Well, Here we are in December- the final month of 2020. Like so many others, I am praying that 2021 is a kinder, healthier, more joyful year. Part of me didn’t even want to set goals for this month, to say GOOD RIDDANCE 2020! and just hold out for the new year, but I decided I don’t want this holiday season to pass me by just because it can’t be the way I hoped so… here’s a recap of last month and a look at what I’m working on this month…
NOVEMBER MONTHLY GOALS:
*Plan for the Holidays: We made a good start here. Some of the plans aren’t what we hoped they would be. But we are trying to focus our gratitude on what we can still do safely and together.
*Prep for end of year finance decisions: Done. Made all the open enrollment decisions that drive us crazy and now we don’t have to think about them again until the end of next year.
*Continue Your Special Day: Totally missed the mark on this one and only made it happen with one kid… the baby… Lesson learned: Put it on the calendar or it isn’t going to happen! ESPECIALLY in the holiday season.
*Continue Fall Cleaning: Some progress here for sure and I know something is better than nothing, but honestly not as much got done as I would have liked. We ended up shifting most of our attention to holiday stuff aka cleaning the kitchen and the laundry room/organizing our garage as opposed to the laundry room or office or closets, etc.
*Decide on Advent activities: Yes. We made our holiday bucket list and planned out the non-negotiable. Even though we are missing out on some of our favorite traditions, we have others that will bring us joy and I’m still looking forward to our nightly advent rituals of holiday books and paper chains and music and prayer.
NOVEMBER WEEKLY GOALS:
*Weekly Miles: Yes! I’m not going to log as many miles as my crazy high month of October, but I hit my miles every week and exceeded them most weeks.
*Yoga/meditation x2: At least once each week, some weeks I hit two.
*Project Life Pages/photo routine: Hit and miss. All caught up on Project Life pages, less caught up on My Modern Story pages and my photo purge routine.
*Make Memories in the Kitchen: All but one week the kids cooked or baked with us and had a blast doing it. I forgot how much I love that.
*Family Meeting/ Budget Check in: It wasn’t always pretty, and we definitely forgot some expenses at the beginning of the month, but it happened and we didn’t get TOO off track…
NOVEMBER DAILY GOALS:
*Daily step count/hydrate: By far the most consistent of my daily goals. Woohoo!
*Sleep Hygiene: By far the least consistent of my daily goals… but did seem to get better at the end of the month, so maybe we are turning a corner?!
*10 minute tidy: Hit and miss. May move this to a mid-day event instead of a post-dinner routine when everyone is tired and time feels crunched.
*Evening Routine: Hit and miss. Mostly thrown off by baby’s sleep schedule and random evening zoom meetings.
*Readaloud Time: At least 5x a week. I think we’ll be shifting from chapter books into our Advent/Christmas books next month, but looking forward to revisiting this next year!
And here you go, my final tending list for 2020…
DECEMBER MONTHLY GOALS:
*Holiday Bucket List: Last month we created a family bucket list. It’s part of what we do during any normal year to reduce holiday stress, but obviously with the caveat of only safe, socially distanced activities this year. Now we feel like we can focus on each family member’s top choices for holiday activities instead of dealing with the FOMO of ALLLLLL the Christmas options.
*2021 Powersheets Prep Work: As I mentioned before, I am super jazzed to move on from this year and welcome 2021- reassessing my goals and setting some new ones for the year (or maybe not? maybe several similar ones but approached differently? I’m never sure until I go through the process) is a great way to start moving on from 2020.
*Holiday orders/crafting work: A few personalized holiday orders and a few new items for a craft bazaar need to be completed early this month. Fun to jump back into this kind of work after so much time away from it.
*Pre-Christmas Purge/Donations: Before we bring ANYTHING new into the house we HAVE to get rid of some old, well loved but falling apart toys and apparel. We also have some baby clothes to donate/pass on the love. AKA I need them out of my garage!
*Holiday Necessities: This was the term I gave to holiday stuff that is a little more tedious, but is important to me that it gets done anyway (like gift wrapping and updating everyone’s address.)
*CELEBRATE PROGRESS AND FINISH STRONG!: Finding the happy and the progress and the sweet hope of what I can still do in this last month of the year.
One thing I will not be baking is macarons… we outsource that labor while the kids are still little, but we still enjoy them each Christmas Eve…
DECEMBER WEEKLY GOALS:
*Project Life pages- Finish 2020 Family Yearbook!: I want this ready to go! Even if it doesn’t get printed until early next year.
*Holiday Baking: More memories in the kitchen! More yummy seasonal flavors! Cold weather also means warm meals that I don’t enjoy 6 months out of the year 🙂
*Weekly Mileage: I’ve met my yearly mileage goal, but I still want to finish strong and embrace the nicer weather.
*WRITE!: I want to try and get ahead on some posts as we close out the year and look toward 2021. I also want to keep working on some ideas for a short script because- CREATIVITY! YAY!
*2020 Photos organize/purge: I have written several times about how since my husband started using our home computer screen from work my photo organization has gone off the rails… he has some time off in December, and I am ready to use some of that time to play catch up with the thousands of unsorted photos!
DECEMBER DAILY GOALS:
*Advent Observance: A few daily practices here- we have our traditions of an “advent calendar” of Christmas books as well as a tradition singing Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel, and this year I am working hard to try and make Jesse tree ornaments for us to talk about and hang each day, but I didn’t get quite the head start on them that I would have liked so we’ll see how that goes!
*Finish Strong (Steps & Strength): In general, I’ve been doing a good job of moving my body more (especially outside in the sunshine and nice weather!), but I would like to start rebuilding some strength too! (as you can tell, finish strong is kind of the whole theme of this month…)
*Phone Limits/Phone out of my room: The number one focus of my sleep hygiene this month.
*Evening routine: Excited to add “stare at the Christmas lights with a cup of something warm” to my evening routine this month…
*Garden time/outside time with the kids: Pretty self explanatory. I thought the fall garden was a bust, but turns out it just needed the weather to act like fall weather and we are starting to see some blooms and food!
So that’s how I plan to spend the end of my year. Any special end of year plans or goals for you, sweet readers? Any year long goals you are celebrating progress on or hoping to make progress on in this final stretch?
Alphabet Resolutions 