Hey.

Hey, friends.

And welcome back to Faithfield Woman.

This is your host, Kristin.

Today I want to share with you some of the best tips that I have for navigating the holidays and allowing in more joy and just being able to enjoy the season instead of feeling so rushed and hurried and hustling.

And so I'm going to share those tips with you today because this is the perfect time, a few weeks before Christmas, to slow down and find ways to make things a little easier for ourselves.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Woman, a podcast designed for Christian women eager to deepen their faith and shine God's light in every aspect of their lives.

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Hi, I'm your host, Kristen.

I'm an encourager, a faith led entrepreneur, a mom, and a wife.

Let's be encouraged in our everyday lives as we let our faith guide us, fuel us, and fill us with God's incredible peace, wisdom and joy in our lives.

Okay.

All right.

So today we're going to talk about how do we get our mind, our body and our spirit kind of aligned in this season when it can be such a busy time?

And Howard, what are some quick, easy things we can do to help in those areas?

And then we're going to move on to gatherings and then gifts and goodies.

Right.

What are some quick hit ideas or tips for us to be thinking about so that this season goes a little smoother for us?

Okay, so the first one is our mind.

And yes, in the last couple weeks, one or two of my episodes, I've shared just a little bit about how it's about our perception.

Perception is how we are and that's how we're going to see the world right through our own lens.

And I just wanted to share this little idea with you from Maria Goff and her book Love Lives Here.

And she's really just talking about hosting and hospitality.

And at this time of the year, I think her quote's very relevant.

She says all of this was a good reminder to me that inviting people into our lives doesn't start with worry and stress.

It starts with the desire for connection.

Hospitality is always a matter of the heart.

It's not the condition of our homes.

Let me say that again.

Hospitality is always a condition of our heart, not the state of our Homes.

So guess what?

We don't have to have our house looking perfect.

Can be laundry out there, can be dishes in the sink.

Whatever it is, don't worry so much about those details.

Just worry about having a calm and peaceful, centered mind.

Get yourself, you know, back.

Get yourself with God regularly.

Take time for yourself.

And remember, we want to enjoy this season.

We don't want it to.

We don't want to cause more stress for ourselves.

And so once again, this is just a reminder to let go of a little bit or ask for help.

And we do that by staying calm and remembering why we gather with people more at this time of the year probably than any other year, at least with family and close friends, okay, Our bodies.

We have to remember that this is a season of hibernation, if you will.

Right?

It's winter time, it's dark, longer for longer each day.

It's cold out, right?

We already feel this desire to, you know, probably want to sleep more or at least it feels like we should sleep more because it's dark so early.

But we have to remember to rest at this time of year.

Now resting can be actual rest, like sleeping, it can be lounging.

It can just be slowing down enough to clear our minds and let some of the stress, you know, fall away from us.

One of the things I love doing the most this time of year is once our Christmas tree, you know, or our house is decorated for Christmas.

And I don't do as much as I used to anymore because I've just found I need to do just enough and not more than that.

And it's a good balance for, for me.

But one of the things I love doing is sitting in my family room where the Christmas tree is and there's a lit up grief in the room, you know, some other decorations.

And I just love sitting there, right, with a cup of coffee or maybe a warm apple, you know, cider or something in the evening and just having time to.

Just to look at the lights, to reflect and just to slow down for 10 or 15 minutes during the day, or maybe 30 minutes or an hour in the evening.

So you need to find time to slow down and you need to find time to rest.

And we have to remember that we don't have to do everything in this season.

We need to pick the most important things or the things that we put the most value on or maybe traditions we love the most.

Let's do those.

But let's not try to necessarily hit a list of we have to get to these 100 things or fit in all this stuff, because we don't.

And I wanted to share this idea with you.

Well, first I want to share scripture.

It's 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, says, May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept flameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Or Jesus.

Yeah, Jesus Christ.

But we're meant, right?

For we're meant to have this peace.

And for us, we're supposed to be aligned, right?

Spirit, soul and body.

And I shared a quote, I think, a couple episodes ago with, from Shauna Nyquist, but in her other book called Saver, she said something that I wanted to share with you because I think it's, it's just so good for this time of year.

Says I went to a retreat several years ago and the woman who led it in her opening remarks said, oh, by the way, while you're up here, if at any time you want to rest or sleep, by all means do.

Sometimes it's the most spiritual and obedient thing we can do.

We all laugh nervously.

Who doesn't need a nap, right?

And I've been thinking about her words for years.

How often do we push and rush and produce and achieve and then find ourselves depleted and short with the people we love?

And then how often do we blame ourselves for being weak or unorganized?

Lately, I've been aiming to live what the.

What the women or woman at the retreat taught, learning that to rest is not to be weak.

To rest is to prepare yourself to be used by God.

Because imagine what he can do in a person who is fully rested, able to think well and feel deeply.

I'm learning to see naps as holy gifts, going to bed early as an investment in my relationships and admitting my tiredness as a sign that I'm committed to caring for myself, well, body, soul and mind.

And she says she asked this question, are you in the practice of resting your body well?

What's one concrete step you can take to rest well?

And I love that.

So my first recommendation or tip tip for you is that are you resting?

Are you giving yourself permission to go to bed earlier some nights or maybe to take a nap during the day if you're off for the holidays or it's the weekend, let's slow down and pause the hustle and say no to the hustle season.

Let's say yes to a season of rest and renewal and reflection and giving thanks for baby Jesus.

Okay, Next up is after rest and just getting ourselves right Kind of settled and refreshed.

How do we make the season smoother?

Well, a lot of it has to do with what we're planning.

What do I mean by that?

So plan ahead a little bit.

So make sure that your food is not a stressor for you, like your everyday meals.

In this time of year, it can be stressful because you're likely baking or cooking more than other times a year.

Right?

You might be baking homemade, homemade goodies for other people.

You may be baking for a venture, going to or cooking.

And so we want to take the pressure off ourselves.

And so some of you, I'm sure, already do this.

But for those of you that haven't, it's, first of all, buy extra.

What do I mean by that?

If you're going to go into the store, for instance, Costco, buy a rotisserie and then pull the meat off of it, and you can freeze half of it and use half of it.

Or on occasion, I'll buy two rotisseries, they're already cooked, and I will pull all the meat and then I'll put half of one of them in the fridge and I'll put one in the freezer.

And if I have the time, I might even take the carcass and make chicken stock out of it.

If that saves me so much time.

I'll put two baggies or things in the freezer of shredded meat or meat so that when I am in a rush, I can just grab it out and all I have to do is thaw it.

But it's already cooked and it's already ready to be used in a recipe.

So buy a little extra.

And I get it.

This time of year, money can be tight, but there's a lot of tactics to try to save money in that way.

But some of the rotisseries like Costco, and I get it, it might not be as clean, you know, or that sort of thing, but man, it is such a good deal.

And it's a tasty chicken.

So we still buy that.

And it's only a couple dollars.

If I were to buy a rotisserie at my closest grocery store, it costs more than double that price.

And it's tiny.

And so, you know, you can get more bang for your buck at certain stores for certain products.

All right?

The next thing is make extra.

Especially in the winter, I find that if I don't make extra, I just find myself thinking, oh, what am I going to make for dinner tonight again?

And so go ahead and just make extra.

Okay?

So if you're making A soup or a chili, or you're making even a lasagna or a dip, as long as it's not super cream based.

Then I will make a double batch, or at least a batch and a half, and then I'll immediately just pull some out, cool it, and then I'll freeze it so I have meal for the whole family or at least a meal for two of us.

If not everyone's home, that is a big time saver.

And if we're saving time, that means we're going to have less stress this time of year.

Next is have a few.

Go to.

I'm sorry, have the recipe ingredients on hand for you.

Go to apps or recipes that you often make.

That'll save you so much time so that this time of year, you're ready to whip something together really quickly, even if you decide to have someone over or if you are running around more than you thought on that particular night.

So that's a great thing to do that will really help you out this time of year.

The next thing is.

I've shared this, obviously on a recent episode, but if you're going to make cookies or some other dessert that's similar to cookies, make extra batches and then freeze the dough or freeze the individual items.

This saves me so much time so that when I have a weeknight or a weekend where I'm going to make a little cookies, but I know I want to make more of that type of cookie.

If I make several batches of it at one time, then I have one mess instead of multiple days of messes for cookie dough, and then I can pull it out as I need that type of cookie dough.

This has saved me so much time and so much mess for the weeks, I guess about the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas or through the new year.

And so honestly, this has been a huge time saver for me.

I host every year a cousin cookie making afternoon with one side of our family.

And when I'm gonna do.

When I'm gonna have them over with my sons, I'm already gonna be making a meal.

And so if I have to make batches of cookie dough and prep everything for that setup, it can be a lot.

And so I make the dough ahead of time and I just leave it in the fridge.

But that way I'm not cleaning up cookie dough, you know, mix mess before.

I'm also trying to make dinner.

Even the dinner.

I try to make most of whatever I want to serve that day because it's during the day.

Usually I will make it the day before or at least prep for the day before.

So that is going to save you so much time and stress.

All right, the next is if you are hosting anything over the holidays.

And yes, I shared this tip as well, but I'm just doing a compilation for you today.

Then you can either ask your guests to bring something, you can either tell them kind of where they can fill in, or you can just say, this is what I'm providing.

You're welcome to fill in if you'd like to.

We can't always, if we are hosting, we can't always be expected to do everything because sometimes we don't have the time or financially.

Right.

It can really add up if you're the one making all the food.

So ask people, get your family to pitch in as well.

So if you have multiple people in your family, have them pitch in, clean up a little bit more, unload the dishwasher.

Right?

So in other words, you're probably doing more this time of year.

You might be buying gifts and you're hosting or you're prepping food.

So ask the people in your family to pitch in more too, so that it's not all on you and it shouldn't be anyways.

But we know that that can happen sometimes, especially to moms.

And then plan ahead for when you're going to have a really super busy week or night and just plan to get takeout or plan to already have a frozen meal you can just put in the oven or you can throw something in your crock pot.

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