Holiday Essentialism

Every year, it seems the holidays arrive like a glittering freight train. Full of joy, but also packed with stress, overwhelm, and excess. But what if this year you approach the season differently? What if you practice the art of essentialism and focused on what truly matters? That's what we're talking about in today's episode. So let's dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hello my friends. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm recording this the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm in the process of wrapping up some things so that I can unplug and go spend Thanksgiving with my family at my parents' house. I am so looking forward to the simple things, hanging out with my family, playing games, eating some Turkey, probably watching some football, all of the Thanksgiving things, and I think back to years prior and how I would be feeling this time of year.

And quite honestly, the word that comes to mind is holiday overwhelm. I would be feeling a lot of overwhelm. I would be sprinting through crowded malls, overscheduling myself and trying to live up to this Pinterest-perfect standard of what I thought a holiday should look like. I mean, have you ever felt like holidays were less about joy and more about surviving a marathon of obligations? Yeah, me too. That's how I felt for many, many years. And I've thought a lot about why that is, and I think there are several things. I think one, there is this societal pressure to have a perfect holiday. The ones you see on Instagram where the table is set perfectly and the gifts are wrapped perfectly, and the food looks like it came from a Michelin star restaurant, and you see that and you're like, oh, this must be the answer to enjoying my life more.

And what I can tell you from striving for that, that is not the answer, my friends, that just leads to more pressure, more overwhelm, and it takes you further away from how you want to feel. I think another reason is that we have a fear of disappointing others. If I don't get everybody the gifts that they want or if I don't host Christmas dinner, then people are going to be disappointed. And then the final cause is I think we confuse activity with meaning. What do I mean by that? We equate doing more things with adding more meaning, and often the opposite happens. We don't experience meaning because we're so busy running around doing things because we think we "should be doing them". And so we end up wrapping up our holidays a mess. We feel burnt out and we feel stressed and maybe even financial strain because you've tried to make everybody happy and you've overspent, and this is a very common occurrence.

In fact, 60% of people report feeling financially stressed during the holidays. I don't like that stat. I want us to enter into the new year feeling abundant, feeling just joyful of how we've spent our holidays and a sense of calm. Speaking of calm, I have a very special gift for you. If you go to schoolofselfimage.com/be, B-E, calm. Let's be calm, my friends. You can download my calm meditation. This meditation has helped me calm my nervous system so many times. And when we are experiencing calm, we are more clear. We are more relaxed, obviously, but we're often more productive and we're able to focus on what really matters. And so again, if you would like to get my free calm meditation, you can go to schoolofselfimage.com/becalm. Now I want to talk about holiday essentialism.

If you want to take a step back and really think through your holidays from an intentional place, this episode is for you. Now, what is essentialism? Well, this is a philosophy coined by Greg McKeown in his book called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, and the idea is to focus your time and energy on fewer things that truly matter. It's not about doing less for the sake of less, it's about doing less but better, and I think it's about doing less for the sake of experiencing more. So let's think about how this applies to our holidays. Instead of cramming your calendar or your checklist full, you need to stop and ask yourself some really important questions, and I challenge you to do this. Set aside some time after listening to this and answer these three questions. The first one is, what truly brings me joy during the holidays?

Do you really enjoy going over to your sister-in-law's house and eating dinner every Christmas Eve? Do you really enjoy decorating every corner of your home? Now, if you do, beautiful, keep doing that. But I just want you to think about what are all of these things that you've been doing that you don't actually really enjoy? And you may find that you don't like any of the holiday stuff. You're like, I just want to go away on a vacation. Guess what? You get to do that. No one has to celebrate the holidays. And if it's weighing you down and stressing you out and causing you overwhelm, I challenge you to skip it all together. If holidays are not your thing, especially around this time of year, I have a really good friend who she struggles this time of year, she's lost her family, and yet she feels this pressure to somehow participate in the holidays when in fact what she would rather do is take herself away on a beautiful weekend.

You can do that. That is how to enjoy the holidays more. You doing the holidays in a way that supports you. Next question is to ask yourself, what am I doing just because I think I have to? Such a good question. Do you have to do those things? The truth is you don't. You don't have to do anything, and there's nothing worse than the experience of doing something from this have to energy and resisting it and hating it the entire time. I always say either don't do it or if you're going to do it, choose to delight in it, change your thoughts about it. But there are so many things that maybe you're doing during the holidays that you don't have to do, and if you just gave yourself permission to stop doing them, you would experience a more joyful, calm and beautiful holiday. Finally, the last question is, what memories do I want to create this year?

Do you want memories with your kids in the morning around the Christmas tree eating your cinnamon French toast? Do you want to create the memory of one special evening getting decked to the nines and going out with your best girlfriends to celebrate the holidays? Do you want the memory of sitting around with your best friends and playing games? Really think through the memories that you want to create. When you think back on this holiday season, what do you want to have planted in your mind that says yes, more of this, please? So the shift in mindset with holiday essentialism is to move from access to intention and from pleasing others to cherishing moments. Those two shifts right there will change not only your holiday, but it'll change your life. So I'm going to share with you how I'm applying essentialism to my holidays. The first thing is to identify what matters most.

And a way to do this is to think back on past holidays and which moments fill you with the most joy. Was it a quiet evening with family? Was it a specific tradition like baking cookies? Was it curling up on the sofa and watching your favorite Christmas movies in pajamas? Something that my mom did every year was every Christmas Eve, she would make a big pot of vegetable soup, super simple, with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And even to this day, that is the one memory that I have of the holidays, how much we enjoyed eating vegetable soup and PB&J sandwiches, and I haven't done that in a long time. And I thought, you know what? This year, I want to bring that back. It was just a simple meal with the people you love, and we would watch Christmas movies. It's not fancy, but it was meaningful, and I cannot believe I'm about to say this because I never thought I would be uttering these words ever again because after Sarah grew up and left the nest, I was at a point where I don't ever want to bake again.

I don't want to cook again. Because you know what it's like when you've had a family and you've been the one who's done all of the cooking, all of the cleaning, there's like a little rebel inside of you that you're like, never again. But guess what? Guess what I want to do this year because I actually have very fond memories of doing it. And now that I have an amazing 12-year-old in the house, I want to bake cookies this year. I want to do those cute little press cookies with, they're like the butter sugar cookies, whatever they're called that you make all the little designs with the cookie press and then you decorate them with all kinds of cute Christmas decorations. I want to make those and I want to take them to my neighbors. I know. I'm like, who am I right now? But that's the thing.

You get to evolve. You get to bring back things, you get to let go of things. Just because you've done something for years doesn't mean you have to continue doing it. And just because you quit something years ago swearing you would never do it again, doesn't mean you don't get to change your mind and bring that back. So think about what matters most to you during this holiday. The next thing I'm doing is editing ruthlessly. I'm letting go of all of the shoulds. Should I really send out Christmas cards even though I hate doing them? No. It is not a requirement for an amazing and beautiful holiday. Should I go to every party that I'm invited to? No, not if it doesn't excite me, not if it's something that feels like more of an obligation than a true deep want to. And you can say no gracefully.

You can say thank you so much for inviting me, but I've decided to keep things really simple this season, so I won't be able to make it. But I appreciate you thinking of me. It's kind and it also honors you and what it is that you want. Also, I'm editing down my gift list. I used to put so much pressure on myself to buy everybody everything that they ever wanted. Then at the end of the month, I would look at my credit card bill and be like, wow, you really did it, Tonya Leigh. You really pleased everyone else, but you're not really pleased right now. I mean, American Express is really pleased. All of those stores that you supported, they're really pleased, but at the expense of your own calm, your own peace. Now, here's the tricky part. I love giving gifts. It is so fun for me to give, but I think the energy in which you give something matters. I don't like giving from a place of should and have to. I like giving from that energy of delight and wanting to.

And so looking at your gift list and editing it down to a place that feels good for you. And if it's filled with guilt, if you notice the word should, you need to stop and reassess your list because again, that is not the energy in which we want to create our lives, and it's not the energy in which we want to give a gift. And then finally, creating space for presence. I think during this time of year, we can fill our calendars with so much that we don't have the downtime to really just enjoy ourselves and the people around us. So whether it's a day to yourself or a family movie night or just a morning to sip coffee and journal, make sure you create that space for presence. And then mindfulness. It's so important no matter what we're doing to focus on being present rather than perfect. I think about the smell of cookies baking and laughter in the kitchen matters way more than whether they look Instagram worthy or not.

The holidays are not a performance, and you don't have to be performative. What I want you to be is authentic, to be honest about what it is you truly want, what you truly desire, and living in accordance with that. Now, what does all of this look like on a practical level? Well, I'm going to share with you what I do that's been really supportive. When it comes to gifts, I like fewer but better gifts. Now, better can be translated in many ways, but for me better means thoughtful and meaningful gifts over quantity. So I think about one of my favorite gifts that I ever gave to someone was a book that I created for her 50th birthday. And the amount of thought that went into that, really thinking through what this person means to me, getting everyone involved and putting together this most gorgeous book was probably one of the best gifts that I've ever given. It was thoughtful. It was meaningful.

It wasn't just let me go spend a lot of money and get something because you can do that too. But it's really thinking about the person, really thinking about what they love, what they mean to you. And it could be a handwritten letter. It could be you taking them to an experience, like a dinner or a concert. Or maybe it is a high quality item that you know they would love. One of the things that I do that's really helpful because I think this time of year we can begin to feel the pressure, especially with Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming where you can feel the pressure of like, oh, I got to hurry up and figure this out and buy someone something. But what I do is in my notes app on my phone, I keep a list throughout the year of potential gifts that I can give someone.

So when I'm with them, they may say something that sparks an idea or they may tell me, "Oh my God, I would love to have that." Or they'll see something we'll be out and about and they'll be like, "Oh my God, that is so beautiful." I go into my notes and I write it down. It's such a fun way to keep track of what people love so that when you want to give them something, you're not doing this impulsive buy, but you've already taken some time to really think it through and you have it in your notes. I'm telling you all, do this throughout the year. Because people are telling you what they want all the time, but are you listening? Now, another thing you can do with gift giving is do a Secret Santa. So instead of buying for everybody, get your core group of people together and say, "Hey, listen, let's focus on buying one thoughtful gift instead of trying to buy everybody something."

And then one of my other favorites is charitable giving. Instead of giving someone a gift, you can give to a charity and donate it in their name. Or you as a family can get together and say, "Hey, you know what? Instead of us giving gifts this year, let's decide on what charity we want to support." I've done that a couple of years and it was super fun, super fun to do that in lieu of giving gifts to people. And you can also just support a charity too if that fills in alignment with you and what it is that you want to experience this holiday. Now, let's talk about holiday decor because this is where we can go over the top and really, really stress ourselves out. I love the idea of simple decor, and I love it because it's just easier. Let's be honest. I mean, of course, it's so fun to look on Instagram and Pinterest that these people who somehow managed to decorate every corner of their house meticulously, but that's not me. I'm not in a season of my life where I have the space to do that.

And even if I did, I don't know that that's where I would want to spend my time. But again, this really depends on your values. That's why it's so important that you understand what your values are, because your values may align with being someone who decorates every corner of her house and you enjoy it. And I will always be your biggest fan, but I just find that a lot of women do this out of being performative. They're doing it because they're trying to impress their neighbors. They're doing it because maybe their mother did it, and they don't realize that it's an option. You don't have to do that. So I love choosing a few key areas. It can be a stunning table centerpiece, it can be a tree, it can be a mantle, but just a few areas and really focusing on doing those well and doing them in a way that really aligns with your style and what you love.

Now, let's talk about holiday meals because these can get out of control. I remember one holiday where I cooked myself without any help, a 12 course menu. I was in the kitchen literally for four days getting this meal ready for everyone. And then it was over, and I was like, did they even appreciate the amount of effort that I just put into this? And I was like, never, ever again. I would've rather spent those days hanging out with my daughter, playing games, watching movies, but instead, I was trying to be Martha Stewart and create a 12 course menu. So I like simple menus. I like a few standout dishes rather than an overwhelming spread. Instead of a dozen appetizers, I like a great charcuterie board. I want to choose menus that bring me joy, not stress. So if that souffle stresses you out, you don't have to cook a souffle. Shed the souffle. Seriously, let her go. You don't need to do it.

Another way I love to simplify holiday meals is to do a potluck. Have people bring stuff. You don't have to do all the work yourself. If people are going to come eat and they want to be in your presence, they can bring a dish and it's super fun. You can assign people. You get the salad, you get the dessert. I'll take care of the entree. And you'll be surprised that people want to do that. They want to help. They want to support. I know I do when I go to someone's house, I'm like, "Tell me what I can bring." And a lot of times they say nothing. So at least I show up with some flowers or a bottle of wine. But potluck style gatherings can be so fun because everybody's participating. Also, don't be ashamed to go for pre-made stuff.

There are some places here in Charlotte that make the best pre-made meals, and if you're tied on time or you just don't want to spend your time in the kitchen, there is no shame in buying pre-made sides, desserts, or even the main entree if it frees up your time for meaningful moments. One of my best friends has always been that person who I call her the hostess with the mostest, is whenever I would go to her house, she would have a spread. I don't know how much time she spent in the kitchen, but I know it's a lot. And so we were together last week and she was telling me that her family's going down to their farm for the holidays. And she told me, she said, "I'm going to go by Reid's and pick up a lasagna." I could not have been more proud of her.

I was like, yes. This is what I've been encouraging you to do for years. You have fed these people every year since birth. You get to take a break. You do not have to cook and be that woman and stress yourself out. You get to enjoy your holidays. And so the fact that she's doing this, I'm just so proud of her because that's a big step for her. But we don't have to do everything, ladies. In fact, we don't have to do nothing, but that's not who we are. We want to do something, but there's a way to do it in such a way that it feels good for you and it doesn't stress you out. Now, let's think about your social commitments. There are different ways you can approach this. One of the things that I love to do is just to set boundaries ahead of time for myself, because if I don't, I know the tendency is to say yes to everything.

So decide in advance how many events or gatherings you'll attend. You can commit to one or two meaningful events and gracefully decline the rest. Also, it's so important that you prioritize connection over perfection. Listen, no one's going to remember that your tablecloth wasn't ironed or you bought your cookies from Whole Foods. And if they do, if that's what they focus on, you need to ask yourself, are these the kinds of people I want in my life? What people remember is how you made them feel. Again, make that a priority. Stop trying to be so perfect. It's not necessary. Finally, holiday essentialism really is about being intentional. And so set your intention for this season. And the way I like to think about this is if you had to pick one word that really encapsulates how you want to feel this season, what would that word be?

And shape all of your thoughts, all of your decisions, all of your behaviors around that word. For me, I want this to be my season of fun, and so I'm seeing lots of games. I'm seeing a few intimate gatherings with some of my favorite people who I always have fun with. I'm seeing less stuff, more memories. That's what I'm seeing for this holiday season. So what about you? How do you intend to experience holiday essentialism this season? Have a beautiful week, my friends. And don't forget, go and download the calm meditation. You can find it at schoolofselfimage.com/becalm. I'll see you all next week. Cheers.