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Christmas Day is almost here! This time of year can be stressful but planning out your meals will help ease some of your holiday stress. See what I’ve got planned for the week and learn some simple holiday meal planning tips.
The hustle and bustle of the holiday season can be stressful even if you’re not traveling or have anything big planned. There are so many little things that need to get done- buying gifts, wrapping gifts, last minute gifts you forgot to buy, a trip to the store for more wrapping paper or tape, cookie baking, holiday meal planning.
In the midst of all that busyness knowing you’ve got what you need to feed your family saves you one more trip to the store. And is one less thing to think about.
Simple Holiday Meal Planning
The pressure of planning the holiday meal for your family can be quite overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be. Here are a few tips to simplify your holiday meal planning.
- Pick a Theme– Choosing a theme for your holiday meal will narrow down your choices. Each year my family chooses a country to celebrate Christmas like. It’s fun to learn about other countries’ traditions and enjoy their cuisine.
- Order Food – No one says you have to make everything from scratch. Pick a few of your favorite things to cook or bake and order the rest. Last year we had a Vietnamese Christmas theme and ordered food for our holiday meal. This year we are doing an Italian Christmas and ordering food from a local restaurant.
- Ask Others to Help- There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking your family and friends to bring a dish. Many are more than happy to help. Use an app like Sign-Up Genius to keep things organized and avoid the headache of trying to manage who is bringing what.
When it’s time to do the grocery shopping for the holiday meal, plan a separate trip to the store. If you’ve got a big list it can be overwhelming trying to do your regular grocery shopping at the same time.
Trust me, I had a mini panic attack trying to get my Thanksgiving groceries. I had to stop and take a few deep breaths. And near the end I just started skipping items on my list because I just wanted to get out of the over-crowded store.
I wish you the happiest of holidays with the least amount of stress.
WEEKLY LIVE MEAL PLANNING
Want to see how I meal plan in real time? Be sure to join me every Wednesday night at 7pm Central for a Live Meal Planning session in the Healthy Meal Planning, Easy Recipes & Beachbody Support group on Facebook. Click the link to join now!
The next Live Meal Planning session will be January 8th.
PRINTABLE WEEKLY MENU
The weekly menu is a word doc so you can download and make changes to suit your needs. Just click on the image below to download, edit and print.
I’m taking a break from using my portion control meal plan templates. You can find meal plan templates for different work out programs in the resource library or past meal plans under the Weekly Menu tab in the menu.
