On Friday I dropped my 15-year-old off at the high school and drove on to the airport to fly to Boston. There I headed over to Symphony Hall to meet a friend and listen to the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform Beethoven’s 8th and 9th symphonies. This was an afternoon performance (1:30) but was a full house. I was less familiar with the 8th symphony – it’s short and light. Then the 9th is, of course, the 9th. The choir was fantastic and it’s hard to keep from smiling when the full ecstatic chorus (the Ode to Joy part) is going. It is quite the juxtaposition to hear that masterwork with some of my daily Beethoven — we’re working through his teen years right now and among other things, there was a lieder that was an elegy on the death of a poodle. Apparently he had some breadth in his work.

After, we met up with other friends for drinks and then did dinner at a place where I ordered a cocktail that involved carrots and wasabi. I believe I slept for 9 hours straight in my hotel room. Always a treat of traveling! The next day I flew back to PHL and, because there are no actual business travelers on a 1 p.m. Saturday flight, I got a surprise upgrade. That is also an occasional treat of traveling (though it’s a really short flight…).

The second adventure: on Sunday, my husband and 15-year-old and I went to the Eagles game. We went to the Eagles/Packers game two weeks ago and enjoyed being part of the crowd and that energy. I did not feel sad about watching the blizzard game last week on TV, but when the Eagles won that game, and the weather forecast looked decent for this past Sunday (in the mid-30s and partly cloudy during game time), I decided to look for tickets. I was stalking Stubhub and when some seats came open in a section I like that were priced far below a lot of the others, I grabbed them.

I know the game was a blowout, but it didn’t actually feel that way until the last quarter. So it was exciting to watch, and then as it became clear that the Eagles were going to win, the buzz in that stadium just rose and rose. We stayed until the end, but then because a lot of people stayed for the ceremony afterwards, we were able to get out of the parking lot with very little traffic. So a win all the way around! We were home by 7:30 pm, which meant our Sunday evening proceeded as it normally would to get everyone in bed and ready for the week.

In the meantime, here’s another wintry sonnet, currently called “Wind chill.”

Here winter has a scent — a hint of smoke,
as somewhere, fire warms a drafty room.
My footprints mar the snow, a deer’s hooves broke
the sweeping white already, and a plume

of flakes lofts with the wind. I huddle close
into my coat, exhale a great grey puff.
The cold demands you think of it. My nose,
exposed, feels like I cannot get enough

of this tight air, it freezes down the throat.
But one can’t while the days away inside,
and so I burrow deep into this coat,
and face a sun whose warmth is just implied.

How strange to be so chilled, and yet the light
makes dazzling diamonds, blinking cold and bright.

See Luminature at the Philadelphia Zoo. This did not start promisingly, as the little boys whined a lot. But I purchased them little light-up toys to wave around and they cheered up. The 9-year-old did deign to tell me that it was a lot of fun. So that was a win.

Get Christmas lights professionally installed. Yep, it’s been fun to see the trees lit up when I come home! I think next year I might spring to get a few more trees wrapped in lights. They gave me a bid to line the driveway with lights, but since we have a very long driveway, I balked. I am, fundamentally, a frugal person, and there are limits to my holiday merriment.

Attend the Pentatonix concert. My 17-year-old and I went to this in Madison Square Garden two days before Thanksgiving. It honestly feels like a lifetime ago at this point! I enjoyed the concert a lot and he did too.

Host Thanksgiving. I did indeed cook a turkey. I did not run the Thanksgiving morning 5k because it was pouring down rain but I ran on my street (so I could duck quickly into the house to warm up). My little brother brought sourdough rolls, which were wonderful (I’d needed a sub for my sister-in-law’s rolls since she was traveling to her family!). It was also fun to get together with SHU’s family over Thanksgiving weekend.

Visit Longwood Gardens. I did this as a date night with my husband but I am still hoping to go back one more time before the Christmas decorations end on Jan 12th. I enjoyed seeing the brand new greenhouse.

Sing in many Christmas concerts. This was kind of the defining feature of my December. I sang in both a carol concert and the Bach B-Minor Mass with Choral Arts Philadelphia. I sang in a service of lessons and carols and the Christmas Eve service with my church choir. So much singing. It was great. I was so worried I’d get a respiratory virus and lose my voice but I managed to keep that part of my body healthy at least. We shall not speak of the norovirus epidemic.

Do a cookie baking extravaganza. My daughter and I went to visit my mom in New Jersey and we baked Christmas cookies and gingerbread cookies while there.

Have breakfast with Santa. We went to Neiman Marcus and did their breakfast up in the cafe. People got balloons and face paint. My frugal children did their annual balking at the price tags on stuff we had to walk through to get to the cafe.

Watch the Nutcracker. Did not happen. I bought tickets, then my companion (17-year-old) got sick and we did not go. I will aim for next year!

See the Rockettes in NYC. All of us drove into the city and watched the show this year, then went out to dinner. There were elements that reminded me why we left the city (walking around in 17 degree weather…the restaurant not being able to seat us until 20 minutes after our reservation and we were waiting in a crowd of people and constantly having to move…) but the show was fun. We may not go see the Rockettes next year as the show was pretty much the same as last year. Perhaps they change it up every few years. But we might go back to see lights and go shopping in NYC.

Watch kids in the Christmas pageant. My reader did excellent and my sheep was a very convincing sheep.

Get matching family pajamas. We wound up with a red and black plaid pattern from Amazon. It worked!

Read Christmas stories with the 4 (now 5) year old. He is still a beast at bedtime, but we read a lot of Christmas stories. Last night we read Jan Brett’s Home for Christmas, which is about a naughty troll, and I felt like potentially there was some identification with said troll.

Do the Lego Christmas scene and some Christmas puzzles. We finally finished the Lego set last weekend! I did two 1000-piece holiday-themed puzzles, plus a 500-piece winter themed one.

Enjoy myself. Well, some of the time. There was a lot of stress with gift procurement, traveling right after Christmas, and trying not to get sick. But there were some nice moments too. A holiday season is vast, and contains multitudes.

There were some cool highlights. Among them:

— A new book deal! I wound up switching agents and publishers over the last year or so, but in April we announced a 2-book deal with Norton. Big Time (current title) will come out in early 2026, and The Golden Hours will come out in 2027. I love writing (and writing long) so I have been reminding myself how grateful I am to have the opportunity to create more books.

— In a totally non-commercial vein: I wrote a handful of sonnets I like. I continued my year-long project of writing two lines a day, thus producing one sonnet a week. Most are eh. Some I like. I’ll likely do a post of my favorite sonnets from 2024 over the next week or two.

— I didn’t really have a banner reading year but I read a lot about my current obsession: the ancient earth. This started with my obsession with non-homo sapiens human species, but then has extended back. My current interest: the end-Permian extinction (when 90 percent of all life died out), and then the Triassic, which was when the earth recovered and life re-evolved. At one point it rained for a million years. I am also obsessed with the Economist’s annual Holiday issue (I tend to read it over the holiday break), and they actually had an article on the Triassic this time around. Bliss!

— Spain with my big boys. This was a trip with a lot of memories, from a horse-drawn carriage ride in Seville (smelling the oranges the whole time!) to a little paella restaurant in Rondo, to bike riding in Madrid. While the weather wasn’t wonderful, we survived that and the upgraded seats home were just the cherry on top ending to a great adventure.

— Paris with my daughter. A college friend suggested we go see Taylor Swift in Paris, so we did. Taylor was exciting but it was also fun to see art, eat crepes, cruise on the Seine, and enjoy gorgeous spring weather. She and I had fun at the Olivia Rodrigo concert over the summer as well. I took my 17-year-old to NYC for a long weekend and enjoyed that, particularly our sunset boat cruise and seeing MJ the Musical.

— Fall leaves. I went to Maine twice this fall and really enjoyed the scenery — including seeing the Northern Lights in Portland.

— Singing in the B-Minor Mass. This has been on my List of 100 Dreams for years, and this year it finally happened. I listened to all of Bach this year as well, and so getting to learn this piece even better was a fitting capstone to the project. My church choir sang Brahms’ Requiem, which was also cool.

— I hosted a “progressive” dinner party in the spring where we moved to different places for different courses.

— I ate at my favorite Mexican restaurant many times.

— I went to many botanical gardens. I met friends in NYC and went to the NY Botanical Garden in April for their orchid show. Then I went to Phoenix on a speaking trip and got to see the desert landscape in their garden — totally different, but amazing as well. I went to Longwood many times, and also to Chanticleer, which can be done in a lunch time trip in spring/summer and is usually gorgeous.

There were some lowlights as well:

— Excruciating back and nerve pain. About a year ago I suffered a back incident (with corresponding nerve pain down my leg) that left me unable to walk for a week and then unable to do basic things like empty the dishwasher for a while. My life doesn’t stop, so this meant I took a family trip to Disney five weeks after that happened. That was…hard. Recovery has been fitful though I do feel significantly better now. I wish I knew why. I was doing all the “right” back exercises/physical therapy exercises before the episode, so it’s not like they prevented it.

— Some family travel. The 5-year-old has trouble getting to sleep at home and on the road it is even worse. So Disney (February) and Barbados (over Christmas) both featured some very late nights with a child throwing a tantrum. Not cool. Especially when you’re paying through the nose for the privilege! Bedtime battles in general are just tedious. I do know that “this too shall pass,” as my older kids don’t throw tantrums at 10 p.m., but this is a parenting stage I wish would go a little faster.

— Norovirus. Enough said.

— Child behavioral challenges. Will just have to vague-blog here.

— Not making it to Scotland. Longtime readers may recall our canceled flights, driving home from Newark at 3 a.m., etc. Good times. However, there is always the Bronx Zoo!

In other news: I had several longer Before Breakfast episodes run since I last posted links. On December 18 I welcomed Gretchen Rubin to the show, and she talked about habits, happiness, and more. On December 25 longtime listener Amanda shared her morning routines and her “pre-planning” rituals. On January 1st I did a solo longer episode in which I talked about time tracking — why and how to do it.

Please give them a listen!

Also, please consider signing up for my annual Time Tracking Challenge. From January 13-20 a great many of us will be tracking our time together. I’ll post my time logs on this blog. You can sign up here to get daily motivational emails from me.

Photo: Spain!

On Saturday I got up bright and early to drive my eldest to the SAT (NOT on anyone’s holiday fun list, but hey…). He didn’t want to deal with the stress of getting there and parking (it wasn’t at our local high schools) so I took him. I don’t know that he was thrilled with how it went but this is definitely the last time he will take it, so at least there is that!

After, I drove downtown for my dress rehearsal for the Choral Arts Philadelphia carols concert. This is the choir I am singing the Bach B-Minor mass with later this month, but they turned out to have two concerts this cycle, so this was a bonus to get to sing with them for another show. We ran through the numbers with our flute, bassoon, and organ musicians, took a break (I got to explore Rittenhouse Square a bit) and then we performed to a full Holy Trinity Church (apparently 500+ tickets sold). I really really enjoyed this (someone who was in the audience told me I looked like I was having a really good time). The choir’s blend is fantastic. Now I am really excited for Bach!

Sunday was church as usual and then my daughter and I drove to New Jersey to my parents’ apartment where we did a cookie baking extravaganza. We’d made the dough before hand for gingerbread men, so we rolled those out and baked those, then did sugar cookies (my mom had made the dough for those). We ended with many, many cookies so we’ll be working our way through those for a while. While we were waiting for the cookies to cool (to frost) my mom and daughter played something of a heated game of Scrabble, and we helped decorate their tabletop tree.

Now it’s back to work today, but on my list is triaging presents — seeing what we have and what we still need. We’re at that stage in December where there are piles of boxes in my office and I haven’t opened them all, meaning no doubt some random household items like toothpaste are in the Amazon boxes too and I just haven’t found them. It’s feeling a little disorganized, so I want to be on top of it. Then, hopefully, I will be more relaxed about the season…

In other news: I’m cranking along on the manuscript of Big Time, my next book. I’m working on a chapter on being “open to serendipity” — elaborating on an idea I’ve mentioned before that open space invites opportunity into one’s life in a way a cluttered calendar can’t. I know that some of my biggest opportunities have come because I followed a random thread, or responded to an email that might have led to something…but might not have. It’s helpful to build a schedule where at least some randomness can reach you. Anyway, I am always looking for stories of something serendipitous that has happened because of following a random thread. As always you can email me laura at laura vanderkam dot com.

I am also finalizing my 2025 goals list — we record this episode of Best of Both Worlds ahead of time so I try to lock it in…still noodling on the year-long project!!

*Getting together with friends for breakfast and coffee and hearing from more far-flung people.

*Going out for Mexican food (a margarita! guacamole!) with my family. They gave me miniature accessories for my miniature kitchen, and some puzzles.

*Hearing my church choir sing Happy Birthday at rehearsal — pitched very very high as part of the warm-up. I will never hear it sung that high at a birthday party!

* The birthday thread on our Patreon page! SHU asked people to post something they’d learned from me and it is making me feel many warm fuzzies to know my catchphrases are going through people’s heads!

* I’m headed to Longwood Gardens with my husband this weekend to see the lights and Christmas displays.

So, lots of good stuff. As for content, the Before Breakfast podcast suggested people “Plan a Monday adventure” and “Go in search of lost time.” As the longer episode, I did a time makeover of a Before Breakfast listener named Haley, talking about some various things she tried in her life and how they worked.

Over at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter, I discussed how to make time for speculative projects in a post called “Put big dreams first.” Behind the paywall I had tips on “How to make virtual events more engaging,” and ideas on “How to enjoy your birthday as an adult.”

Finally, here’s a sonnet, called “Bus stop.”

Four weeks before the solstice, and the sky
is full of shadows, lengthened on the street.
The school bus stops, the children shout and try
to stop the boy from racing off. His feet

are pushing out his shoes, his elbows taut,
his eyelashes are tangled and his hair
is rumpled. See, he reaches — soon he’s caught
a single yellow leaf. The autumn air

is chilled with wind, then warm in setting sun,
this moment in between when all is light.
So why should we be sad? The boy will run,
and any thoughts of darkness take to flight

like squawking birds, against the golden gleam
of afternoon, of joy that’s like a dream.

Anyway, I hosted Thanksgiving this year, so much of Thursday was filled with cooking. My sister-in-law who makes the magnificent rolls was not with us this time, but my little brother made some sourdough rolls that were different but also excellent, so it was all good. He and his wife stayed overnight, and later in the evening we broke out some ice wine from the wine collection we got with the house (the previous owner was downsizing significantly, and also didn’t really drink, so it was a reasonable thing to throw in). My husband and I aren’t big wine drinkers either, so when we have parties we go down there and find something random. It was ice wine from Virginia this time. It was actually good!

On Friday we got our (live) Christmas tree in the morning from the local fire station’s fundraiser. Then, shortly after we got it into the stand, it was time for Sarah and her family to visit, so their kids helped decorate the tree (I checked to make sure this wasn’t problematic; I was assured it was fine). Then we did gingerbread houses and my husband made his oyster soup for the adults. Yum!

My husband and the two older boys then took off for Texas — they went to the Texas/Texas A&M game in College Station. Alas, the game did not go the way my Aggie husband was hoping, but they had a good time visiting the old haunts, including his childhood house (they know the people who bought it) — which was remarkably not that changed.

Meanwhile, I was entertaining the younger three. On Saturday, when I had some babysitting hours for the littlest, I took the next two oldest to the Brandywine River Museum of Art to see the holiday train exhibit, the critter tree, and the dollhouse. We drove 45 minutes to only be there 30 minutes, and I didn’t actually get to see any of the art, but hey. The kids were happy with this accelerated version of a museum visit, especially when we stopped at Wawa and then Starbucks on the way home. (I also had a really good time doing art with these two after the 4-year-old went to bed — with five kids it’s often fun to have different combinations of kids at different points and see how things play out…)

Given that my husband and older two sons (i.e. the people who will eat real food) were gone, I was really on my own for getting through the leftovers. I ate five straight meals of leftover turkey this weekend. I was also running the dishwasher multiple times per day until the kitchen was finally clean (I still haven’t dealt with the placemats in the dining room…on the list…). But I came up with a creative way to use the rest of the cranberries: Cranberry cookies! There’s a recipe on the back of the children’s book Cranberry Christmas, so we made that. There’s a lot of sugar, but it’s balanced out by the tart cranberries.

I did a lot of online shopping and I’m happy to report that a lot of the kid stuff is taken care of. There is more to be done still, but I’m feeling a bit more like there is a plan. I’ll probably wind up taking a half day Wednesday to go to the stores when they’re a little emptier. There are some upsides to self-employment…

I didn’t do a content round-up last week, but a few to check out:

At the Before Breakfast podcast I interviewed Joel and Matt! The hosts of the “How to Money” podcast came on to talk about staying financially sane over the holidays. For the shorter episodes, I suggested that you “Text your response” — even if you’re not sending holiday cards you can participate in the cheer. I also gave my number one tip for more peaceful travel: “Be ready to block out the world.” It can be frustrating to be in a hotel by the elevator or ice maker, or in a train car with someone who wants to share their phone conversation with the world. But as long as you have the power to block out the world, sound-wise, you can be much more calm. Of course if you are traveling with small kids and can’t block out the world, this is a different matter, but…

At Vanderhacks (my Substack newsletter) I reminded people that “All magic is just labor, hidden well.” I noted that “You have as much time today as you’ll ever have.” Then there’s the insight that “You can try again.” There are many reasons things don’t work the first time, and sometimes the answer is not that the thing is a bad idea! Please consider a free or paid subscription, and thanks for reading!

On some level, getting to shows in Madison Square Garden is quite easy. The arena is right above Penn Station/Moynihan Train Hall. I now know that we can be off a train and up by our seats in approximately 12 minutes, and that’s going through security and the ticket scanning! So probably I should consider more such shows in the future. We drove into Philly to get the train, but the Keystone train stops at Ardmore on the way to NYC, and Ardmore is 5 minutes from my house.

Of course, the problem is getting home. It was hanging over my head for most of the concert that we really needed to be on the 10:05 regional back to Philly, as the next train doesn’t go until close to 11:30. The 10:05 is bad enough, getting back to PHL at around 11:45, and then it’s a 20-minute drive home (no traffic). There’s no train back to Ardmore, so if we left our car there we’d have to Uber there to get it. We wound up leaving the show about 3 songs early due to my paranoia. We walked in the door at 12:10 a.m.

But! It was a good show. I enjoyed seeing what sounds the human voice can make and they sang their well-known pieces (Mary Did You Know? and Hallelujah, for instance). I am now feeling quite in the Christmas spirit, if tired after getting up to get kids out the door this morning. I am also realizing that I need to figure out my playbook for tomorrow, what ingredients we still need and what needs to go into the oven when. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

It’s the holiday season, and this week’s Best of Both Worlds talks about how to plan out the next few weeks. We recommend taking a mindful approach of figuring out what everyone truly wants to do — though of course tradition does carry some weight. We talk about what *we* would like to receive as gifts as well!

Please give the episode a listen. We’ll be gathering with our Patreon community at noon (Eastern), today, 11/26, to discuss how to curate a holiday season. If you’d like to join you can go to our Patreon page (if you see this after noon, don’t worry, there’s a recording). We’re also happy to announce that our annual goal-setting workshop will be December 19th (also at noon, eastern) and Sarah will lead us through some goal setting exercises for 2025. That’s always a great one! Membership is $9/month and includes access to our forum, where we have 3-4 discussion threads going each week on issues of work/life.

On Friday night, we had our family party. The usual version of this is that the kid chooses what he/she wants for dinner, and we have ice cream cake after. Only 4 out of 7 people actually eat ice cream cake (the 17-year-old and I are both out on the dairy, and then the 9-year-old doesn’t eat anything) but hey. She had selected French toast as her birthday dinner, and she made the French toast. I made the eggs and bacon and we had breakfast for dinner. Then we opened presents: 2 nightgowns, several bead kits, a bedazzling kit, paint pens and canvases, and earrings. A good haul!

Then on Saturday we celebrated with friends. I took my daughter and four other girls to a local restaurant for brunch where more French toast was consumed — pumpkin cream cheese stuffed, this time. Then we went to Build-a-Bear at an area mall and they all made their various creatures. My daughter rang the bell and the whole store sang. Then we came back to the house where the kids had pizza and cupcakes and hung out into the evening.

The birthday celebrations consumed much of the weekend, but a few other things happened. I walked with a friend on Friday, ran with another friend Saturday morning, then went on a bike ride on Sunday. The 17-year-old took the SAT (he has a good score from taking it two months ago, but would like to get about 30-40 points higher). There were two swim practices, soccer, and church. My husband and I went for a walk at Chanticleer. Now I am up at 5 a.m. on Monday morning for unknown reasons. There is no space for a nap today so here’s hoping I woke up because I didn’t need more sleep…

On the docket this weekend — my peak long run (for the half-marathon I’m running in 3 weeks…), more birthday celebrations, hearing the 17-year-old sing the Star Spangled Banner for an athletic event, and family photos. The photos will be an experience — the 4-year-old already complained about the sweater he will be wearing BUT I know my remembering self will be glad to have these photos, and I’m not sure the 17-year-old will really participate in formal family photos after this. So we should take them.

In the meantime, this week’s content round-up…The Before Breakfast podcast featured an interview with productivity expert Chris Bailey talking about the Rule of 3 and his point system for building good habits. I also suggested (quoting Jodi Wellman) that people “Make bit-sized bucket lists.”

Over at Vanderhacks I preached the virtues of vowing to “Leave the party while you’re still having fun.” Also, thinking about endings, I suggest people “Begin by thinking about the end.” I began a foray into video posting with one called “Send a note to your Future Self.” The (print) post behind the paywall this week was about how to finish the year strong and “Make the most of the next 100 days.” Please consider a free or paid subscription!

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community we are discussing how much time we spend outside and (in another outdoor-related topic) how we manage bad weather days (i.e. when kids are out of school). If you missed Sarah’s interview with Sam Kelly about how to get kids to notice what needs to be done, you can check it out here.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoy my writing, you might also like my books. I’ve written several on time management topics. The most recent is called Tranquility by Tuesday: Nine Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. I really enjoyed writing this book about my favorite time management strategies, and what happened when 150 people learned them over nine weeks. Please check it out!