Let me say this plainly: I adore the holidays. But I’d be fibbing if I said they weren’t also utterly exhausting. Somewhere between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, an entire year’s worth of gatherings, gifting, travel, and year-end deadlines gets crammed into roughly five weeks, and even the most organized among us end up running on sugar cookies and sheer adrenaline.
The secret, I’ve learned, isn’t doing more. It’s doing the right things earlier — in other words, in early November, while everyone else is still debating whether it’s too soon to play Mariah. Here are the fourteen things I’m doing right now that make the season feel less like a sprint and more like a sip and stroll.
Tell me: what’s one thing you do early that makes the holidays better? Leave it in the comments — I fully intend to steal it!!!
1. Decorating in early November
I’m aware this is the least popular opinion in the piece, so let’s get it out of the way: our house is decorated by the first week of November, and I will not be taking questions.
Hear me out. When the décor stays up for two months rather than four frantic weeks, I’m far more inclined to go all out — the garland, the good ribbon, the full production. Starting early also means I can pace it: an hour a night for a week, rather than surrendering an entire Saturday (or a post-work Tuesday) to tangled lights and mild existential dread. And nothing romanticizes the season quite like twinkle lights and candlelight from the very start. I’m watching the morning news over poinsettias, candlelight, and coffee in a Christmas mug as I type — pure magic!
2. Ordering Christmas cards
Order your cards now. Early birds are routinely rewarded with very good deals, and given the current temperament of the U.S. Postal Service, a card dropped in the mailbox before Thanksgiving may still arrive somewhere around mid-December. We selected ours from Dogwood Hill, and they arrived so quickly — I cannot wait to share!
3. Choosing every gift
Everyone on our list, from my husband down to the lovely team at doggie daycare, already has a gift selected. I chose each item, built our budget around full price, and now I simply wait to see whether Black Friday offers anything compelling. If it does, wonderful — the savings are a bonus. If it doesn’t, we’re still on budget, and no one’s present is an impulse purchase. It keeps the spending focused and spares me the particular overwhelm of shopping without a plan.
P.S. My gift guides arrive Sunday, November 15!
4. A new gifting tradition with Carter: read, wear, splurge
This year, Carter and I started a new tradition: three gifts each. Something to read, something to wear, and something the other wouldn’t buy for themselves.
It’s elegant in its constraints. Gone is the amorphous guessing game of gift-giving — am I spending too much? Not enough?
5. Booking the traditions early
Nothing drains the joy from December quite like the group-chat negotiation of When Can Everyone Possibly Meet. So I set traditions, and I book them early.
My group of girlfriends — who call ourselves a “book club” with varying degrees of literary commitment — bought tickets to the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus holiday concert back in July. Fizzy cocktails and bites beforehand, carols after, and our holiday get-together is handled with zero effort months ahead of schedule.
Another favorite: the Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles Holiday Designer Showhouse, which I visit each year with my best friend and her mother-in-law (who, conveniently, is also a best friend of mine). We put the date on the books well in advance, which is precisely why it actually happens annually.
6. Embracing the gap week
Another unpopular opinion: the weekend before Thanksgiving is criminally underused! The social season hasn’t officially begun, and nobody’s calendar has seized up yet. This year, my friend group planned a couples trip for exactly that weekend, rather than doing the delicate December dance of finding a single night when all of us are free and unobligated. (Spoiler: that night does not exist!).
7. Putting it on the calendar — immediately
My personal motto: if it isn’t on my calendar, it doesn’t exist. The moment a plan is made — a coffee, a cookie swap, the drop-off of a little surcie — it goes in.
I learned this the hard way. Last year, Carter and I had company holiday parties on the same night and didn’t notice until far too late. We’d RSVP’d to both and refused to no-show, which is how my husband came to attend my company’s decidedly not-black-tie cocktail party in a full tuxedo. He looked so handsome. But also ridiculous. :)
8. Keeping a gift stash and a good florist on speed dial
Few things are more awkward than receiving a beautifully wrapped present when you’ve arrived empty-handed — or getting a last-minute invitation with nothing to bring. The fix: a small stash of easy gifts, already wrapped, tag tied on, ready to go. My current favorite is NEST’s holiday candles, which come packaged to look like ornaments,
And keep a good florist’s number saved! A same-day arrangement can fix anything.
9. Stocking up on comfort recipes
Keep a short roster of easy, breezy recipes in rotation — or, better yet, batch and freeze ahead. Future you, home at 8 p.m. in a velvet dress and a state of sensible exhaustion, will be grateful. My favorites are a chicken and wild rice casserole and a good pot of chili (I’ll leave my recipe in the comments!).
10. Eating and drinking (mostly) clean
The holidays are a marathon, not a sprint. Last year, by the time January arrived, I was essentially one large ball of Christmas cookies and champagne. It was a wonderful season. But I felt heinous.
So: indulge freely when you’re out and soirée-ing. But in these early days and in the pockets in-between, prioritize nourishing meals, hydrate like it’s your job, and give the booze a rest.
One swap I love: instead of a glass of red to wind down before bed, a THC drink. See my full guide here, or go straight to ordering my favorite.
11. Dropping off the dry cleaning now
Tuxedos, cocktail dresses, the velvet blazer that only sees daylight in December — take it all to the dry cleaner now!
12. Curating a menu of comfort content
I make myself a little menu of holiday comfort content — shows, movies, and books — so that when downtime appears, I’m not aimlessly scrolling for forty minutes before giving up. I also look up which gloriously terrible, terribly glorious Netflix original Christmas movies are coming out and when, and slot them in like appointments.
Let me know if you’d be interested in me creating a holiday comfort content menu!
13. Planning daytime gatherings
Could your girlfriends do a pre-work coffee with a round of holiday mahjong? Could book club toast with mocktails over a weekday lunch? The point isn’t to cram in more — it’s variety. Winter has a way of shoving everything into two weekends and a string of late nights. A daytime gathering breaks the pattern, and everyone’s home in time to do their skincare routine.
14. Not caring about New Year’s Eve, at all
This is the one I let go entirely. I am well past the stage of dressing up to pay cover for an overpriced, understaffed open bar. My ideal New Year’s Eve is a luxurious dinner out, early, followed by games and drinks at home, toasting as Andy and Anderson take shots and merrily bully Ryan Seacrest on live television. Bliss!!!
A practical tip: we’ve landed hot reservations for groups as large as twelve just seven to ten days out, simply by being willing to dine at 5 p.m. So that part we figure out closer to the date — the one thing all season I happily refuse to plan in advance!
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The Lauren Letter Holiday Content Suite
P.S. I promise to always keep The Lauren Letter free as my little exercise of trying to make the world a bit more beautiful. If, in return, you could considering giving this post a “like” or share with a friend, it would just mean the world to me.
Love the gift exchange guidelines for your husband! Might be borrowing that!
Great Tips!! I get so stressed after Thanksgiving trying to fit everything in. Thanks for sharing.