Prep & Plan: Holiday Notebook

I don’t know why, but the week after Thanksgiving always feels like a short one. Maybe because I’m so tired of cooking and cleaning. Maybe because I see the calendar counting down to Christmas (and all the cooking and cleaning and shopping and wrapping and decorating that has to be done). So this week and month, since we’re knee-deep into the holidays, we’re focusing more on planning than prepping.

One of my favorite annual habits that I perform every year, the week after Thanksgiving, fits in with our Prep & Plan schedule. I call this my “Regroup Week”. What does this mean? A regroup week is when I stop doing any major Prep & Plan chores, like organizing closets, counting cans in the pantry, worrying about drinking water, etc. This is a week where I carve out time to sit down with a cup of tea and a notebook. I know we’ve been using our legal pads, but for this event I use a notebook that I pull out throughout the year after every major holiday or family event. It’s a cheap notebook I got at Dollar Tree. So there’s no reason to run out and by an expensive notebook with a matching pen and washi tape (yes, I’ve done that). I’ve even used notebooks that my kids used at school but didn’t finish–I just pulled out the used pages and started fresh. Or you can keep this in your notes app on your phone, on Trello, or any other place where you keep track of things you want to remember next year.

This notebook (either in print or electronic) will be for an annual review of holidays and other large family events. And, you’ll need a piece of paper for a shopping list. I am currently using the back of a bill envelope to write down the things I need at the grocery store this week. In this notebook, I mark a new page with the title Thanksgiving 2021. Below that, I begin listing things that worked and things that didn’t. I’m talking about food, cleaning, guests, etc–anything that you had to do or deal with on the day or through the weekend. In my case, I made dinner for 12 people and had company all weekend. I use this list as a total brain dump. As I drink my tea, and eat a piece of leftover pumpkin pie, I write down anything I can think of that went right, went wrong, and what I would do differently next year that I know I’ll forget if I don’t write it down now. I also note anything I need to buy for the next round of company/guests, or for next year’s Thanksgiving. If I need it for next year’s feast, I can start looking for post-Thanksgiving sales (yes, they’re a thing!) or shop for it throughout the year. As I work in this notebook, I use the separate shopping list to write down anything I ran out of and need to pick up before Christmas. (This year I ran out of dried orange peel, black pepper, dried dill, and tissues)

Here’s an example of what I wrote in my notebook:

• Buy two new pillows for the guest room
• Order a water goblet in my crystal pattern (somehow, one went missing)
• Reduce the vegetable dishes by one or two dishes. We had too many leftovers and no one eats leftover veggies.
• Send my Thanksgiving linens to the dry cleaner.
• Hem two guest room towels (or buy two new ones if they can’t be fixed)
• Order new table pads for the dining room table.
• Get some more Thanksgiving cocktail napkins, if I can find them on sale.
• Only buy 3 bottles of sparkling cider for next year
• Reduce the appetizers by two dishes
• No need for the turkey cake, although it was beautiful and I’m grateful to my step-father for bringing it.
• The gewürztraminer wine my step-father brought was perfect with the turkey. Buy 4 bottles (for 12 adults) instead of 3.
• Buy half as many crackers and veggies for the appetizers.
• Make sure to have more lunch options for the men while the women shop on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.
• Don’t bother with the breakfast casserole for Friday and Saturday mornings. Everyone ate pie instead.
• We went through far more aperol and Prosecco this weekend than I thought we would. Next year buy 4 bottles of both.
• Soften more butter for the table next year-we went through 1 and 1/2 sticks.
• Double the gravy recipe.
• No need for dinner rolls if I serve cranberry bread. Maybe make 2 cranberry breads next year.
• Next year, buy extra ice in a bag and keep it in the outside freezer or a cooler on the patio. We went through ice faster than my ice maker could make it.
• The fresh flowers were beautiful but I don’t know if they were worth the money.
• Running a load of dishes during the dinner worked great. It made clean up easier.
• I love Ina Garten’s do ahead turkey recipe. It was fabulous, and I am definitely doing that again next year.
• I had a 24 pound turkey this year for 12 people. I wouldn’t go any smaller than 22 pounds. It was almost all gone and I didn’t have enough leftovers for lunch while the women shopped on Friday and Saturday. While I have enough bones and leg meat for soup, I still like to add in white meat.
• This week, check the price of leftover turkeys at the grocery store. If I can find one at 19 cents a pound or less, I may grab one and throw it in the deep freezer.
• We ate at 3:30 pm, the earliest we’ve ever eaten. I would definitely do that again. We has some older guests who wanted to get on the road before it got too dark.

So you get the idea…. it’s a list of all the things in your head that you’ll be grateful you kept note of when you begin preparing for next year’s holiday.

Tracking the budget:

Once I finish my list, and leave some room on the next page for things I’ll think of next week, I take the next few blank pages and tape in the receipts for everything I bought for the weekend. From laundry detergent, to the turkey, to the tickets for the tea the women in my family attended on Friday afternoon. Yes, I keep all those receipts–but I didn’t always do that. Years ago, the habit was recommended by a Certified Financial Planner I know and it’s been eye-opening. Because I use one notebook for about five years worth of family events (I keep track of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, Family Reunions, and birthday parties), it’s easy to see what I’ve spent over the years and track the inflation. While prices were definitely higher this year, I paid less for some non-perishables than I did two years ago. As I plan for next year’s events, being able to see what I paid makes it easy to budget ahead. Yes, keeping receipts is kind of “extra”, but it does help me when I do the household budget for next year. (which we’ll talk about in January). It also helps me keep track of the “emotional” last minute purchases. I didn’t need the flowers. They were beautiful, but we ended up having to move them to the kitchen to make room on the table. Although they do look lovely on my desk as I write this post.

So that’s the homework for this week. Start a Family Holiday Notebook and, if you still have them, add the receipts. From that work, begin a shopping list of things you need to replenish in your pantry for the week, for the upcoming holidays, and next year’s celebration. You can do this exercise in less than 30 minutes, and you’ve set yourself up for an even better prepared Thanksgiving 2022.

Next week we’ll return to upcoming holiday planning, and I’ve included some links below. The link to Prep & Plan: Week 7 has a list at the bottom of the post of all the homework assignments up to this week, if you want to review them. The other two links are for a 2021 Holiday Planner and a Portion Planner. Although it says Thanksgiving Portion Planner, it can be used for any event and any kind of food. Portions are based on weight and volume, not by individual recipes. I hope you all recover from the Thanksgiving food hangovers, and I’ll see you next week!

Click on the links below to read Prep & Plan Week 7 and catch up on homework:

Prep & Plan: Week 7

Click on the links below to download the planners:

2021 Holiday Planner

Thanksgiving Portion Planner

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