How do you feel as you disassemble the holiday season? Is it even possible to be as optimistic taking down strands of flashing lights as putting them up? For most of my adult life, I didn’t think so.
I would always try to draw inspiration from the Dr. Seuss quote “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened,” but it never worked. For me, taking down the garlands always conjured an image of a tired old person wearing coveralls and slowly sweeping an enormous floor. I would wrap up each Christmas ornament while singing Closing Time by Semisonic.
“You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”
Over the years, however, I’ve found a couple tricks to inject some positivity into the holiday memorial service season. My favorite one simply involves planning next year’s holiday.
I’m not kidding here. The best way to shake off the blues for those of us who are sad to see December come to an end is to get excited about something down the road.
One of my favorite sayings in consulting is “If something keeps happening in your business and surprising you, it’s time to stop being surprised. This is your business model.” I believe the same is true in every aspect of life, especially during the holidays.
As we take down our holiday decor, there’s never going to be a better time to reflect back on the season behind us and decide what caught us off guard and what we want to do better or differently next time. What were we surprised by? How do we make it so we’re not surprised next year?
Think about it: If you could send a note back to yourself in early November to make the holiday season better, what would that note say? Well, we can’t send the note back to last November, but we can do the second best thing, and that’s send it ahead to next November!
Write the note you wish you had received two months ago. The one that says things like:
- Order yourself a new ugly sweater so it’s here for the clinic holiday party
- Volunteer to do the green beans at Thanksgiving so Aunt Francis doesn’t do them
- Recognize that a lot of euthanasias will be coming in. Plan to practice selfcare, get good rest, and leave work at work.
- Get secret santa started 2 weeks earlier
- Make a pact with your spouse that either one of you can decide it’s time to leave any holiday gathering after 60 minutes without debate
Think about how much better your next holiday can be if you just take the lessons you learned over the last several weeks and paste them on your calendar for November 1, 2025!
The best defense against the sadness of an ending is excitement about a new beginning. Ten months from now, you won’t remember what would have made these holidays better for you. But you can remember those things today. Don’t waste that insight! Use your time breaking down the artificial tree to plan how to make November & December of 2025 into the best holiday season ever.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an icy-cold ladder to climb.
Happy New Year!!
– Andy
About the photo: Our holiday family photo looks a little different this year. We spent Christmas day on the Caribbean island of Bonaire where the kids learned to SCUBA dive!
