Welcome to Day 22 and the last Wellness Wednesday before the holidays kick in full tilt. I don’t know about you, but I have plans pretty much every night between now and the 25th. Some nights, even more than one plan. Life is full, y’all. Today I made it home by 7:30pm, I enjoyed a bowl of the soup I made yesterday and I got to wrapping the presents I need prior to Christmas Eve. I did not wrap the presents that I need on Christmas Eve. I gave myself that grace. And that’s what today’s post is all about – routine and grace.
Keeping Your Routine During the Holiday Season
Keeping your routine on track during the holidays is a super common topic for wellness blogs and articles. (Parenting too, but I’m not here to tackle that. I’m an involved aunty, but an aunty is not a mom, and I wouldn’t be here to tell you what to do with your kids either way.) I mean, I have even been posting about the benefits of keeping your routine going.
And I was right. Meal prepping, even when I didn’t want to, has been one of my saving graces this holiday season. I realized pretty early in December that I had no interest in getting up in the dark to cook food, so I even started prepping breakfasts which is crazy rare for me. It was literally one of the best things that Past!Erin could have done for Future!Erin. (Ooh, that is a topic for another Wellness Wednesday Post…)
I had been posting my weekly Moveology schedule on Instagram for about a month or so. I started doing this because I know that going to a new studio can be intimidating and I wanted my friends and acquaintances to know when I would be there. So they would have a friendly face next to them during all that sweet, sweet torture! (And also, it’s a great way for me to hold myself accountable.)
But all that to say – it has also been very very cold for the past few days. As you know. And on Monday, I just could not fathom driving around in all the cold to bounce from work to workout to my party plans. So I gave myself some grace.
Giving Yourself Grace During the Holiday Season
Okay, Monday is kind of a bad example, actually. I very rarely can workout on Mondays – I look after Rylee every second Monday and on the first Monday of each month, I go to trivia. That doesn’t leave a lot of Mondays left over for working out. So perhaps it was in my routine to take a break.
But it is in my routine to do a class on Tuesdays. I sort of vacillate between a 515 Reformer Jump class at Junction 9 and a 630 Strength and Sweat class at Moveology, because variety is the spice of life or some other aphorism. (And also, I like doing cardio where I don’t have to do repetitive jumping. Standing jumping, that is.)
But I ran an errand during my lunch on Tuesday and I realized very quickly that the roads were pure garbage, just due to how cold it was out. There was no way at all that I wanted to be on the roads once the sun had gone down. So, I cancelled my barre class. And, yes, I could have done an at-home workout (check out Friday’s post for more details about that), but I think y’all know how burned out I’ve been.
So I read one of my holiday books, made that soup, and watched a Hallmark movie. What an amazing night!
And then today, I managed both a pilates class and a barre class, so it was the best of both worlds.
Because the Holidays Need Both Routine and Grace
And that’s the thing. Try to keep your routines. Try to do the things you do normally that keep you healthy and grounded. But also, let yourself go. When life is full, indulge yourself a little bit with the things that let you feel good and centred.
How are you balancing routine and grace this holiday season?