The Lazy Genius Podcast - #187 - Rethinking Opening Ceremonies

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

I love implementing opening and closing ceremonies into my year and especially into the fall and winter holiday season. As we all know, holidays in 2020 are not what we expected. So how can we rethink traditions and gatherings and opening ceremonies during such an upside-down time? This episode will hopefully offer some encouragement in that. Helpful Companion Links Here are a few past resources on opening and closing ceremonies: Plan Your Opening Ceremony and The Magic of Closing Ceremonies. Grab a copy of The Lazy Genius Way if you haven’t yet to learn the 13 Lazy Genius principles. Join me over on Instagram @thelazygenius for real-life Lazy Genius. 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

Hi there. 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 episode 187. Rethinking opening ceremonies. I love implementing opening and closing ceremonies into my year and especially into the fall and winter holiday season. I'm going to go into what those are more specifically in a second in case you're new to this concept, to the Lacey Genius family. But as we all know, holidays in 2020 are not what we expected, right? So how can we rethink traditions and gatherings and opening ceremonies during such an upside down time? This episode will hopefully offer some encouragement in that. So first thing,

what is an opening ceremony? Feels like an important place to start. It is what it sounds like. It is an intentional marker for the beginning of something. I was in the first thing. I was in the inspired by opening and closing ceremonies from the Olympics. I was watching a few years ago. And I just, I started thinking about what that whole event would feel like without the opening ceremonies. I mean, what if the Olympic Games, like they just started? One day there's nothing. And then the next day people are shooting rifles and skiing and stuff. The opening ceremony is marking the beginning of something special. It's almost existing with equal importance as the thing that. And it's the opening ceremony. It's that it is marking. So now your opening ceremony, it can be like really, really grand and

exciting, you know, like Olympic style. It can take up a day or a whole weekend or it can simply be saying to yourself in your head, here we go into this next thing, you know, and you take a deep breath. Or you listen to a song or you eat a specific meal. It can be whatever you need it to be. there is an entire episode on these ceremonies if you want some ideas. And I'm, I'm pretty sure that there's even an Instagram post where folks have shared theirs for the fall. If we can track that down, it'll be in the show notes. But in terms of holidays for our family this year, well, I want to tell you actually what our holiday opening ceremonies look like in years past. So for us, just to kind of get a feel for what it could be, we will mark the beginning.

of fall and the beginning of December. Like those are our two things. So that kind of helps separate the holidays into their own spaces, right? So every holiday gets a chance to shine. Now, that is not important for everyone, but it is for me and my family. We kind of save Christmas stuff until December. Also, I have a kid whose birthday is November 30th, so we try to not overshadow his birthday with Christmas. So our opening ceremony most years for fall is we go to this little farm in our town, we ride a tractor, we pick out a pumpkin, we pet a cow, we walk through a corn maze. We've done it every year for I think the last like seven or eight years.

I mean, I've done it with baby children strapped to my front, you know? And now the kids like lead the way through the maze themselves. But that is how we open our fall every year. It doesn't really feel like the fall holiday season without that day, without that mark. we also mark the beginning of December, kind of like the Christmas vibe, with the same opening ceremony every single year. So our city does a winter holiday celebration downtown the first Friday of December. The streets are closed. The stores are open. Santa's there. There are food trucks and carolers and face painting. It is so fun. And then the next day, always, there's a holiday parade downtown. And we go to that. And then afternoon, that Saturday afternoon, we put up the tree. So downtown festival on Friday,

parade and tree on Saturday. And then a lot of those years, there is a Christmas Lessons and Carols event at our church on that Sunday, which is literally one of my favorite things of the entire year. Basically, this particular winter weekend, it is my favorite weekend of the year. I adore every part of it. I look forward to it with such anticipation. I, adore it. We have done the winter festival for the last couple of years with a family that we live a lot of life with. We always park and we sit in the same place for the parade. We do things the same way, pretty much, which is so solid for us. Hey, quick pro tip on parades, by the way, if you go to a parade, here's my approach. Set up as close to the start of the parade as you can because the people in the

parade, they are still happy to be there. Plus, a lot of them, at least in our parades, they toss candy into the crowd. And it's so early in the parade that they have not figured out proper rationing yet. They're very, very generous. Plus, if you're at the start of the parade route for a parade that starts at 10 a.m., your parade starts at 10 a.m. If you're further down the line, your parade does not start at 10 a.m. Now, some people like to be in the middle or at the end or whatever. You know, you'd be wherever you want to be. But we are, we are start of the parade people. But my point is, even for the parade, we always, we park in the same place. We sit in the same place. We always see people we know, which is so fun. It's like different people every year, but it's just a delight. And then we always

attend. And then sometimes I even participate in this, in this Lessons and Carols event at my church. It's just the best, best, best, best, best December opening ceremony for our family. And we have done it the same way for years. And guess what? This year that is not happening, at least in the way it usually does. And that is really sad. I haven't fully grieved it yet because the weekend isn't here. It's, you know, like it's just now December. But I've already spent some time sitting with that sadness and allowing it to exist. And that's where I would encourage you to begin. in rethinking your opening ceremonies or your gatherings or your holiday traditions. Things will look different. Somehow and some way, to some degree, things will be different. And that could likely bring a lot

of sadness. Trying to push that sadness down and power through and force normalcy into your holiday traditions or whatever, it has good intentions. I get it. I get why we try to do that. But maybe the results are not always what we hope. So naming the sadness. and grieving the loss, they help us to be less desperate to make things normal again. We're more open to thinking differently or saying no, or slowing down, or not being mad about having to be a little creative this time around, or losing something that we really love. It's like the lazy genius principle of living in your season.

Living in your season doesn't mean you ignore the hard, or you have rose-colored glasses on everything, or you pretend that your season doesn't exist, it means naming what the season is, allowing yourself to feel what you feel about it, and also paying attention to what the season is teaching you. 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. In some ways, the loss of our December opening ceremony weekend, as it has always been, it has taught me how much I love it. Now that I can't really experience it fully, I have seen how important it actually is. And guess what? Next year in 2021, when that same weekend will likely happen, because we're going to have vaccines and things are maybe going to be a little bit more normal. I will be even more intentional about saving time for it, paying attention to how special it is.

Because seasons always have something to teach us. Even if that thing is that we can make it through a hard season. It could be as simple as that. Like, you did it. We did it. We're doing it. So the first step in rethinking opening season. ceremonies is naming what you've lost by having to rethink in the first place, right? And then letting that loss teach you something. Now, do we wallow and just say, like, screw it. We can't do anything about anything. No, we don't have to do that. Now, if you want to, and that matters to you right now, by all means, do so. Sometimes we need to wallow. But it's likely that if you do want to wallow, you don't want to wallow forever. So how can we move through grieving the loss? of things being different and also rethink what matters. We're going to name what matters. That's how.

That's the next thing. Think about the one thing that you can't do, that you're missing, that you are needing to rethink. I would encourage you to not just say, like, I need to rethink the holidays in general, big picture, because that's just too big, right? And it makes us too sad because there's nothing to focus in on. Lazy geniuses start small. That's another principle. So start small by thinking about one particular thing that you want to rethink about your holiday season, about your opening ceremonies. And then name what matters most about that thing. So back to our December weekend to give you an example of this process. What matters most about that weekend?

As I thought about it, it's two things. It's being downtown and being with people. there's something there's something about being downtown and being part of our city that we love so much i was born here my husband's lived here since he was two we love this place um so there's something really special about kind of being part of the heart of the city you know and then also experiencing that with people the irony is that we wanted to do our own winter festival where we like literally walk around downtown and look at the storefronts and the lights and maybe bring our own mugs of hot chocolate and and then do this with the family that we usually do the winter festival with,

we were going to do this on the first Friday of the month, kind of like we were recreating it as much as possible, right? Because we named those are the things that matter, just being downtown and being together. Well, then we kind of had to change that because this is why it's ironic that like the timing of it is the first Friday. And it's like, no, you can't have that. I'm so sorry.

Because we saw an extended family unit that traveled from out of town for Thanksgiving. And so we played it safe and we laid low the week after Thanksgiving last week, which falls on the first Friday weekend. And then that next weekend, so this coming weekend, I'm out of town writing a book, you guys. And then the weekend after that, it's like almost Christmas. And where does the time go? Right. So what we're going to do, we're still going to walk around town with this family, but we're

doing it on like a random weeknight that might be super duper close to Christmas, but we're going to call it good. Okay. We're still getting what matters downtown. and being together. And for the kids, treats and hot chocolate, it's okay that it doesn't happen right at the start of December as our real opening ceremony. It's okay that we will wear masks and we will not get to eat dinner at the restaurant we always go to. It's okay that we won't see carolers or anyone really because downtown is just doing the baseline for very understandable reasons, right?

But we're still doing something and marking the tradition by focusing on what matters most. Will it be the same? No. but as we have learned through so many events during 2020, it doesn't have to be the same to still be special. I think like some of those stripped down birthday parties, parties in quotation marks, and weddings and events and graduations and any moments that you're marking, they have been uniquely special because they are unique, right? Because they had to be simplified down to what matters most. So I wonder if we can lean into that rather than see it as a hindrance as keeping us from what we normally do. Now, I am sad to not like listen to carolers and walk the street and hear all the people, but oh my gosh, you guys, I just realized.

I just realized we could download a fun Christmas album or I can make a playlist. I can make a playlist that we play as we walk. I just thought about that to have like a vibe, like a carol or vibe. Okay. See, that's its own kind of special thing, right? That could be really great. So here's the thing about your opening ceremonies. They're not going to be the same, obviously.

It's okay to feel sad about it and to even grieve it. I think we need to give ourselves permission to grieve the things that we're losing in these opening ceremonies, in our traditions. But then live in your season and let it teach you something, right? Then you get to name what matters most about that thing that you're wanting to rethink. And then just do it. Creativity and ideas, they are not really your problem. Those are everywhere.

I think that what we're doing is we're like, we need all these creative ideas on how to do Christmas. But without those first two steps of grieving the loss of what mattered to you and the naming what matters about what remains, those ideas will only take you so far. So it's so, so important that you grieve the loss, you live in your season, where you are, and you name what matters about those opening ceremony. that's how a lazy genius is going to rethink this. That's how we're going to, that's how we're going to approach our holiday season in a way that is still life-giving, even though it's going to be so different.

I hope that this, while it's very broad strokes and a little bit intangible, it's not like, concrete ideas or whatever, it gives you the context to make tangible decisions and that you find it encouraging and how you spend the rest of your December. it's going to be different and that's okay. So let it be different and see what really wonderful things can come from that. And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Some resources are in the show notes and you can follow me on Instagram at The Lazy Genius

to see other ideas and thoughts on opening ceremonies and the holiday season in general. We'll do this together. I'm so glad you're here. 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 the best.

becoming ourselves. Listen to becoming you wherever you get your podcasts.