The Lazy Genius Podcast - #135 - Nailing Your Holiday Vibe

Episode Date: December 9, 2019

I love a good mood. I love a good vibe. And our holiday memories aren’t always what we did; it’s about how we felt. We remember the vibe, the feeling the environment gave us. Let’s focus on creating that vibe and let the activities happen as they will. Here’s how. Helpful Companion Links Background music is the perfect way to add a little atmosphere to your gathering (or your workday). Here’s a post with my favorite Christmas albums and nine carefully crafted holiday playlists I had the most fun making for you. Keep the playlist magic going by supporting The Lazy Sisters on Patreon, a companion show I do with my sister Hannah. Hannah makes seasonal playlists for our supporters, and OH MY WORD, they are the best. If you missed The Lazy Genius Gift Guide, you can find it right here. Every single item on there I use or have used in my daily life, so consider it Lazy Genius tested and approved. Download a transcript of this episode! This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi everyone. You're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is a really fun episode. I'm super excited about it. It's number 135 nailing your holiday vibe. Okay, now maybe you're not like a holiday vibe kind of person. So this sounds weird. But I love a good mood. I love a good vibe. And I think because I've spent so many years, like creating vibes. I've gotten better at nailing them. Not every time, but you know. Now, if you want to nail your holiday vibe, I am really here to help you and cheer you on. I'm super excited about it. Now, when I say vibe, I mean a mood set in a specific environment. I know that there are listeners from different parts of the country and around the world who celebrate a variety of holidays. So I will speak to my own holiday experience when I say that I love a good Christmas vibe. It is cold where I live during Christmas. So we don't usually get like a white Christmas. Our snow comes more like February. It still usually at least feels like Christmas. It's cold enough.

And there just aren't a lot of feelings that are better than a good holiday vibe. We feel nostalgia, hope, connection. It's a really fun. It can feel wincical or even melancholy. Sometimes melancholy is a really great vibe when you need it. So here, here, Here's the thing. Here's why we're going to talk about this in an entire podcast episode, even though, again, you might think I'm a little crazy. Our holiday memories aren't always what we did. It's about how we felt. We remember the vibe. We remember the feeling the environment gave us. I've mentioned this before, but we have a Friday night event in our city where like the main street downtown closes. All the shops stay open. Santa is out. There's a snow machine. Carrollers.

all the things. Now, I don't have any specific memories from those, like, December Friday nights. I mean, except for that time, my oldest got lost in the crowd and we did not know he was missing for like 15 minutes. It's totally fine. But I do remember how those like holiday Fridays felt. I always remember the vibe of those things. Those nights like are always fun and they're really hopeful. And I feel kind of of like Pollyanna when I'm walking the streets with my family and my friends and a ton of strangers who are in a similar holiday spirit and just feel like everything's going to be okay. It's that vibe, I remember, not what we ate or what we saw or where we walked. So if that's the case, if our dearest holiday memories are often tied to vibe and not activity, let's focus on creating

the vibe and let the activities happen as they will. Activities of that vibe are just activities. But with a vibe, they become experiences that you remember. So here's the first thing you need to think about. The kind of vibe you want for a particular activity. That activity could just be like hanging out at home with your family and feeling the Christmas spirit. Other potential activities that could use a good vibe. Baking Christmas cookies. Putting up the tree.

Having a party. Having friends over for a board game night. Driving to see Christmas lights. Driving to and from a holiday church service. All of these activities would be amplified big time by consciously thinking about the vibe, creating an experience, not just planning an activity. So how do you do that? How do you create a nail a holiday vibe?

Three things in this order, because creating a vibe has a hierarchy of senses. Focus on these senses in this order. Sound, smell, and sight. So first sound, then smell, then sight. I want you to imagine something. imagine you're invited to a Christmas party and you walk in and you see the house beautifully decorated decor on every surface, but there's no music playing. There really aren't any sounds at all except for like a few people chatting in the kitchen. That's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. The party looks like a party. But maybe it doesn't

sound like it has the vibe of a party. Now imagine you walk into that same house for the same party. All you see decor wise is a lit Christmas tree, but you hear Nat King Cole playing softly throughout the room. You hear the crackling of a fire in the fireplace. Those sounds create more of a vibe than any decoration ever will. And this is true of all gatherings, really. If you're invited to like a New Year's Eve party and the living room is full of like balloons and all kinds of like shiny things, that there's no music playing, it feels kind of weird. Like things haven't started yet. Now if you walk in and some, you know, I don't know, upbeat hipster band is playing on the speakers, and there's still not a decoration to be seen,

you'll still get more of a vibe from the sound than from the site. What you hear, whether it's like for an actual gathering of many people or just you in your own house, what you hear is really the most important thing to consider when nailing your vibe. Now obviously the easiest way to do this is with music. Think about what you'll play. You'll get a very different vibe from Justin Bieber's Christmas album versus Harry Connick Jr.'s Christmas album versus the Carpenters versus sleeping at last. We all know this, but we don't always think about it. We just play Christmas music, but it doesn't always nail the vibe because we weren't intentionally thinking about the vibe. The more I talk, the more crazy I feel like I sound, but I'm just going to keep going

because I feel like this is important and this is something that we all can learn and really enjoy, so we're going to carry on. Okay. So when you are trying to nail your Christmas vibe, through music. Name two or three words to describe how you want to feel during the experience or how you want others to feel if they're in the room. Relaxed, cozy, excited, nostalgic, safe, thoughtful, loved, reminded of the gift of the birth of Christ, ready to party and laugh and connect with people. Saying a few words about the kind of feeling in the room, it helps you nail the vibe and know what kind of music to play. Now, you can play entire albums. You could make playlists or use playlists that are made by other people. Now, some entire Christmas albums have a certain vibe throughout the whole thing.

I think Michael Bouble's album nails a vibe. So does the brilliance. Sometimes you want more control over the songs, though, or even the order that they're played, so you make your own list. Now, as you do, just think about those feelings that you're after. When you're choosing songs, if a song doesn't give the feeling that you're after, it is not meant for this vibe. It can be safe for another vibe later. And if you have Spotify, I love Spotify. Oh my gosh. I highly recommend it if you love music at all because you can search by mood.

That's why Spotify knows what they're doing. They make playlist based on the mood you want to have. You get to nail a vibe through music that creates the right mood. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life,

whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner. host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, so I'm going to put a link in the show notes

to a post on the blog that lists out my favorite Christmas albums, links to some of my favorite Spotify holiday playlists, some I've made, some others have made. I'm also going to make a playoff for you to support the lazy genius on Patreon. Patreon is a way for you to give a monthly pledge to me as a thank you and a support for this space. And in return, you get a monthly Lazy Sisters podcast episode. It's a secret podcast. It's basically an unadded, very often,

very unfiltered version of me and a longer episode, usually like at least an hour with my sister, Hannah. What you also get, though, which is why I'm mentioning it here, is access to to Hannah's highly curated, amazing playlists. She's seriously the best playlist maker I know because she puts so much emphasis on the emotionality of it and the vibe. It's magical. So she creates like seasonal playlist and holiday playlists and other stuff for the Patreon community. I will have a link in the show notes to check out Patreon. It's three bucks a month. It supports the show and everything else I do in such a small but incredibly helpful and kind way. and as a thank you, you get those monthly episodes and Hannah's magical playlists.

Okay, so sound. Sound is the top sense in creating a vibe. Music is the easiest win for that, but crackling fires, conversation, clinking glasses, you know, all of those sounds also create a vibe. Now you can't like manufacture all of that because that might be weird to like manufacture the sound of clinking glasses. But I just encourage you to pay attention the next time you're experiencing a vibe that you're like really enjoying the experience you're in and listen. What sounds do you hear? Even silence is a great sound in nailing a vibe. So just pay attention. Pay attention to the sounds.

Okay, the next sense in the hierarchy vibe is smell. They say smell is the sense that triggers the most specific memories. And I have found that to be true. You smell perfume and remember your grandma. you smell pine and remember like a general sense of Christmas wonder, you know, you smell someone's new car. You remember the early days like after you got your first car. Smells create and trigger memories for us. So I think it's really lovely to think about a way to contribute a smell to your holiday vibe. Candles are a great way to do that. I love peppermint and pine scented candles or those ones that smell like mold wine, you know, and spices. Certain smells just smell like the holidays.

So you can put essential oils in a diffuser or light a candle or spray the room with, you know, room spray or whatever the stuff is called. You can also use the smells of food and drink to nail your holiday vibe, simmering apple cider and like orange peels and a cinnamon stick on the stove. That creates a vibe. The smell of icing and sugar cookies creates a vibe. The smell of a fire burning in the fire. fireplace or in your fire pit outside creates a vibe. So consider scent, consider the smell.

Think about a scent that would contribute to the feeling that you want to evoke in yourself or in your people and add it to your experience. And finally, cite what you see. Decorations in your house, facing your chair toward the window so you can watch the snowfall, Christmas cards hanging across a string in your kitchen, whatever is happening around you at the Christmas festival or party or gathering like all of these things are important but they are supported so much by what you're hearing and smelling too that's why what you see is last so I realize I just spent like you know 10 minutes talking about nailing your holiday vibe but I think simply naming what you're after choosing music that goes with it choosing other sounds that might contribute stopping

stopping there even it will likely make a huge difference in how you feel over the next couple weeks but then you add in some smells along with what you've already probably done in terms of decorations or your actual activities that you've planned, you're really going to nail your holiday vibe. And I think it's going to make your holidays feel like more grounded and rooted and personal and human and lovely. Again, I have a post on the site with all of the holiday music fun because that is just the easiest way. It's the easiest win.

So you can grab from there if you need ideas. all the playlists are Spotify lists. So if you don't have Spotify, I am very sorry about that. But you could take the look at the song list and then load them up in your Apple Music or whatever you might use. And if you want even more playlist fun, like I said, maybe think about supporting the show by becoming a lazy genius patron. Your three bucks a month, it makes a huge difference in being able to create the show so far without ads. And I also love getting to show another side of myself on the Lazy Sisters podcast. That might sound weird. But I am generally like, hmm, I show the weirder, more neurotic, sometimes like slightly

ragey side of myself, but also like the silly and sappy and nostalgic side. I don't get as many chances to show all of those things here on the show. Maybe I do a little bit more on Instagram. But if you're like a hardcore lazy genius fan, you might really love those Patreon episodes as a thank you for supporting the show. Okay, that is it for today. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.

I'm Kendra, and I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch.

I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not. available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to becoming you wherever you get your podcasts.