You (might) need a Thanksgiving binder
Or, how I reduced my holiday stress levels by 40%
Last November, on the day before Thanksgiving (exactly a year ago, in fact!), after calling my mother, my sister and my brother to ask for recipes/techniques/clarify ingredients in Very Important Thanksgiving dishes, I realized that I had reached a breaking point, and Something Must Change. To scramble between various places (recipe binders, websites) and people, searching for recipes in the days leading up to the biggest food holiday of the year, was just not working.
Yes, last year was unusual, in that we weren’t being hosted by anyone and I was making every component of the meal myself, but still; I realized that as our family aged, and as I became more and more competent as a hostess, it would more often than not be me that hosted these big holiday feasts. I realized that I needed to plan accordingly.
Thus, the Thanksgiving Binder was born.
What is a Thanksgiving Binder?
A Thanksgiving binder is a place to collect every recipe for every holiday for the whole year: I have a divider for Easter, for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, for Advent, for New Year’s Eve, etc. I even have a divider for Valentine’s Day, but since that day has less cooking/baking/gifting/—it is not as vital to have that section as it is to have the Big Three (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter), but it is still handy to have a physical place to gather everything I need to create the food/traditions that creates the atmosphere that creates our unique family culture.
If mothers are the creators and the keepers of the family culture, which I absolutely believe them to be (Lane Scott elaborates on this idea here), then we, as mothers, need a plan. We need a place for recipes (a place, not six different places), for traditions, for shopping lists, and yes, for schedules (have you ever tried to make a meal with 8-12 different dishes in a kitchen with only one stove and one oven? You absolutely need a schedule if you want everything on the table to be served hot and at the same time.)
Feasting (and what is a holiday without a feast?) takes a vast amount of planning, diligence, and effort. And I don’t want to be stressed out and grumpy in the kitchen on Thanksgiving, slamming pots around, wondering why no one is helping me. If my family is staying away, it’s probably because of my (bad) attitude, or it's possible that they may not know what to do, or what to help with. Having a binder that contains every recipe means that you can say to your husband/child/sister/aunt–hey, can you start on the green beans/mashed potatoes/rolls, etc? The Binder means you don’t have to do it all yourself.
Preparing well (and gradually) for the festivities of Christmas means that when everyone is singing “all is calm,” they aren’t also glancing warily over at me thinking…well, everything except mom.
Our attitudes, our demeanors, as mothers, really do create the atmosphere in our homes (whether we like it or not). And a stressed-out mother prepping for Christmas in a frenzy is not what anyone wants.
Having a detailed plan in place reminds me that yes, Christmas is a lot of work, but also that it does not have to be stressful. Planning and preparation over time can remove the burden of a last-minute scramble to get all the baking/shopping/cooking done that could have been 80% completed before that last week before Christmas.
It is important (for me) to remember that even though holidays are a lot of work, we don’t have to do every tradition that we’ve ever encountered. I wrote about choosing our Christmas Essentials here–it is vital that we spend some time deciding exactly what we want our Thanksgiving/Christmas, etc to look like and then to cheerfully ignore what everyone else around us does (especially online!). Our family traditions, and in turn our family cultures are uniquely our own. This (of course) doesn't mean that we can’t glean inspiration from friends and family, just that we remember that we have limits (of time, money, and energy) and that we truly cannot do every single Christmas tradition.
What goes in the Thanksgiving Binder?
Recipes
First and foremost, it is the recipes. Because feasting takes a prominent place in our celebration of holidays, recipes will likely be the bulk of your binder.
One of my favorite aspects of my Thanksgiving section is remembering all the people who have inspired the recipes I use each year. My sister makes the most delicious pumpkin cheesecake, so her recipe goes in the binder. My mother (and her mother-in-law) always made the most glorious, ruby-red cranberry salad every year; that recipe goes into the binder, too. My husband’s family always has a (less-glorious) Cool-Whip, fruit, and marshmallow “salad” on their Thanksgiving table; that recipe goes in the binder. The recipes become like a patchwork of people from both my husband’s family as well as mine, and I love thinking about each family member as I pull out ingredients to make their special dish.
All the Christmas baking recipes: put those in the binder, too.
If you have recipes that are handwritten by family members (your mother, aunts, grandmothers, etc) please include those! A collection of family recipes, some written by hand, is a priceless family treasure that your children and grandchildren will love to have someday.
Shopping Lists
This year, for the first time ever, I simply opened my binder to the Thanksgiving tab, and voila! There was my shopping list, all ready to use at the store(s). It felt glorious to not have to go through the work (again!) of tracking down all my recipes and then pulling out the ingredients I still needed to purchase. (This is similar to my camping checklist which I am thankful for every single time we go camping; you can read about that here.)
My Christmas shopping lists are even more elaborate, as I have separated them into categories based on which store I purchase each item from. These lists are the key for preventing last-minute shopping frenzies. Because you know exactly what you need to buy, you can slowly purchase all the non-perishable/frozen items over the 3-4 weeks leading up to Christmas; then, during the last week, you can simply buy all the fresh, last-minute items like berries and vegetables, etc.
Schedules
I have schedules in both my Thanksgiving and Christmas sections; these are both multi-day schedules (planning out what to bake in advance, such as pies or rolls or other dishes) as well as day-of schedules, such as timing the boiling and mashing of the potatoes, as well as the making of the gravy and the steaming of the green beans to coincide and ensure a hot Thanksgiving meal at the same time. No one wants to eat cold mashed potatoes! Or soggy green beans. I have last year’s Thanksgiving schedule to refer to for tomorrow’s cooking marathon, that way I can adjust it to fit our estimated start time for our dinner this year.
Traditions
The only section in my binder with traditions listed out is the Christmas section. This is a brief list of all our family traditions that we have done in the past, and even some ideas for traditions we want to attempt in the future. I didn’t realize before we started having children just how malleable and changeable family traditions can be. But it makes sense: if all of your children are under 5, of course your traditions will change (at least a little) once you have mostly teenagers. Some traditions, of course, are non-negotiable, like buying a Christmas tree and decorating it. Others are more suited to older children, like volunteering in a soup kitchen or caroling in cold weather. Let your traditions grow and change with your family!
Obviously, all of this does not need to be contained in a binder. If you have recipe cards and you love gathering recipes in a box, that is wonderful, too. Or if you prefer a digital collection of recipes and shopping lists, throw it all in a google drive folder and you’re set.
I love a binder because it can easily be used in a (very busy) kitchen. Sheet protectors, too, add a much-needed layer of protection to the recipes. I also love that I can simply take out a recipe, hand it to one of my children, and ask them to make a Thanksgiving dish or a Christmas cookie. Then, when they’re done, I can simply put it back in. A binder, too, makes it simple to add all the non-recipes to each section; typing up shopping lists or traditions and then printing them out is fast and easy.
Christianity is a faith in practice, and a culture of a particular people. It is not simply book learning. The creative genus required of Christian women involves setting a stage and fleshing out what this faith looks like when lived out. What outward signs can we create to signify the spiritual reality of what we are celebrating for our children?
-Lane Scott
Creating a family culture through feasting and traditions can be seen as a great gift for us as mothers, or it can be seen as an unnecessary burden. I want to choose to see it as a gift—a wonderful opportunity to cultivate the outward signs that signify vital spiritual reality for my children. Beware the temptation to become a Scrooge and frown and scowl about all the merriment and festivities surrounding holidays!
Keep seeking the virtuous and the lovely,
Shannon
Was literally TODAY picturing something like this magical binder as I piled all of my Christmas cookie recipe print outs that I had to look up AGAIN this year! Thank you for motivating me to actually create this wonderful resource!
I started my “holiday binder” thanks to your inspiration. Not only does it lower stress, but I also look forward to the record of sweet holiday memories for years to come.