tidying up. Actually my kids seem happiest when I am occupied with mom tasks instead of sitting at my desk, shut away in my office.

It’s been a week now since pledging these changes to myself amidst this busy season, and I am happy to report that the “frantic” is gone. Life feels more manageable. I will never get it 100%, but who does? What matters is a calm has come over me and my family. We have slowed down. That burnt out feeling has dissipated.

I am fighting for balance.

 

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Neutral fall decor home tour

I really didn’t like my old, weathered, brightly coloured fall decorations anymore. September had hit and everything pumpkin spiced had exploded everywhere, yet I couldn’t drag myself to the bin in my basement which housed my fall decor.

Then it dawned on me… we have hit this magical age with our kids, where I  can put something pretty on a table, or a shelf and tell my kids, “this is a decoration, please don’t touch it,” and they actually listen. In case you are wondering, this magical age is four. At least that is the age of our youngest… twins.

This was it, time to upgrade and switch out our fall decor. Our old fall decorations consisted of bright oranges and yellow, reflective of the colours I surrounded myself with in our old home. But for the past few years, I have really been appreciating neutrals, and natural textures over bright colours. There’s something about this fresh, soft and cozy palette that makes me feel so relaxed.

So I began pulling inspiration from all over the place. I combed through our existing decor (both seasonal and everyday), and walked around our home deciding which areas were going to get dressed up for autumn.

After some shopping at Michaels and HomeSense, as well as a stop at a local farm, I was ready to execute my vision.

You can watch the full transformation in the video below.

I have been so thrilled with how it has turned out and cannot wait to host family and friends over this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Oh, and you may be wondering, how have the decorations stood up to our four kids? Really well. Except, they are very interested in the acorns… they are constantly being moved. I’m not sure what’s so fascinating about acorns.

fall decor

modern fall mantle

neutral fall centrepiece

natural fall decor

neutral fall decor

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Week two of school and the honeymoon is over

Hiding from my kids

Yesterday at 6pm I had enough. I had a decision to make, either I let the tears come, as I felt them bubble to the surface, hot behind my eyes, or I just walk away and hide from my family.

I chose to walk away.

I put down the cooked chicken I was cradling in my hands, turned and walked out of my kitchen, away from my family. I was careful to be soft on my feet as I went upstairs, so that it was clear that I wasn’t angry at my kids or my husband, I just needed a minute. I walked along my hall ignoring toys scattered around me, through my bedroom, past the laundry basket of my clean clothes that I hadn’t had time to put away and straight into my bathroom, locking the door behind me.

I gathered up some towels, making a comfy-enough nest on the ground and collapsed into the quietness.

About twenty minutes later, after some much-needed, mindless scrolling through my phone and realized that my towel nest wasn’t protecting my sensitive (birthed four kids and twins) hips from the cold tile floor very well. So I hoisted myself up and went back downstairs determined to make it through the school night.

What had led up to this point?

It was a combination of things… our dog escaping and running down the street before taking our kids to school, meltdown after meltdown from our twins after school, the many forms that I had to fill out which seemed to be coming home daily, the lunches to make, the kids to dress, the playdates to organize, the evening chats about friends, the bedtimes…

On top of it all I was now juggling less work hours during the day with more deadlines than ever flowing in.

But, it was the chicken that was my tipping point. Remember the chicken?

Earlier that day I had ignored my messy house around me and proudly stared at our rare, empty sink without even one dirty dish in it. I had decided to go pick up a pre-made chicken from the grocery store to avoid new dirty dishes. Well, because it was earlier in the day, I had to refrigerate the cooked chicken, and when Mike arrived home, and I was completely spent, he made a comment about me refrigerating it, which to him wasn’t ideal.

Ughhhh…. I was done.

I am writing this the next day, a new day. Although I still feel spread too thin, and I am bracing for the after school chaos, I am determined to figure out our new normal. I know that this is the hard part, and we have to figure out how we can swing this and what our rhythm will be. But I know we will get there.

So if you are in the second week of school trenches with me, hang in the mama, and don’t forget, it is okay to take a few quiet minutes for yourself.