Those things are not going on the official List, though, because this year the List is specifically about things I find fun! Here’s what we will do.

See Luminature at the Philadelphia Zoo. I’ll take the two little boys on the night the big kids are going to see Wicked. These lights are pretty and, more importantly, only about 20 minutes from the house. This will kick off the holiday festivities for me!

Get Christmas lights professionally installed. This is already done— we have several trees wrapped with lights. It’s fun to see them come on as darkness falls. Also fun: the crew will come get them and take them down in January. Our house manager is putting up the official “fancy tree” this week — the artificial one with matching ornaments. I’m hoping for candles in the window soon.

Attend the Pentatonix concert. This was a last-minute addition to the list, but I got tickets and am bringing my oldest to go see their Christmas repertoire.

Host Thanksgiving. A few members of my extended family will be joining us. I also plan to run a turkey trot 5k that morning. My 15-year-old is signed up to run it, as is SHU (she is visiting her family, who live near me, for Thanksgiving)! They will both be running far faster than me. At least I can say hello at the start and the end. My sister-in-law who makes the fabulous rolls turns out to have other Thanksgiving plans this year so we’ll need to come up with a substitute.

Visit Longwood Gardens. My husband and I plan to do this as a date night to celebrate my birthday. I feel like the kids always rush me through the pretty decorations. So this time we are not bringing the kids! But we might go some other time with the kids. I bought the Longwood membership where you don’t have to make reservations, and A Longwood Christmas is almost completely sold out, so I feel like I have the hot ticket here…

Sing in many Christmas concerts. I’m singing a concert of carols with Choral Arts Philadelphia, and then also doing a service of lessons and carols with my church choir. I’ll sing in the Christmas Eve service with my church choir and then in the New Year’s Eve performance of Bach’s B-Minor mass with Choral Arts. Singing the B-Minor mass has been on my bucket list for years so I’m really excited about this.

Do a cookie baking extravaganza. My daughter and I are likely heading over to my mom’s house to do this. Fake butter will be involved! I think we might be able to make three types of cookies in an afternoon.

Have breakfast with Santa. I want to do this, and my daughter really wanted to do this, so we booked a breakfast for seven at an area department store. We have been instructed (by said daughter) to dress up this time.

Watch the Nutcracker. I think only the oldest kid wants to do this with me, but I always like the music and the dancing. I have not purchased tickets yet as finding a time is challenging (See: everything else on the schedule) but my husband and I are theoretically having a December calendar meeting tonight. Stay tuned.

See the Rockettes in NYC. We bought tickets to bring all seven of us this year! We’ll also go out to dinner in New York afterwards (reservation for 7 = made), and see the Rockefeller Center tree.

Watch kids in the Christmas pageant. Only 2 are performing this year, but that’s fine. I will miss this when no one wants to do it anymore!

Get matching family pajamas. We’ve ordered pajama sets from Pajamagram for the last 5 years, but the problem with doing that is we’ve kind of exhausted their inventory of pajamas we like. So this year my daughter chose a basic red and black pattern and we bought pairs from a few different vendors on Amazon. This is another tradition that I’m not sure will last forever. There is a lot of grumbling. But I think we can squeeze out another year or two.

Read Christmas stories with the 4-year-old. He’s been a bit of a beast at bedtime lately. But we do enjoy reading together. I’m heavily pushing the Christmas stories to him in between the Spiderman books that he wants me to read to him. I like Christmas Farm, Pick a Pine Tree, Cranberry Christmas, Apple Tree Christmas, Christmas Day in the Morning, 5 Sleeps Until Christmas, The Night Before the Night Before Christmas, How Santa Got His Job, The Christmas Wish, and others. The Grinch is fun to read maybe twice but he kind of likes to read that one a lot.

Do the Lego Christmas scene and some Christmas puzzles. I’ll make the North Pole Lego post office (this year’s scene) with the 15-year-old (who is indulging me) and the 13-year-old (who probably is too). I just finished the holiday carolers scene puzzle from White Mountain that a lovely BLP Live participant gave me. I’ll clear the dining room table for Thanksgiving and then even if December is short there will be time for a few more puzzles before the holidays.

Enjoy myself. If you are your family’s chief magic maker you know that this actually does need to go on the list as a reminder. (As the line from last year’s Christmas sonnet goes, “All magic is just labor, hidden well.”)

What’s on your holiday fun list?

Back in September, I posted my 2024 Fall Fun List — a list of things I wanted to do to enjoy this fleeting season. Here’s an update on how I did.

Visit New England twice. I did! I went to a work-related gathering in Portland, Maine in early fall, and had a lovely run along the water and saw the northern lights. Then in mid/late October my husband and I went to Mount Desert Island in Maine. We stayed in Bar Harbor, hiked through Acadia, ate lobster, and ran the Run MDI half marathon. Lots of beautiful fall scenery there too.

Run long. I finished the half marathon, though it was fairly painful. I have not been motivated to run long since then! But I did do several longer runs during my training on a local nature trail, and those were quite nice.

Bike. I did bike solo a few times on a trail near here. We did not go as a family, despite buying another big kid bike (it has yet to be used). However I have been biking around the driveway with my 4-year-old! BOBW listeners have heard my ad about the Guardian Bike, and he has definitely figured it out. He asked if he could ride his own bike during a family bike ride — we shall see, as the trails are a little scary sometimes, but he could absolutely go on the Tag-along behind me. Of course, now it’s going to be cold for the next four months but…eventually.

Hike. My husband and I did the Gorham Mountain trail in Acadia, so I think this counts. My friend Joy and I have walked on local trails several times too.

Visit a botanical garden. I did do a lunch time picnic at Stoneleigh, and I went to Chanticleer several times, usually on Friday mid-day. When I created my “realistic ideal week” at BLP Live, I tentatively put in that Friday around lunch could be my “little adventure” time for doing things like this. There should be upsides to self employment!

Go apple picking. Wow, this seems like ages ago, though it was just mid/late September. We bought 3 pecks of honeycrisp apples at a local place. There was a lot of whining as it was a hot day, but we did it. And we ate through all our apples. I think we’ll go somewhere less crowded next year.

Watch a football game. Just snippets here and there on TV. I have family members going to a real one over Thanksgiving, but not me. Oh well.

Take family photos. We did, in a studio in late September. I now have the proofs and they are lovely (well, mostly – I don’t like viewing myself from some angles!). I’m not allowed to show random family photos anymore with older kids, but I’m happy to have these.

Enjoy BLP Live. I did! I love the beach and it was a great gathering. This will probably become a late fall tradition.

Listen to Vivaldi’s “Autumn.” Yep, and wrote several autumn-themed sonnets. I am thinking I might actually continue my 2-lines-a-day sonnet writing habit for another year. It’s pretty easy to do, and the discipline of writing sonnets weekly means occasionally I write one I like.

I’m now working on my holiday fun list, so stay tuned for that! If you made a fall fun list, how did you do?

The longtime blogger behind Design Mom, Blair is also a mother of 6. In this episode, she shares with Sarah her perspective on worrying less, especially as kids grow up and make their own choices.

Then in the Q&A, we tackle a question from a listener who wonders if it’s true that you need to develop a child’s soccer talents as a toddler in order for the kid to play in high school. Do we wish we’d pushed kids more in activities?

Please give the episode a listen! As always, we welcome ratings and reviews. We also welcome folks to our Patreon community, where we discuss these topics in our very fun forum. Our next Zoom meet-up will be 11/26, when we’ll discuss all things holidays, and then we’ll have our annual goal-setting workshop in December. Membership is $9/month.

The 17-year-old did a singing competition where he had multiple appearances in front of judges (not low stress!). I had sort of assumed he could just drive himself there (it was 30 minutes away) but since he is under 18 he was required to have a chaperone. Fortunately I found this out before the actual competition itself (phew!), but it did require some recalculating of the weekend to make sure everyone else still had rides.

We also had a swim meet on Sunday for the 9-year-old that was on my calendar as a “swim team carnival” — I sort of assumed it was a drop in Halloween-themed thing…but then my husband told me it was a meet. And the 9-year-old was in several events. I also made myself available to the 17-year-old as he was filling out college apps — not low-stress!

(Though I remind myself and him that he has been admitted to one of our flagship state schools already, and any other applications are just if-he-wants-to extra. Also, the 9-year-old did really well! He is fast.)

There were multiple Halloween parties, kid get-togethers, a music lesson and such. But, before I construct a narrative that I didn’t have any time for myself this weekend, I can look back on my log and remind myself of a few highlights.

For instance, on Friday afternoon I went for a walk with a friend in a nearby nature preserve. The leaves were very pretty! I also sat on the hammock for 30 minutes reading a magazine.

On Saturday, in between rounds of this singing competition (I decided to drive us back home for a bit in between) I went for a 40-minute run in a different nearby nature preserve. Also pretty!

On Sunday, I hit up the big kids to babysit the 4-year-old while my husband was at the swim meet, and I went on a scheduled tour of the Woodmont Estate not too far from my house. This house has quite an interesting history (it’s still run by the Peace Mission Movement) and I’d never been inside, so I took the opportunity. Fascinating. Then the 17-year-old invited me to go to a pumpkin-carving party with him — one of his friend’s families was hosting, and he said parents could come too. I was flattered to be invited and had a good time.

So, still a lot of good stuff. And I worked a bit on my puzzle – which is harder than I’d planned on. The pieces are randomly shaped, meaning a straight edge doesn’t mean it’s an edge piece…ugh. Slow progress…

In other news: I collaborated with the PeachTree Virtual Assistant agency (which I have used for my VAs!) to produce a “Time management playbook.” This has lots of practical tips on organizing your time. You can download it from their website at this link. (Scroll down to the second line or so).

Photo: Fall light and flowers

I am a big fan of simple, crowd-pleasing meals. Most nights, everyone who is in the house at approximately 6-6:30 p.m. will sit down to eat together. Each week there is a pasta night (usually Monday), some sort of chicken dish (often Tuesday), breakfast-for-dinner (generally Thursday), and make-your-own pizza on Friday. All these are fairly customizable for people who like different things. Everyone is happy. The other three nights present an opportunity for doing something different (or going out – another way to get interesting flavors).

Yesterday, the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community met up on Zoom to discuss meal planning. There are, of course, lots of services one can use, and lots of cookbooks one can consult. But I was also reminded, hearing people’s go-to meals, that there are a lot of very simple meals in the world that are actually quite good. Before I realized cheese and I didn’t get along, grilled cheese, tomato soup, and a bagged Caesar salad was a common meal. Sticking salmon in the oven with some veggies can work. A number of people had some sort of ready made protein, a favorite sauce, and then you can heat up frozen veggies to make a meal. Easy!

I think we can sometimes over complicate things. Perhaps a Tuesday night is not the right time to be looking at a cookbook, choosing an hour-long project. Everyone will be equally happy — possibly more so — with fajitas.

In other news: On Monday night I had quite the little adventure! Longtime readers know that “sing Bach’s B-Minor Mass” has been on my List of 100 Dreams since as long as I have had such a list. I’m happy to report that an excellent choir that meets in downtown Philadelphia is performing the piece this winter, and they were willing to let me join them. I’m looking forward to the concert itself, but even the Monday night rehearsal was such a treat. We sang through most of the first half of the work and several of the pieces were close to performance-ready already (did I mention it is a very good choir?). I’ve been spending time each day working through the mass on my own and I am so enjoying re-familiarizing myself with the work. Here’s to finally working through some things on the list. Maybe New Zealand will happen soon…

In other other news: My customized Plum Paper 2025 planner arrived yesterday. I posted a photo over at Instagram (@lvanderkam; yes, I’m back on finally…) if you’d like to see it. I also ordered a Hemlock & Oak planner to donate to a silent raffle (bundled with my books + fancy notebooks and pens). That should arrive today, and I’m looking forward to seeing it too!

In today’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sara McCarty, head of Run Wild My Child, shares tactics for getting outdoors together. From toys that will make your backyard more fun to things you can do in the dark, this episode is all about the outdoors for people who don’t plan to do 2-week hiking trips.

In the Q&A we tackle a question of when to buy a Halloween costume for kids…in order to avoid Halloween regret.

Please give the episode a listen! Our Patreon community will be meeting up today at noon, eastern, to discuss all things meal planning. We’d love to have you join us. If you’re reading this after noon, no worries, the meet-up will be recorded.

In the Q&A Sarah and I read some feedback on our anniversary episode from someone who would like to have the best of both worlds, but is really struggling with finding childcare. We know that availability is a real problem in certain areas, and we express our empathy with the situation. It is hard!

Please give the episode a listen. We always welcome ideas for future topics, so feel free to reach out to me with suggestions.

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…

First, we cover our new school year routines. In my household things are looking a little different with new school start times, but so far I am a big fan. It’s nice not to have everyone up quite so early. Today, for instance, I was able to get up at 6:20 a.m. and get a treadmill run in before getting the first kid up at 7 a.m. We’ve also been getting everyone in their rooms earlier at night, which has some benefits too.

Then we do a deep dive on whining — both its inevitability and a few strategies for lessening the sting.

Finally, I go on a bit of a rant on preschool vs. daycare and how they’re not actually as different as people sometimes make them out to be.

Please give the episode a listen! If you’d like to join a discussion group of people who are interested in topics of work and life, please consider joining the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community. We have about 3-4 discussion threads going each week on our forum, and we meet up once a month by Zoom. In October we’ll be discussing all things meal planning (Oct 22 at noon eastern). Membership is $9/month — see the page here.

Five kids generate a lot of activity, rain or not. Some fun news: The 4-year-old is really, truly riding his bike. He’d been doing it balance-bike style for a while and had figured out how to glide around that way. Then he started experimenting with putting his feet on the pedals, and now he’s got it. I am very proud of him!

On Friday night we hosted a gaggle of 14- and 15-year-old boys, who ate pizza and cake, played pool and ping pong and hide-and-seek out in the yard. My husband and I sat by the fire pit while they were racing around. They were all quite polite and well-behaved, which was nice.

On Saturday I got up and went to the same local nature trail where I’ve been doing my long runs in previous weeks. The forecast said the rain would be over by 9 a.m. but it really wasn’t. There was a drizzle the whole time. And it was a long time, because I ran 12 miles. I’ve decided that my previous half-marathon strategy of doing long runs up to 10 miles is just not working. I get to 10 miles during the race and fall apart. So I wanted to do at least 11-12 miles during a training run, and I did. I was oddly tired at around 3 miles, which made me wonder how on earth I was going to keep running for another 90 minutes, but then I got a bit more pep in my step. The fall colors were quite pretty in the rain; yellow stands out more against a gray sky. I think I will try to do one more long-ish run before the race (but probably not 12 miles again).

In the afternoon, my husband took the 9-year-old to his first swim meet. I took the older boys to get hair cuts, and then I drove the 17-year-old to a vocal practice and off to the Devon Horse Show’s dressage event, where he and 5 other kids sang the national anthem together. I had never really watched dressage, so even though I didn’t see much of it, this was an educational experience. And hey, I got to watch from the VIP hospitality suite, since that’s where the kids needed to wait before going out on the field (or whatever you call it…I’m not familiar with equestrian terminology…). They sounded great! We made a quick Starbucks stop after (right before it closed) and then 6 out of 7 members of my family went in the hot tub, which turned out to be too many people in the hot tub. This was not relaxing. I think I need to just find a time when no one is watching and go in on my own.

Anyway…Sunday was church and then off to a studio in West Chester for family photos. I know I have written here before that family photos are one of those things that I’m glad to have done even though it is very little fun at the moment. My future self will be happy to have the photos…so experiencing Laura needs to steel herself for the complaining and misbehavior during the photos themselves. It could have been worse. The kids looked nice. Hopefully they turn out well!