04 Holiday Plan and Prep Guide

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Episode Notes

In this episode we will be going through my exact Google folder I use to plan for the holidays. We will be talking about two documents specifically—a Holiday Planning Workbook Google Doc and a Holiday Action Plan Google Sheet.

I am speaking through the lens of Christmas because that is our family’s biggest holiday to plan for at this time of year, but these documents could help you with other holiday planning as well, depending on what your family celebrates!

I’m going to use these Show Notes below to give you the bullet points of what we chat about in the episode.

Inside the Holiday Planning Workbook

Holiday planning checklist (example)

• Decorate

• Take or find photos for Christmas card

• Order Christmas cards 

• Send Christmas cards

• Schedule time to get a Christmas tree 

• Schedule time to decorate the Christmas tree 

• Schedule times for Advent calendar 

• Schedule church events 

• Purchase donation gifts and/or schedule volunteer time 

• Prep and freeze any holiday event food 

• Bake cookies / freeze

• Finalize gift ideas 

• Purchase / order gifts 

• etc. etc. etc.

Holiday clean up checklist 

• Pack away physical holiday items 

• Tidy up any online gift registries / delete / start fresh ones. 

• Put away all new gifts. Rid of packaging. Cut tags / wash any new clothing. 

• etc. etc. etc.

Purchase gifts for:

List of people for which you’ll need to remember to purchase or make gifts for in the upcoming year. 

i.e. family members, mail person, delivery drivers, teachers, sports coaches, etc.  

Gift Ideas

Example–

• Person 

  • Gift idea #1

  • Gift idea #2 

Example–

• Traditional gifts  

  • i.e. new annual ornaments for each child 

Example–

• DIY gifts 

  • i.e. dehydrated stovetop potpourri 

Food & Recipes 

Place your recipes into the “Recipes” sub folder. Link to the associated Google docs in the charts below. 

• Hosting Food 

• Sides to bring as a guest 

• Christmas morning food 

Simple December Meal Plan

Use this space to list out your favorite, simple meals for the month of December. I included two of my favorite, easy cold weather freezer meals. 

1. Freezer Chicken Pot Pie 

2. Freezer Beef Stew 

3. etc. etc. etc.

Regular traditions to remember / schedule

i.e. make reindeer food, string popcorn, cookie baking with extended family 

Regular events to add to calendar in December

i.e. Christmas parade, school holiday concert 

General timeline

Dates or goals you might want to tentatively put on your calendar or use to plan your time around. 

November 1–pull out holiday decor bins 

Mid November–make freezer meals for month of December

Thanksgiving weekend–cut and decorate Christmas tree, cookie baking 

December 1–finished with gift shopping 

etc.

Inside the Holiday Action Plan Google Sheets

• To purchase (decor, etc.)

• To do

• Gift plan for others

• Gift plan for immediate family

• Holiday event plan and what to bring to each event

Listen to the episode for explanations and more information.

How to gain access to the fancy folder—

⬇️ 1. Become a paid Substack supporter to access the paywall below and gain access to the Google folder.

OR

⭐️ 2. Purchase access to the Google folder separately in the website’s shop!

Happy holiday planning!

<3 Tash

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