Some sort of happy medium

A seasonal calendar for those who don't want to fall off the edge of the earth after December 31

I wanted to share a planning resource I created and recently updated. I first started working on this quarterly calendar (i.e., the whole year in four pages) in January 2022 after I had my first major panic attack (the one that finally led me to pursue a diagnosis for ADHD).

Two of my kids’ birthdays are in the first week of January. The only thing worse than having a birthday right after Christmas and New Year’s is being the mother of one (or two!) kids with birthdays right after Christmas and New Year’s.

Somewhere between being a control freak Scrooge and not letting the kids have birthday parties nor receive the kinds of presents other kids whose birthdays are not around Christmas might get and being inundated by the deluge of way too much after way too much and want to burn the house down and start over, is supposedly some sort of happy medium. I have yet to find that place.

I am still trying to fight my way out of the black hole that is December 26-January 2.

When most people are (a) putting up their feet because they got through the most everything-est time of the year, and/or (b) getting excited about fresh starts in the new year, I am simultaneously freaking out about whether I planned enough for my kiddos’ upcoming birthdays and if I have enough juice left in me to execute said plans.

One tool to help me get a tiny bit ahead of this pressure is a calendar that has December and January together on one page so I can see the bigger picture.

I ended up creating a calendar with three months to a page. I love the high-level view it gives me. I don’t follow the actual calendar seasons, but use demarcations that best serve my family.

I hope that using these planning calendar pages will help reduce the temptation to light my house on fire and list my kids on Etsy. Only time will tell.