Welcome to The Mom Flow, where I share things that are on my mind in the hopes of helping you connect to your Mom Flow. Thanks for being here! —Erin Sousa
It’s me, reporting live from the trenches of the holiday prep. But actually, it’s not the trenches, because I’m feeling like the early prep has paid off! ICYMI, here is how I get things ready in November to set up December for magic maker success.
Quick little catch up, shall we? I feel like I am a bit more prepared for the holidays now and let me tell you – that all has to do with the amount of help I have in place right now between hubs, paid help and child care from my in-laws. Saying it out loud needs to be normalized (otherwise, it’s the ‘how does she do it all’ toxic BS no one needs to feel) – not to mention normalizing asking for that help!
Here’s how things have gone down thus far over here:
Roberto took care of most of the decorations in our home – we did the tree as a fam, but all of the boughs, stockings, exterior lights were all him. He’s an undercover Martha if you didn’t know!
I have a house helper come in once a week which has been a huge load off of my plate to have support around the house with organizing, prepping, tidying. Just knowing I have someone on the smaller things that start to feel too big for me to get to is a breath of fresh air and has made me more productive with work for sure. And in that, I get to feel the festivity even more. When I’m highly stressed and bogged down, I can’t feel a sense of joy (it took awhile to learn this!).
I can’t help thinking about my mom even more over the holidays. Not only do I miss her even more, but I get both sad and happy thinking of how she made the holidays so special. I take away the reminders about what made me feel that magic as a kid and desperately want to be that mom to Lola. We also won’t be seeing my mom over the holidays for the first time in… well, my whole life. There has only been ONE Christmas I haven’t spent it with her (2004, the year I moved to Vancouver, they were living in Spain for the year and I had no one to spend it with – so depressing but you know who was there for me? Roberto and his family even though I only knew him for a few months and we were barely friends… and that’s all you need to know about the quality of people he and his fam are and have always been – story time for another time perhaps?). She is waiting for a room here in Vancouver since my sis moved to Kelowna and it’s going to feel really sad to not be in her presence over the holidays, whatever that looks like these days.
I sat down, pen to paper and yaaaa, so essential to getting all the gifts organized. Why do I always forget this?! Nothing better than seeing it all written out. I finally sat down, wrote down the kids, the gifts, ordered what I needed to, stepped out to the toy store (highly recommend doing it with a mom friend, grabbing lunch, making a thing of it), bought gifts on behalf of in-laws to take that off their plate (in the words of my MIL “I feel so relieved now!”).
Oh, and I also have told the close people in our lives… no presents! Don’t get us anything, and let’s all not stress. Can we normalize this?! OK, so we all know I will be baking Mimi’s Cinnamon Swirl Loaf (yup, I did my baking Costco run so I can make 12-15 loaves!) for our close people – I love to know they have it on xmas morning and it’s part of their traditions, but like, that’s a real ‘from the heart’ gift. So many of you message me saying how it’s become part of your Christmas traditions.
I ordered my client gifts from a local business (ERIN20 is my code) so I’m all set there! I asked that they be packed up in a nice little box and I’m ok with wrapping them up.
My sis started the tradition of homemade calendars – she would do one up for my mom every year from any photo shop and my mom LOVED it. This is now what I do for the in-laws and I need to get on it. You can find them at any photoshop website and make your own.
Hosting for the hols have commenced. I always get so many questions about hosting, how I make it look effortless, but lemme tell you, hosting is never effortless but it doesn’t need to be a torture test. It’s important to me that I get the chance to enjoy their company and the evening, too! So, here is the menu I’ll be doing this weekend for our friends – I did make sure the kids would eat salmon and if not, I would have no issue making a second main like pasta for them:
Main:
Baked Lemon Salmon with herby creme fraiche sauce
Garlic and Lemon Roast Potatoes
Citrus, Avocado and Fennel Salad (kids will have some cut up veggies)
Appies: burrata, prosciutto, olives, baguette, chips + dip
Dessert: store bought pie (from a nice bakery bc ‘store bought is fine’!) with ice cream and for the kids, brownies, ice cream and homemade fudge sauce
I might be able to pop in one more time before the holidays, but no promises! If I don’t see you, remember to take time to enjoy. That’s just as important as everyone else’s joy.
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