I’ve realized, in my annual rhythms, that November tends to be a planning time. There is the immediate need to plan the holidays — the various activities, gift lists, and more. Through hard experience I’ve also realized that it’s best to plan my two post-Christmas babies’ birthday parties in November as well (turns out every kid with a holiday birthday wants to book the popular places for the first/second weekend of January! If I wait until mid-December they’re often booked.) It is also time to construct…the summer spreadsheet! If my kids want certain weeks of certain camps, it’s generally wise to do this before the new year.
So, this weekend, I sat down with the 10-year-old to talk through his summer plans. We chose some camps he wants to do and looked at what weeks they are available. I’ll start working on that this week.
I’m also thinking through my own goals for 2026 in advance of recording our annual Best of Both Worlds “Goals” episode. We tend to do this in late November/early December so that is well nigh upon us.
Then, this year, I have a book coming out in May. I’m headed into NYC this week to meet with the publicity team and plan how we will market it. So that’s another bit of future planning to add to the month.
When trying to balance the need to think through the future with dealing with current projects/deadlines I find my weekly planning process is really helpful. As I look forward to the upcoming week, I think about what has to happen that week, and then I think about what steps toward longer-term projects could reasonably fit in the next week. Sometimes these need to be spread over a while. I started the family gift list last week and I hope to have it mostly constructed this week, in time to go into any Black Friday sales with an actual mindful list. I am starting the camp spreadsheet this week but probably won’t book stuff until next week or the first week of December.
But I do like the sense that I’m making progress on the longer term stuff. It won’t happen last minute — probably. And that makes life feel a lot more calm.
This was a fairly chill weekend — fewer activities than usual. We went out for a family dinner at our favorite Mexican place on Friday night. On Saturday I took the 16-year-old to a robotics tournament (by “took” I mean he drives every time we are in the car together…trying to get him his supervised permit hours!), then did my long run. I took the 14-year-old to Michael’s craft store as she has designs on various Christmas decorations. We wound up with some fun stuff. We taped the Texas A&M football game and watched that in late afternoon — they came back from being down 30-3 at the half to win, so that was pretty incredible. On Sunday I had the usual church routine, plus tennis lessons for two of the kids. Music lessons got canceled so I listened to everyone practice instead. My husband and I started watching the Eagles game but needed to go up to bed around 10:30 so it was good to see they won too.
Now today features a lot of recording, plus the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community meet-up via Zoom. I may be tired of hearing myself talk by the end of the day!
Photo: I succumbed and bought the Starbucks ornament. We’re there enough…
I also bought a similar Starbucks ornament! We gift our kids a new ornament every Christmas Eve (with the plan being when they leave home they’ll have lots of nostalgic ornaments to take with them to start their own trees). It is hands down my favourite Christmas tradition and the kids LIVE FOR getting those ornaments.
When they were little I just bought cute things, but now I try to find something that matches the current years interests. My son is getting a Hallmark video game controller ornament, and my teen is getting the Starbucks one. She is going through a Starbucks phase so I figured I would lean into it 😉 I hope she’s surprised to open it up!
@Elisabeth – what a fun tradition! And yes, the ornaments are really cute. We spend so much time and $$ at Starbucks it deserves a place on the tree!
That Starbucks ornament is so very cute! I really should get one for our tree since I’m such an SBUX enthusiast!
We definitely started to play Will’s 5th bday party way too late. His bday is 12/3 and it snuck up on us. I looked around at party options and got overwhelmed quickly. We were considering a sledding party but the place we wanted to go only allows those over the age 5 and some of his friends aren’t quite 5 so I just gave up (even though it prob would have been fine to have a 4.75 year old on the hill). Instead we’ll host 5 kids in our house and I am just hoping we maybe have snow by then and can sled by our house. Otherwise I’ll have them decorate sugar cookies so they have some activity to fill the time!
@Lisa – December/early January birthdays are tough for kids! Not only are all the gift-receiving occasions at the same time of year, it can be hard to book a party. That said, as an adult I love a December birthday because everything is already festive. I am almost universally attending a party or two right around my birthday…and it’s not one I have to plan and host!