Plan your holidays.
NOW.
Wait, WHAT?
Yes, I am talking about December 2016.
And yes, this is the 1st of February – you are NOT going crazy.
Your watch (or should I say phone?) is right.
It probably almost sounds crazy, right?
Why would anyone in their right mind be telling you to already plan for December 2016?
That’s too much even for the overachiever.
I mean, ok – You plan three, six months in advance – but not a YEAR ahead!
We don’t even know where we will be then…
Others of you will say – and I can hear you already – It’s just been a month since we survived these last holidays – why would we want to hash it out again?
I don’t want to keep arguing about all of that any more than we already have…
Well, you are right.
It’s recent.
And maybe it’s a little earlier than you have been used to – BUT – see for yourself – here are three reasons why you should plan your holidays 2016 now.
You just went through it.
It’s only been a month and a few short days.
Everything that happened (or didn’t happen) is still in the recent memory folder of your brain.
That means you don’t have to dig down I don’t know how deep to get to the good stuff.
That means you still remember (and very well so) when you were happy.
You also remember when you were not.
How different events or things made you feel is still close within your memory’s reach.
You have clear ideas about what was really good and turned out excellent.
You might also have some ideas about things/events/people that were missing.
The reasons that this year’s holiday season was hard are right at your fingertips.
Now do you see what I am saying??
And you can talk about it because it isn’t 5 years ago.
Where you are both digging up dirt that has long been watered, and dug up and messed with a million times over since.
Now, instead, it’s still a fresh memory.
(Good or bad, but it’s fresh nevertheless)
You can easily recall what happened and when, how and why it wasn’t so great (or if it was, then what made it great).
It’s also been a month since all of it happened and you are way more likely NOT to be as emotionally charged as you were the day of.
And by golly, you and I know that you tried talking about it then but – with no surprise – it blew up in your faces.
With a few weeks in between the actual events and the conversation, you are both more likely to have a kind and loving approach to the conversation at hand about the events passed.
It’s hard (or, do I dare say impossible?) to have any sort of conversation when you are trying to pull three dishes out of the oven, put away the kids’ toys that have miraculously piled up in the middle of the dining room while last minute hanging up clean hand towels in the bathroom and trying to respond to the door bell and opening the door – ‘cause – of course, the guests were walking in.
That’s a lot.
I am out of breath even typing it.
Now that you have taken care of the ‘fire’ in the kitchen, you are not upset like you were in the moment right then and there, you are able to look at the holidays as a whole with more calmness in your voice and heart.
So, do it.
This one may seem a little matter-of-fact – but I am going to say it out loud anyway.
Based on the points above – here is my conclusion for you.
Were there things that worked and worked great over the holidays for you as a couple?
Were there things that you both can raise a glass to and say in unison:
Congratulations, we did it! – Then – Do more of that.
Make a plan to keep that same system in place, use the same schedule, utilize the same resources to make what worked great awesome again.
Because you want to both see a smile on each other’s faces instead of a frown, that’s easy.
Now, you probably know what’s coming next.
IF there were things or events or times over the holidays that didn’t quite work so well, don’t do it.
Make an adjustment.
Make a new plan.
Try something different.
This is your chance to talk about doing something else or just doing it differently so that it works better for you both as individuals and as a couple.
Ok, so I lied – I got one more.
It’s a short one though, don’t worry –
Think of it as a bonus:
Remember that with marriage, everything is a learning curve.
If you ignore all of what I said above and then next year comes and all of what happened this year happens again and you are going to want to get all bent out of shape because it happened AGAIN or something failed to happen again – Remember this:
You can’t expect anything to change if you don’t do anything about it in advance.
It’s that simple.
You have got to bring it up.
You have got to be willing to have a conversation with your spouse and make sure that this year’s holidays are an improvement to last year’s.
Nobody can do this for you.
Now, sometimes, there are things that you might have a hard time talking about with just the two of you.
Maybe it’s because anytime you do talk about them, they tend to blow up in your face now matter how hard you try.
Maybe they carry along so much pain that even the thought of having that conversation hurts you deep down.
If that’s you, I have had couples bring those particular issues to the office and make them ‘office-only’ material – meaning, they are NOT to discuss it at home.
If you are thinking – since when do you have a hidden camera in our house? – maybe I can help you sort through some of it.
(and no, I don’t have hidden cameras anywhere)
Your next holidays could very well be Ah-mazing.
