I get two kinds of moms who message me often. The messages both start the same—”How in the actual f*ck do you celebrate and have so much fun with your family?” (Because yes, my moms curse LOL.) And then it breaks off to one of these two questions…

— “I am nowhere near that creative.”
— “I don’t have the time to plan anything like this.”

Since this is something that comes naturally to me, I wanted to give you beauties out there a few tips that are helpful to remember when you are looking to add celebration and fun to your day, family, or life!  Often it isn’t about how big we can make something but how deeply we can feel it.

DECLARE IT

On one of our Wineversations, Husband and I chatted about a Family Book Club we had with our kids. What’s the difference between Family Book Club and regular book club? Nothing. Nothing at all. We gave it a name and we made it a special occasion and when you make something a special occasion, it is a special occasion. You don’t need a special day to celebrate, you just gotta give a normal day meaning. Set a date for family book club around food and yummies and make a big deal about it and all of a sudden, it’s a “thing”.

the collective

The gathering is bigger than any one person. Now I know some of you may be thinking THIS coming from the girl who names the month (Jenuary) after herself. And yes, even then I believe that gathering well is about the collective experience. I love celebrating myself but it’s really about getting people together.

And this true for any get-together—formal or not. Baby showers started as a way for the mom-to-be’s community to help one of their own get started on her journey. A funeral is about coming together to celebrate the life of he/she who has passed and about your own closure. A wine night with friends or a family dinner is about the people you have around your table. It’s never about one person.

Work with what you got.

Look. I love Pinterest ideas but let’s be very clear that my shit will never look like that so I work with what I got, pay for what I can’t do, and trust that Amazon can handle the rest.

First.

Look around the house for things that might work with what you’re celebrating. Often, there is so much you can use. When we had a Race Car Party, I used some of our Son’s car toys to decorate.

SeconD.

stop trying to be the supermom who does it all. Delegate and pay someone. I could bake simple stuff but nothing fancy so I hire that out every time and you know what, it alleviates soooo much pressure. Exhibit A, my cake fiascos that I documented here. From that point on, I learned that delegating cake responsibilities made my birthday plans much less stressful.

If you can’t delegate and pay, then do yourself a favor and let go of your unreachable Pinterest goals, allow yourself grace for the skills you do not possess, and be happy with what you can actually turn out. Exhibit B, my cereal cake for Son’s birthday last year that fell at the very beginning of the pandemic lockdown so I couldn’t hire my extremely talented baker friend. (His obsession with cereal is reeeeal.)

Third.

for everything else, there’s Amazon. I order decoration kits and this makes decorating unbelievably easier. No thinking, just taping. It’s magic.

find the guiding purpose

In the book, The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker mentions that every gathering (at least the good ones) should have a purpose, a guiding direction. A purpose is not to be confused with a category like a birthday, graduation, or book club. It is the deeper meaning.

For example, your birthday is coming up but what is the purpose you want to set? If your purpose is to be around those you love, then you might have a dinner party with your fave people instead of a huge BBQ blowout. If the purpose is to celebrate a milestone with a big gesture, maybe you want to plan a trip to somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.

But this also goes for regular days. If the purpose of today is to give yourself some extra TLC that you know you’ve desperately been needing, then maybe you dip out of work early, go to your favorite sunset spot and spend some time reading and basking in the sun.

Adding celebration into every day

is easier than we think. It just requires giving a little thought to what we want out of our day with the people who matter and leaning into it. When we look at it like this, a family dinner becomes a feast, an evening stroll becomes a nighttime exploration, and we give ourselves room to make anything a special occasion.

 

P.S. Hosting a great Happy Hour (these tips will work on Zoom too) and 7 self-date ideas that you may have heard of but probably haven’t done.