☃️Feeling like the holidays are less “holly jolly” and more “hustle and hurry”? You’re not alone. Between endless to-do lists, packed calendars, and the pressure to make everything picture-perfect, December can feel anything but peaceful.
But what if this year could be different? What if you could find calm amid the chaos? I am convinced that with a little attention to it (don't worry - this won't take long!) that we can find at least one Silent Night this month.
In this episode, we’re chatting practical and actionable ways to de-stress your December, so you can actually enjoy the holidays.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
🎄 The Time Blocking Strategy: Why trying to fit everything in doesn’t work—and how holiday time blocking gives you the freedom to focus on what matters most this season.
✨ Self-Care Rituals to Manage Stress: Not JUST face masks and bubble baths (although I can use one of those right about now - can't you?), but simple, intentional practices to calm your mind and bring peace to the holiday chaos. Imagine - 3 minutes to yourself every morning and every night - it's possible!
⏳ Creating a Support System: Why building a team of helpers—whether it’s family, friends, or hired hands—can transform your to-do list from “impossible” to “manageable."
🤝 A Weekly “Holiday Wind-Down” Ritual: The secret to avoiding burnout before the year ends—how carving out time for yourself every Sunday night will help you recharge and actually enjoy the holidays... especially since we don't plan on Sundays any more!
This isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing less, better. If you’re ready to reclaim the joy of the season and ditch the overwhelm, this episode is for you.
Press play and let’s make this a December to remember—for all the right reasons.
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Check out more about Kali: www.kalibrigham.com
Let's chat: hello@kalibrigham.com
DM on IG: @kali.brigham or @theticktalkpod
Welcome to the Tick Tock Podcast. The clock is always ticking, so let's synchronize our watches and dive in. I'm your host, Callie Burgum, and I'm here to help you make time for what matters. Hey, friend! Welcome back to the Tick Tock Podcast, where I am decked out and ready to go for the holidays. I am wearing my Merry and Bright sweatshirt, and my microphone is even vibing with the season. I'll hold it up for my YouTube Watchers. She has a little microphone cover, and she looks like a little snowball or something, so, or an ear muff, one ear muff, one of those things or another. We are doing everything over here on the podcast to make the sound and the experience even better every single time, and stay tuned. Stay tuned because there's going to be some fun things as the New Year starts, so I can't spill all the beans yet, but it is coming. It's coming. So, funny story. Right before I was getting ready to record this podcast, I had a friend who was leaving the house, and we were doing the usual pleasantries, and she was saying, "Okay, are you ready? You know, Thanksgiving is over. Are you ready for this season?" And, you know, just all the little things that women do when we're talking to each other about the holidays in Christmas and whatnot. And I said, "Yeah!" And I said, "Actually, I'm getting ready to record an episode where I hope to give some encouragement and some tips on how to really enjoy everything that's going on in the next few weeks." And I said, "Yeah, it's about a de-stress-sember, you know, de-stressing." And the way I said it, I said it sort of quickly, and I realized that she may have interpreted it incorrectly, that I said distress, like, in distress. And so, we had a big laugh about that that, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not about having a distressing." Wait, that's not how you say it. Distressing? Distressing? December? No, we are not in distress. Okay, in other words, the words are very similar. We are all about de-stressing your December. No stress or limited stress. So, let's be on the same page if you're listening in 1.5 speed or 2.0 speed or whatever it is. I want to make sure that you don't miss hear me. No, no, distress, de-stress instead. How about the idea of unwrapping a season of calm and reducing stress as things heat up? You know, I was thinking back, I believe the only time, I could be wrong, but I believe the only time I've ever heard my dad swear was around Christmas time. My dad is not what you would call a Mr. Fix it. No. I mean, every once in a while when he thinks he could fix something, he usually ends up making it worse and we have to call somebody to actually fix it. I remember actually, okay, I'll get back to the Christmas thing in just a second, but I remember when I think it was Maddie was a baby and I wanted to hang some curtains in her nursery and my husband, Josh, who will, it'll take him a little while, but when he does something to fix it, it will be perfect. Got it? All right. My dad and I are a little bit more action, like take action right in the moment and my husband's a little bit more cautious in his timing, but then it's gonna be done, you know, it's gonna be done right. So I wanted these curtains hung and it was just me and my dad and that's not a good recipe for hanging curtains. So if you ever go back in our townhouse where we were living, you'll see a lot of little holes in the wall. But our thought was, you know what, just go ahead and put the nail in and if it's wrong, you'll just take it out and put another one in and it's all gonna be hidden behind the curtain rod anyway, so who really cares? When my husband came home and saw that the curtains were up, he knew that it was probably not good, but we had hanging curtains before she like graduated high school. Okay, so back to my dad, you get the idea, not good at that kind of thing. So when I was growing up in Wisconsin, I'm dating myself and of course it's Wisconsin, you don't have a fake tree, you have a real tree and a real tree means a real tree stand and a real tree means that you have to screw the tree into the tree stand and that's just not something that my dad was great at or loved. Also, my dad's mom, my grandmother, her birthday was on Christmas, so they really had to kind of be careful how they navigated the Christmas season because it was also her birthday and my mom is Jewish. So they might have had a Christmas tree once or twice just so that my mom and her brother and sister didn't feel left out, but it was not really their thing either. So Christmas was kind of interesting at my house. We did the best we could, okay? But that's what I remember about Christmas was my dad swearing, trying to and probably sat falling on him. I don't think there were any live creatures like in Christmas vacation that like no squirrels or chip mugs or anything that were living there, but still it was, it was really stressful, okay, at our house and I'll never forget the one night we actually got the tree up, got the ornaments up, we were good to go and it was the middle of the night and we heard this giant crash and the whole tree fell down, broken ornaments everywhere. I mean, it was not a good scene to come down to. So if that's sort of what you think of Christmas is curse words or trees falling down and ornaments or maybe not actually that that's what happens, but that's what it feels like for you, then let's go. Let's keep this conversation going. So I know the holiday season, it is intense, right? But does it have to be? Does it have to be? And it could be really distress it just a little bit, just a notch, just a notch. And what I was thinking about was, wouldn't it be sad? And isn't it sad that the time of year that most of us look forward to the most is also the most stressful and busy and overwhelming. And sometimes you just feel like can we just get to the end? Like can we just get to the finish? Because this is just too much. I am here to tell you I'm going to refuse to let that be our story. Alright, so let's pinky promise. We're not going to wish this season away. We're not going to want to hurry it away. We're going to do what we're meant to do. And that is really cherishing. But the deal is it doesn't happen by chance. There's too many things that can have your attention and your time if you don't decide now to be extra intentional. And in some ways, it's almost too late, right? We're already in the beginning, very beginning of December, but it's not too late. It's never too late. So imagine with me that this is for the first time maybe in a long time, this is going to be your favorite holiday season that you've ever had. You're welcome. Okay. And I'm right here with you, even if the Christmas trees fall down. When I went off to college, my mom started getting fake trees. I think she just had it. She was done. So I remember coming home and be like, wow, this is the most gorgeous tree we've ever had. Where did you find it? And then as I got closer, I was like, yeah, this is not real. Alright, so here we go. Here are some steps for you. I think I might have four that hopefully will lower our stress levels. Okay. The first one is time blocking strategy. Now, just hang with me for a second. Okay. Because I know we've heard this a million times and I don't want you to me out. So I want you to think about setting time blocks for, of course, the essential tasks, the holiday events, the family activities, and now is the time to either print out a month at a glance. If you haven't already, if you need to be a big picture, actually let me open my desk drawer right here and I'm going to pull out. Can you hear me making noise? I'm going to pull out a week at a glance. So you might want to go ahead and print out four of your weeks. If the whole month shuts you down, then four weeks is perfect. You can click in the show notes, the brain drain and weekly plan. And I've got a fresh one there for you. And so print those out. You can print out a month at a glance if you want to instead. And I mentioned this at our last episode is really starting to have a little bit of a bigger picture. So you can see where your time is going, right? Now what I want you to do is you can get out some fun markers. You can even get out stickers if you want to get the family around. If you have people that live in your home, get the family around and we're going to make sure that we're putting in the things that you decided last time that do get to play a part in your month. Like you get to come. You have been chosen, right? You are the lucky one. Sometimes I'll say that to my clothes when I'm packing for a trip and they'll say, please, can I come? Yes, you get to come. So you get to come this holiday season. Now it's not just about putting it down in the calendar. You may even want to go out on a limb. You may actually want to make your first draft in pencil because you do have the ability and the power and the decision making capabilities to look at everything and then edit again. See, it's one thing when you've already made your list. You think this is what you want to do this season. You think this is what you don't want to do this season, but then when you see it in black and white or charcoal and white and you look down and you go, wow, I think I've maxed myself out too much or you say, you know what? I edited myself so much. I think I might have a little space to put something back in. So it's not just about time blocking everything, but it's about once you time block, you're sort of like, that's the rough draft and now you're going to make the final draft. So the rough draft can be sort of messy the first time. Look at it, take a glance, really filter it through your, you know, heck yes's, heck no's and make that decision. Okay, for sure you get to stay like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You're the winner. And let me just say that if anybody gets your time during this time, they're pretty special too, because you are. All right. So the first thing to do is make sure that you have your time blocking strategy and now you have it on a calendar where you can see it clearly, make it fun, make the family part of it if you want to and make that decision. Okay, we're for sure, yes's to all these things. Maybe we're going to edit out a few things. Maybe we're going to start to add in a couple little habits to give yourself some runway for the new year up to you. Okay, that's the number one time blocking strategy. Thing number two is again, I always hesitate to use this word. Maybe if you have a different word, throw it out here, because I feel like it's overused and maybe even gives the wrong impression, but self care, right? Okay. But there are some things that we do want to do so that we are not completely squeezed out and completely at our empty, our battery is done. And so there are a few things to manage our stress during this season and a few little simple morning or evening practices. One of the things we just started as a family was it was my daughter's idea. You've met Maddie on the show. You will not be surprised. She said, can we read through the book of Luke during the holiday season from December 1st, which is Luke 1, all the way to December 24th, which is Luke 24, there's 24 chapters. And so I said, sure, I said, but only if we can do it in bed in our pajamas. And so she said that was a great idea. So that's what we did. And we started to read it. And after she read the first chapter, she said, okay, let's discuss it. So we all discussed it. I wrote a few notes in the margin of my Bible. And then she said, okay, bring it in. Now you can close us in prayer. You got a side item. I was like, okay, I think you might have prayed to that they would get along or something that they really do. But you know, their brother and sister. So that is actually for me. That was a really sacred evening practice with my family around the dog was there too in our comfy PJs. But maybe you're including something different in your morning or evening. Maybe it is an advent that you do. Maybe it is there's some advent prayers in the Bible app that you could add in that just remind you of what this season is about. Maybe it's journaling. Maybe it's tech free time. Maybe you're going to really limit that right now, because that's really not serving you. So maybe there's an afternoon and evening. Maybe there's a time that you set your phone to be done for the day. Maybe it's a whole Sunday. Totally up to you a Sabbath. You can go back and listen to that episode. And you know, it was interesting. One of our guests on here, she was talking, she's a nutritionist. Her name is Cassie. And Cassie was talking a lot of course about fueling ourselves, right? Well, in her group that she has for her clients, I'm in that group. The question came up about skincare and washing your face. I'm like, Oh, this is my wheelhouse. Okay, what are people saying? And they were like, Oh, does anybody really have time for it? Should you be spending the money? Is it sort of selfish? Is it important? Is it okay to just kind of skip it? And I think they were just feeling again overwhelmed. Like it was like it was one more task to do like, Oh, just like unloading the dishwasher. It was like, Oh, I got to unload my, you know, the makeup on my face. What I was able to tell is our gala, who is our own author, she said, the mom of a pre team, baby, two to three minutes at night have now become her pillar. She knows of nothing else for two to three minutes for herself. Instead of looking at it as one more, or she looks at it as three minute, right? This time, maybe you turn on to maybe you light a candle. Maybe you put something special that you do a little mask or a little oil or maybe that you're, you know, just really investing that time in you because the rest of the day is going to be crazy. Three minutes in the morning, three minutes. Doesn't that totally and rather change the way that you're looking at some of these things? Maybe it's getting dressed in the morning. Maybe it is accessorizing. Maybe it's something that has felt like a task or a chore. And in this time, it can feel like a little gift. Okay. The last part of this is for the self care, for the managing of the stress. Maybe you could make this part of your holiday season. So maybe instead of that fancy Christmas party with friends where you were going to have to buy a new dress, you were going to have to make something that you just didn't even literally have time for. Maybe you were going to have to give gifts. Maybe you were going to have to do something that just extended you too much. What if instead it was a spa night? What if you all all just brought your favorite mask and you did that and you had hot chocolate or you had something fun to sip on and you watched a Christmas movie and you showed up in your Christmas PJs, what if you did that instead? Or maybe it was a night where you all just journaled and you dreamt about, or maybe you met at a fish shop instead on a Friday afternoon and you journaled and you spent time thinking about your New Year's goals or reflecting on the year. And you did that instead of this party. Maybe that felt like it was too urgent. You didn't want to spend the money and you just didn't have the time and you didn't have one more night. Or maybe you just went with hot massages. Maybe instead of getting gifts for each other, you went and had experience together. You watched a mat and it doesn't have to be either or you don't have to not get together with your friends this holiday season or with your family, but maybe it's creative and maybe it is both and. All right. Number three is creating a support system. Asking for help, delegating and involving your family. The other night, my husband walked in the room and I must have had some kind of look on my face. I was like, are you good? I was like, Oh, I don't know. See, I feel that way too. I'm like, Oh, I don't know. There is so much going on. And he just looked at me. He goes, how can I help? And honestly, there really wasn't a lot that he could do. But the fact that he just asked, I was like, you know, I think I asked him to do a couple of things. And he said, or he just, do you just need me to listen and just let you vent? It was a little bit of both. But as I was thinking that, I thought my holiday memory, so many of my memories that I had included that I was part of things. I took an active role in the things I didn't have things done for me. I was thinking about maybe cooking a meal and some of my favorite memories of cooking a meal is that not that I was in the kitchen solo, but that I was in the kitchen with family members or grandmothers or we make the most amazing brownies that will never be in the show notes. They, it is a secret family recipe. My great aunt Anne made them. She told me how to make them. My kids know how to make them and literally no human outside of us knows how to make them. They are unbelievable. We always bring them for every party. Well, guess what? It's not about the fact that I'm slaving away in the kitchen. It's a fact that I remember being there with my aunt that my kids now help me do it. Sometimes the things that we are murdered to do actually would be an amazing family memory to do together. So just know that. When you start to think of all the things, for example, again, my Maddie girl has decided that she loves to wrap presents. It's just, it's a thing. I think she turns on a movie. She, the dog lays by her and she wraps her presents. I don't have to do that in this season of my life because my daughter really likes it, right? I know there'll be a time when she does it. Maybe I can hire a little neighborhood girl or somebody that enjoys doing it. It is now a core memory of hers that she wraps the gifts and she puts them under the tree and she absolutely loves it. I will tell you, it also gets me to get our Christmas shopping done early because she needs stuff to put under the tree. So creating a support system doesn't just mean asking for help and delegating. It means involving people and doing things with you. Okay. Last but not least, number four, having a weekly holiday wind down ritual. This might be a Sunday evening routine that will help you prep mentally and physically for the week ahead. Now, you know, on this podcast, we had a huge aha thanks to a client of mine. If you're not my client yet, what are you waiting for? We have stopped doing our weekly planning on Sundays. We reserve Sundays for something else now. So what does that mean? We do our weekly planning on Fridays. We do our grocery orders. We do our brain drain. We do all those things on Fridays when the energy level is just different. And I just feel like I have more capacity and more metal space to do it. So now on Sunday nights, it totally has opened up Sunday nights. Maybe just to do a quick cursory glance, make sure everything's good for the next day. But you're really still enjoying the end of the week, week and end of the week. So again, keep talking about Maddie to Maddie today, but she is in it to win it. Y'all she is in it to win it. She has made us a Christmas movie bucket list for us to watch. So Sunday nights now are Christmas movie nights. And now I can put that in my calendar. We don't have anything else going on. So maybe a favorite movie we pop popcorn, maybe make a cup of hot chocolate, the fancy kind, that peppermint whipped cream. Y'all said y'all now a couple of times, you know, I'm from the south. Maybe it's a playlist that you have that you listen to as you wrap presents. Maybe it's going to bed early. But knowing that no matter what, you have this touchstone. It is your Sunday night and maybe for you have a non traditional job. So it might be another night of the week, but you've got this night of the week where you are able to unplug from other things. You're able to plug in the things that matter the most to you. And you know that you've got this center in the storm. You're not in distress. You're able to de-stress. So have a holiday wind down ritual for yourself that you can look forward to instead of dreading. Okay. So the whole idea is that de-stressing can make everything more joyful and simple and beautiful. That's going to lead us to next week's episode. We're going to talk about how to simplify our December and prepare for this new year too. And I'll maybe keep dropping a few little teases about what's to come. I mentioned just a minute ago my client, we worked and she has revolutionized some of my time management. So if this is something that you're thinking about for the new year, my mom pernour mentorship for three months is starting to wind down. So I will have some space for some new clients. If you are ambitious and you want to be at the top of your game without burnout or guilt, I do free calls for you. You can DM me and I can get you on my calendar and we can see if maybe in the new year, you would love some time management coaching. So just want to share that too. Okay friends. So I hope that this episode has served you, that you are prepped, you are ready, you are feeling it, you are feeling good. All right. So no distress, no distress signals, only de-stress. All right, let's put it into practice. Every day in our Facebook community, we keep accountable and we have fun together. So make sure that you're in there too. All right, you guys, have a wonderful first week of de-stress summer. Thank you for joining me on the TikTok podcast. Please subscribe, rate and leave a five star review. Your feedback fuels our mission to help you master your time. Set your alarm for our next episode and until then, make every moment count. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
