Your Last-Minute Holiday Gift Guide

Running a little behind this year?

Me too, friend. 🙋‍♀️ Me too.

Don't worry. I've got you.

I've compiled some of my favorite last-minute gift ideas, right here. This one is going to be short and sweet because time is a tickin', and those holiday wish lists aren't going to take care of themselves.

Become best friends with gift cards

At this point in the game, gift cards are going to be your best friend. There are three ways to go:

1. You can pick up physical gift cards either at the location or at one of those gift card centers in stores and pharmacies. 

2. You can get holiday e gift cards and have them emailed to you (to print and wrap).

3. You can have the e-gift cards emailed directly to the recipient, usually on a date that you specify.

I prefer the physical gift cards because they usually are very festive and come with cute little envelopes, and you don't have to fuss with a printer. That said, some of my favorite stores and products have lovely printable gift cards.

My favorite ideas for gift cards are below, and I've linked directly to the e-gift card page for each. (You're welcome.)  

• Balance Bound planners and stationery - Teachers LOVE this line of products from my lovely podcast co-host Brooke Forry and Curious & Co. 

• Color Guru - I just bought one of these for a friend! (Just click the "Buy for a friend" button.) Get 10% off with code INDIGO.

• Restaurant group gift cards - Instead of choosing one restaurant, pick a gift card that gives them access to many restaurants. In the Philly area, I love the Starr Group. 

• Starbucks or Panera Bread - These are great options for working parents or anyone who is always on the go.

• Sephora or Ulta - Perfect for that picky teen wants that that trendy lip gloss that you've never heard of.

• HomeGoods - Is there anyone who DOESN'T love Home Goods? I have not met that person yet.

• Who Gives a Crap toilet paper - What says "I love you" more than toilet paper? Well, a lot. But this toilet paper is fun, whimsical AND environmentally-friendly. 

If you're looking for extra creativity points, you could group a few together to create holiday or Christmas gift themes. For example, maybe you hang the restaurant gift card around a bottle of your favorite wine. Or make it a Gift of Beauty, with both a Sephora and Color Guru gift. Having a theme can help that gift card from feeling so lonely!

Lean into the cozy factor

A few years ago, I poo-pooed the scented candle as a holiday gift. (You must watch this SNL skit about scented candles as gifts.)

But, I gotta say, this year I am all about the cozy holiday gifts. I'm hoping to get some lovely candles, maybe a neutral cozy throw, and I wouldn't turn down some slippers.

These items are usually very easy to find in stores, so they're great last minute gifts. Just try to stick with neutral colors to up your chances of them actually being well-loved.

Keep wrapping easy

Your other best friend, when you're running late, is going to be holiday gift bags. Consider a large Santa Sack, or you could even buy a bunch of brown kraft paper bags that you can write on and/or have the kids decorate. 

Whether you're looking for gifts for empty nesters or working parents or just need a few new holiday ideas, I hope you'll find something for everyone on your list with the ideas above!

I'd love to hear from you. What would you add to this list? Maybe some favorite Target holiday gift sets? Other holiday must haves? Ideas for recruiting gift helpers? Holiday gift bag ideas? I'm all ears!

How to Shop Smart on Black Friday

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

This isn't typical for me ... but I'm getting a leeetle bit excited for Black Friday.

I've got a few favorite companies and products that I've got my eye on. I wanna know what great deals they've got cookin' for the season. And luckily, it feels like the days of people getting in line for Black Friday and waking up at the crack of dawn are mostly gone. (Anyone remember the Cabbage Patch Kid frenzy??) These days, you don't have to shop for Black Friday deals in person. You can shop, mostly from home, in your comfy jammies. (Except for giving love to your local small businesses!)

Here are my top 5 Black Friday tips for how to shop smart during this day/week/month of great sales: 

1. Keep an eye on your favorite brands now. 

So where's the best place to Black Friday shop? Wherever you buy the things you love! I'm signing up NOW to get emails from my favorite brands, especially ones that are a little pricier. That way, I'll be sure to get all the Black Friday secret deals that might not be broadly publicized on their website. 

Here are some of my favorites that I'm keeping an eye on: (These are not ads - just brands I love!)

• Swell - I LOVE their insulated coffee mugs. My tea stays hot for hours!

• Billie - Their razors with the magnet holder for the shower is game-changin'. I also love the dry shampoo (available in a darker shade for darker hair) and the lip balms.

• Thrive Causemetics - Thrive is one of my go-tos for makeup products. Their products are cruelty-free, 100% vegan and formulated without parabens, sulfates or latex. I love their Buildable Blur CC Cream and Creaseless Concealer

• Prose - I just tried this customized shampoo & conditioner. It's on the pricey side, so I hoped I wouldn't love it ... but alas, I do.

• Kizik - Have you heard me brag ad nauseam about my absolute favorite hands-free sneaker that you can put on and take off with just a step? I get compliments on my Women's Athens Bahama style all.the.time.

2. Create a wish list for yourself and others

You might've noticed that a lot of those I listed above 👆 seem like they are for, well, me. 😜They are! I use Black Friday not only as a chance to cross some things off my holiday list but to stock up on items that I've been hoping to upgrade or purchase for some time.

So if you don't actually BUY the items yourself, you might think about using Black Friday as an opportunity to tell those little birdies in your life what you have your eye on.  If you're wondering "What should I buy for Black Friday?," think about things you might have wanted to purchase or upgrade for a while. Things like:

• New Pyrex storage containers to replace the mismatched mess you've currently got in your Tupperware drawer

• That Dyson stick vacuum that's been calling your name

• Your favorite makeup brand that rarely has sales

And when you're ready to plan out your gifts for others, the Balance Bound collection just came out with a great gift planner where you can easily plan gifts for everyone on your list, not just for the holidays, but year-round.

3. Ask yourself if you REALLY need or want it. 

Before you just google "Amazon Black Friday deals" and start frantically adding things to your cart that look like a good deal, take the time to think about if this is something that you or a loved one REALLY needs in their life. 

It's not a "great deal" if you don't really need it. People might rightly ask "does Black Friday really save you money?" and the answer is NO if you buy a bunch of stuff you don't need.

4. Shop small and local.

Use Small Business Saturday as an opportunity to stroll the downtown of your favorite nearby town and show some love to local small businesses. They will often gift wrap on-site. Make a day of it - add lunch, coffee, bring a friend. Oooh, maybe even add in a foot massage.

Lots of towns will publish special events happening all weekend to entice shoppers, like free parking and special treats. For example, here is what my beloved town of Media, PA is doing. I just Googled "small business saturday media pa". Do the same for your town!

5. Do your future self a favor.

Use Black Friday to sign up for courses, memberships or other things that you might not do NOW but might do later. For example, I'm launching a huge promotion with lots of bonuses for my Organized Every Day course. For many people, this will be a "favor to their future self." They'll likely tuck it away until January and start the New Year off with a bang. (Join the waitlist here and be the first to know about this big sale!)

So that's it my friends! I hope you enjoyed these Black Friday shopping tips.

I'd love to hear from you about YOU! What type of Black Friday shopper are you? What deals are you grabbing?

5 Tips for a Holiday Season with Less Stress and More Joy

I love the holidays as much as the next person, but I get a little worried when I start seeing that familiar ol' frenzy kicking in. 

We're already stretched thin in our day-to-day lives. Toss in an ongoing pandemic, flu season and THEN cooking, shopping, decorating, wrapping, a small (or large) dose of family drama, and it's a recipe for a total meltdown.

So, this year, I'm taking a beat. I'm sharing with you the 5 things I'm going to do this holiday season to have less stress and more joy. Let's get those holiday ideas started!

1. Schedule in some happy holidays fun.

Before you start making plans for the holidays, start by making a list of all the things you WANT to do this holiday season. If you could do ONLY the things you love, what would that be? For me, it would be:

• Decorating the tree with holiday music playing and a fire going in the fireplace

• Putting the garland on the staircase and a wreath on the door with battery-powered lights

• Visiting our local light displays and getting hot chocolate or apple cider

• Making peanut butter blossom cookies

• Eating lots of comfort food (but not necessarily being the one to cook it)

2. Make a list of the things you DON'T want to do.

I had a client confess to me recently that she hates the holidays and she spends the entire season just waiting for December 26 to come. On top of parenting and her full-time job, she cooks, cleans, does all of the gift shopping and wrapping and is even charged with making great-grandma's lasagna - with noodles made from SCRATCH. By the end of the season, she's tapped out and resentful.

Now, I may not have gotten myself into a lasagna-noodles-from-scratch type situation, but I have found myself doing things in the past that felt like a holiday "should" and not a holiday "want."

That included:

• Getting a natural tree even though I hated the expense, the pine needles everywhere and the watering

• Putting out a bunch of outside lights that ended up looking a little funky

• Sending paper holiday cards

• Going to holiday parties that I didn't really want to go to

• Cooking holiday foods

• Buying way too many gifts for people

So, guess what? Those things you hate doing? Ahem. You don't. have. to. do. them. Full stop. Will some people be disappointed? Maybe. Will they get over it? Yup.

3. Find the minimum effective dose.

I love this phrase minimum effective dose from Dr. Christine Carter's book The Sweet Spot. It's all about figuring out how to find that "good enough" sweet spot. 

Here are some examples.

• Don't like to send holiday cards? Text your closest, far-away friends and ask them if they can do a FaceTime or Zoom call in pajamas over the holidays.

• Don't want to decorate your whole yard? Put a wreath on the front door and call it a day.

• Tired of all the shopping? Make an agreement with the family that everybody will chose one adult from a hat and all kids have a gift limit of $25.

4. Outsource like heck.

The holidays are a great time to lean on other available resources to get things done. You can only do so much! Think about ways that you let other people, or other tools, do the work for you:

• Order battery-powered lights like these for the front door wreath so that it goes on and off at a certain time.

• Shop local stores who offer gift wrapping (like Monkey Fish Toys in West Chester, PA) or request gift sacks with your Amazon purchases.

• Let the pros do the cooking and order a Thanksgiving dinner to go. Here's an exhaustive list of places like Whole Foods and Bob Evans who will do all the cooking for you. Plus, check out offer from local restaurants.

• Schedule a special one-time cleaning of your house before guests arrive.

5. Sketch out a little holiday planner.

Either on a paper or online calendar, sketch out a plan for the holidays. 

• Add the fun first. Schedule in those things you said you wanted to do. Try Googling "fun things to do for the holidays near me" or "fun holidays for kids near me" to find cool things going on near you that you might not have tried before.

• Add in your travel schedule. Decide which days you'll travel (if this applies) and think of ways to make the travel plan more fun. Cool pit stops? Fun snack mix? Books on tape with holiday stories?

• Plan a vacation day. Decide on a day (or two) when you'll take a nice, long break. Sleep in late. Stay in pajamas.

• Let the kids eat cereal all day. Maybe even book a local hotel with an indoor pool.

So, that's my plan, folks! I'm going to try to take my own advice this year and create a holiday with less stress and more joy. 

What about you? What you are YOU going to let go of this year? What can you outsource? What fun can you add?