The Lazy Genius Podcast - #444 - 10 Ways to Simplify a Holiday Gathering

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

I think we could all use some help when it comes to holiday gatherings or just larger family gatherings in general. Uncommon situations often produce the unexpected, so let’s talk through some tools that simplify what might already be complicated enough. I have ten super simple ideas to simplify your gathering, and even if you try one, I think it’ll make your life a little bit easier.  Helpful Companion Links Order my book The PLAN or ask your library to consider carrying a copy.  Episode #133: Ten Helpful Thanksgiving Strategies The Only Thanksgiving Turkey Recipe You'll Ever Need Underrated Overrated Game Cards Episode #437: Ten Things I Always Do When I Have People Over Codenames Hues and Cues Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza Bananagrams Just One Sign up for our every-other-week podcast recap email called Latest Lazy Listens. Sign up for my once-a-month newsletter, The Latest Lazy Letter. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links) Download a transcript of this episode. Want to share your Lazy Genius of the Week idea with us? Use this form to tell us about it. 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. This podcast is not about hacking the system to find more time or hacking your energy to get more done. Hustling to be the best or to make the most out of every opportunity is exhausting and unsustainable. So here we do things differently. On this show, we value contentment, compassion, and living in our season. We favor small steps over big systems. Here we are lazy geniuses. Being a genius about the things that matter. lazy about the things that don't, and I'm so glad you're here. Today is episode 444, 10 ways to simplify a holiday gathering. Next week is Thanksgiving in the U.S., but whether or not you'll be celebrating or you'll even listen to this episode in a different month in November. I think we could all use some help when it comes to holiday gatherings or just like large family gatherings in general. The holidays are typically when we gather with the bulk of our extended families if we have them, and it's not a usual occurrence, right? Uncommon situations often produce the unexpected.

So let's talk through some tools that simplify what might already feel complicated enough in gathering with extended family. So I have 10 super simple ideas to simplify your gathering. And even if you try one, I think it'll make your gathering in life a whole lot easier. After that, we'll have a little extra something. I'll share some of my favorite group games to play. You can borrow any of these for your holiday weekend or just the next time you're like having a game night.

Now, I'm not like a gaming expert by any means, but I do love a good game. Next, we will celebrate the lazy genius of the week with the sweetest idea on hosting a Thanksgiving dinner when your family is not around. And then we'll finish up with a mini pep talk on when you hate everything. Okay, before we get into all of that, if you have not been listening to the podcast for a couple of weeks, or you just keep forgetting. You can go to the lazy jeanicecollective.com slash playbooks and check out our new additions to the playbook family. We still have our beloved seasonal playbooks, winter, spring, summer, fall. I could not think of the seasons in order.

But we have added specific playbooks for those bigger things in your life that might need a little extra space to like make a mess and dream and remember and plan. Celebrations, projects, travel and yearbook. These four new playbooks, they're in four new colors, just as fun and essential to use as ever. And because many of you have asked for this, we are selling the four new ones in a playbook extras bundle so you can get them at a sale price. We hope you enjoy that. If you have any questions about the playbooks, feel free to reach out to hello at the lazy

genius collective.com. All right, let's get into the episode. We have done a handful of Thanksgiving specific episodes over the years. And while this one can be a bit more broad than the others, there is an episode from the archives that is super old, but has some great ideas in it. Episode 133. Y'all, that was like 300 plus episodes ago. It is called 10 helpful Thanksgiving strategies. It released in November of 2019.

Y'all, that was before COVID. That was like an actual lifetime ago. Well, the episode, it has some great info. But to save you the listen, if you only have time for one episode this week, here are two of my favorite ideas from that episode. The first is to plan easy food leading up to Thanksgiving weekend. Whether you're traveling or hosting or something in between, having easy food that you do not have to think about the few days beforehand will be a lifesaver. Order pizza, eat cereal, microwave casidias, toss rotisserie chicken with a bag salad, boil pasta, make ramen, fry it,

and eggs, whatever. Pick whatever meals are the most brainless and simplest for you or whoever's doing the cooking and lean into those meals the week of Thanksgiving. Playing your hot dogs, right? If you've never heard me say that, you're like, what? Playing your hot dogs is a concept. It's not an actual command, even though you can actually plan your hot dogs. It is a concept where you actively plan the plan B meal. Don't wallow in the unmade decision. And and labor over it of like, what are we going to have for dinner? Especially when you know deep down, you're totally just going to have hot dogs. And that's fine.

So plan them. Just play in your hot dogs. And then enjoy the margin of having the decision made. So that is the first idea that I love from that old, old episode, playing the easiest food leading up to your Thanksgiving weekend of hosting, traveling, cooking, whatever it's going to be. And the second thing I loved about that old episode is to assume the best intentions. Dr. Becky is a parenting expert, and she uses the phrase, most generous interpretation. When we go into interactions, complicated family relationships, assumed family of origin roles,

are just unexpected places at all. It is so easy for us to assume the worst when someone says something like passive aggressive or hurtful or whatever, or maybe it's like completely neutral and we just identify it as those things. We're assuming that they're making a dig. or that they are coming from like a wounded place and taking it out on us or whatever. So instead, just begin with the most generous interpretation. A good generous interpretation for like a snappy comment or something is to assume that that person is under a lot of stress because they're hosting or because someone else is

and they want to or because they have social anxiety or because they're just tired. It doesn't have to do anything with you. So assume the best intentions of people. even if you're wrong, even if you're assuming something that is not true, even if their intentions are to hurt or shame or draw attention to themselves or whatever does that's bothering you, you are starting from a kinder place, making the navigation of their decision just a little bit softer. Okay, so those are the two things from that old episode.

Now, before we take a quick ad break, which makes this episode free for you to listen to, Thank you so much to our sponsors for that. And before we get into the 10 ways to simplify a holiday gathering, here is your quick reminder to sign up for our podcast recap email. It's called latest Lazy Listsens. It goes out every other Friday, and it summarizes the episode, which is really nice for episodes like this that are lists,

because then you don't have to remember the things or write them down. You can just get it in an email, and it's like there for you. So if you would like to get that recap, head to the lazy geniuscollective.com slash listens. 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. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit. Play. Post. Taste. View and enjoy. Via rail, love the way. Okay, as we get started, a little reminder before I get into this list, remember, you don't have to do any of these, like at all. All of these are simplifying what can be complicated. If something is not complicated to you,

you or you absolutely love doing the thing, you probably don't feel the need to simplify it. So don't. Don't. We all get to care about different things, putting our genius energy into what matters to us and leaving the rest behind. So this is a list of ways to leave those things behind if they don't actually matter to you as much as the things you do care about. If they do matter a lot to you, carry on. You do not have to listen to me. Okay, here are 10 ways to simplify a holiday, a gathering. All right, number one, let the food be your table decor. Let the food be your table decor. Out of the gate, we're going to use the reminder I just gave you. If you love a table scape, do your thing. Love every minute of it. Love every tiny pumpkin or candle or bow or a little

evergreen tree that you beautifully organize. I'm here for all of it. But for anyone who does not care as much about a table scape, this one can feel complicated. There does seem to be a an expectation now that tables must be scaped in such a way that we like, ooh and awe when we walk in the room. And I'm just here to tell you that does not have to happen. In fact, in my own experience, table scapes get in my personal way. Like maybe it's that my table's too small or I don't know. I have too many people or the plates are too big, whatever.

But I have like rarely created some kind of table decor that stood the test of the whole meal. my flower arrangements or my eucalyptus or whatever, it always gets put to the side before anyone even takes a bite of food. Sometimes what I made was too high and you couldn't see the person across the table from you. That almost always, the tablescape, it takes up space in the middle of the table. And if you're hoping to also put food there, it can get busy. It can get complicated. It can be very full on that table.

You're caught between a rock and a hard place trying to like move lit candles while holding a casserole of mac and cheese and that sucker is really heavy. So if you are someone who finds tablescapes and table setting stressful and unnecessary for your own personal table, what would you think about just making the food, the decoration? Your meal is going to be a sight to behold. I have no doubt. Have you seen bubbling cheese? I don't even like cheese that much, but watching browned bubbly cheese is beautiful. then you're not worried about like shifting dishes and messing up the design. Just put the food on the table and call it good.

The turkey in the middle, if you have a turkey, you know. If you want like a little something, you could put like a tiny vase of flowers or those eucalyptus leaves in the center as an anchor or something. But ultimately, a super easy way to simplify a holiday gathering, especially around a table, is to let the food be your decoration. It's the thing on the table everyone wants to look out anyway. So don't sweat it unless table skips like don't make you sweat, you know? So that's number one.

All right. Number two, serve fewer things. Now, again, you might love serving all the things. You might have a holiday gathering situation where everybody brings something. So the variety is like part of the fun. It is it is the plate that looks like an artist palette with all the like dobs and dabs of different variations of potato on your plate. But if that is not something that typically happens at your gatherings, or you find the amount of holiday

dishes to be complicated and stressful, simplify by serving fewer things. You don't need three kinds of potatoes. One is great. I mean, so is three. But one isn't any worse than three. Where might you simplify the amount of dishes you serve? You can make some of them store-bought or you can just make more of the things that everybody really, really loves, there's going to be enough food. Just make fewer of the things. Now, I won't be

hosting this year because we will be in New York watching Sam March on the parade. But for the last few years that I have hosted for my husband's side of the family, we've just kept the hits and just repeat them. Like, I don't add anything new. It's like don't fix what in broken. So we have turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, mac of cheese, green beans, my harvest salad that I just throat, there's no recipe. I just throw it together every year. It's always a sleeper hit. Everybody loves the salad. And Sister Schubert's yeast rolls, because why mess with something that's already amazing? Now, you might be like, that's a ton of things. And it is. But it's also the bare bones of a meal that feeds 13 people who love eating Thanksgiving food. I have been to

Thanksgiving gatherings and holiday gatherings where there were no less than 15 dishes available. And that is a lot. It is not bad, especially if you love doing it. But But it is a lot. So if you don't want a lot, you can serve less. Serve fewer things. It's okay. Number three, use your local bakery. If you have a local bakery that makes holiday pies or desserts or breads or whatever,

please go buy them. Unless you love baking pies or desserts or whatever, which I personally do, you for sure can make your delicious pie. But you could also turn to a professional who does this as a small business and they love it and then just like enjoy the fruits of not having it. to do the labor. Local bakeries are often the smartest around the holidays. They're offering not just like breads and desserts, but sometimes breakfast stuff and like sweet rolls for the next day's breakfast. This is an incredibly valuable resource, you guys, that I think a lot of us forget about. Use your local

bakery. Or let's say you have a friend who is like a really good baker. They love to bake and they're not currently overwhelmed by their own holiday schedule. You could hire them to make some pies. Like, a fun way to also get the homemade aspect without having to do it yourself. Side note, I will say. You know, not everybody has to turn what they love into a business. That's crazy. But if you, for example, make like a really good apple pie, a really good pumpkin pie and you want to do this in your margins, you could 100% text your friends like your phone contact list and be like, hey, I'm making 25 apple pies for the holiday weekend. They can be baked from frozen whenever you like, first come, first serve and charge people for the pies and just watch the text roll in.

Are you kidding me? If somebody offered to make me a delicious apple pie that I did not have to make, even if it wasn't Thanksgiving, I think I'd still buy it. So that could be a really fun way to earn a little money if you are the baker, but also like help your friends by doing something that you love doing that would make their holiday celebration a little easier. Okay, number four, I love this one. only have one to two ornery things.

Okay? Now, I mainly mean food here, not humans. You cannot really always control how many ornery people you get to be around. But as far as food goes, especially if you are hosting. But even if you're bringing things, please don't have more than a couple of ornery items. Now, what do I mean by ornery? Well, that dish that is only good for the first, like, five minutes that comes out of the oven is ornery. The thing that never seems to cook as quickly as you'd like, but it needs to go all the way

in order to be good is ornery. The recipe that is less forgiving and it needs to be babysat is ornery. Mac and cheese, for example, is not ornery. It can be made ahead. It could even hang out in the oven for a little longer without causing much of a ruckus. It can sit out. It's fine. It's great. Kind of no matter what. A turkey, believe it or not, is not terribly ornery, especially if you use my turkey recipe. Now, sure, it needs to be cooked and it can be a little stressful because it's like the centerpiece or whatever, that a turkey also needs to rest once it's out of the oven. So, like, as long as it's cooked, it can wait around. It's fine.

Ornery foods do not wait around. Ornery foods need more dishes and ingredients and attention and perfection. And if you have too many of them, if you have too many ornery foods, you're going to have a stressful holiday gathering. And we're trying to simplify that stress, not add to it. So for whatever you're cooking you're doing, only have a couple of ornery things. let the rest of the stuff be easy. Number five, pad your timing. Pad your timing. All right, one of the hardest things about having a holiday gathering where you are hosting, right,

or you are attending, even, is getting all the food done at the same time. Now, some things can survive just fine at room temperature, like I said, like the macachise is great. But for the most part, you kind of want everything to be at like peak deliciousness at the same time. Y'all, that math is really hard to pull off. In fact, I think that's one of the most stressful things about a big meal with a lot of dishes. On a regular weeknight, you probably just, you're making one thing out of one pot or pan. The meat and three life seems to have moved on for most of us. We're not doing that every single night. And we're not, we're just not serving multiple things at once on like a Tuesday. But for holiday gatherings, there are so many things. Multiple things, that's the name of the game. We love to

have all the things. Just today, just today, I was driving carpool. And one of the kids who is not mine was sharing what they do as a family for Thanksgiving. And do you know what they talked about exclusively, the food? They listed out all the food that will be eaten. And it was many things. Turkey, gravy stuffing, devil eggs, greening casserole, mashed potatoes, corn pudding, mac and cheese, several kinds of pie. The list didn't end.

This kid did not really get to the end of the list as much as just like, did like a little bit of an ellipses and just stopped talking, dreaming about the foods. Like we love all the foods. Of course. but timing them to be all done at the same time, it's tough. It's really tough. So you need to pad your timing. Now, you probably know the drill of like balancing foods that can be served without needing to be bubbly hot, right? You're just trying to have a mix of things so it doesn't all have to be

done at the exact same time. But even so, as you create your oven math or your meal math or you help someone else think through theirs, pad your your. timing. I feel like the chances of a meal being ready at one o'clock, if you say one o'clock, it's slim, man. You're not going to make it on time. There's always something waiting to be done. And then everything else is kind of waiting around, which could be fine. That's fine. But I think it's the waiting around after the designated meal time that can create the stress. If you're hosting and you say to everybody you're eating at one and it's now 120 and not everything is still ready, like that's stressful. You know it's okay, but you also might feel responsible that everyone's

raiding around while you, you know, scramble around to get these dang potatoes cooked. But what if you were to pad your timing and plan the meal, do all your math, as though everything was going to be ready at 1240? You know, what if you padded it by 20 minutes? You can still say to everyone else, we'll eat around one, that almost certainly the kitchen math is going to struggle to meet that. I don't know that I've ever eaten at a holiday gathering where everything was done on time. So by patting your time, by giving yourself 15, 20, or even 30 minutes in your planning to anticipate things that are running behind, it's so helpful. And even if everything is ready and even ready early. Everyone's already there, right? You can just be like, hey, our meal's ready. Let's get drinks and

gather around, you know. Pad your timing. Give yourself a cushion. It's just so much less stressful that way. All right. Number six, play overrated, underrated. Okay, sometimes the conversation around a holiday table, it can be a bit tricky, right? It could be that a lot of these people, you have not seen them in months. You might not have seen them since last Thanksgiving. It could be that there are divisive things that not everybody wants to talk about, but somebody does. It could be that your family loves each other that doesn't really talk about personal or vulnerable things. So the entire meal feels like a long string of like horrible small talk. A super simple way to enjoy conversation with the entire group that also inspires everyone to want to actually talk and share is to play

overrated, underrated. So there is an actual game you can buy. that's called overrated and underrated. Or you can just play it without cards or scoring or whatever. The basic idea is you say something like sweet potato fries and you let everyone say if they think they're overrated or underrated. The actual game has like a point system. You can even try and guess what the person thinks about sweet potato fries. But also as just a general conversation starter, it's so easy to just say a thing and

then let everyone around the table say what they think about that thing. We played this like casual version with just pulling out the cards out of the box and no points or whatever. We played this at a recent group dinner. It was so easy and fun. I would just pull out a card out of the box so I didn't have to think up ideas, you know, of like words to debate or whatever. And we all just said what we thought. And the good news about this game is it's, it like allows people to have an opinion around super low risk topics. Like I have really strong opinions about crosswalks. I have been told I can be quite entertaining when I get riled up about crosswalks.

Strong opinions about unimportant topics, it's a fun hang, man. It's a good time. So if you are looking for a way to keep things rolling at the holiday table with a group that might be a little hard to wrangle sometimes, just drop it into the next moment of awkward silence. It's like, hey, guys, what do we think? Let's play overrated, underrated. What do we think about the Grand Canyon? And just let people go to town.

The game itself is not expensive. It's a great addition to your game collection. But again, you could just throw out things randomly. Overrated, underrated is an underrated game. Okay, number seven, embrace yes and. You've heard that phrase, right? Yes, and. It is a foundational concept in improv comedy,

where your response to another player's idea in a sketch, it is always yes and. You always agree with whatever someone says or does, and then you elevate it with another thing. Okay, yes and. It's why, for any office fans out there, it is why Michael Scott in the office was hated in his improv group because he never used yes and. He always became a spy with a gun or whatever and ended every scene. his own way no matter what. He wasn't listening to what other people were doing. Well, during holiday gatherings, especially when those gatherings involve family, a great way to simplify the complication

of like family roles and patterns and conversations that can be uncomfortable is for you personally to embrace yes and. Now, I'm not saying to put yourself in the path of like unkind words from other people, not at all. But I know that I've gone into certain gatherings and, immediately put my guard up. Like, I'm in a constant defensive posture. And that posture often leads to an energy of no but instead of yes and. So when it's appropriate and emotionally safe for you, think about having a posture of yes and. If your grandmother who is retelling the same story as she does every single year and that kind of irritates you and she starts telling that story again, Don't be a no but person and stop her because she's already told it and you're annoyed by the repetition.

Be a yes and person. Let her tell it. Listen. On a much lighter note, be a yes and person when people ask to do something that is not in your plan. If you had plans to serve dessert right after the meal around the table, but then somebody suggests waiting and eating it outside, unless there's like a huge reason to say no, be a yes and person. It's like, sure, let's do that. Maybe we can even lie to fire outside.

Generosity of spirit is one of the best ways to simplify just about anything, even if it's just within yourself. That yes and posture really smooths out the potentially emotional complications of holiday gatherings. Okay, number eight, lighten up your gratitude. Now, this might be a bit more for Thanksgiving gatherings for sure, but for some reason, the forced, like, what are you thankful for? What are you grateful for? Those conversations seem to be, as the kids say, or at least used to say, very cringe to me. Not everybody wants to share what they're grateful for in a crowd. Some people feel put on the spot. Sometimes you're doing it in a room of people

you don't actually know very well. So if you have any say in the gratitude portion of the evening or day, lighten it up a little. Ask something like, what is something everyone is grateful is on the table? today, you know, like start out with a favorite food situation. Or ask, what is something everyone is grateful for about grandma? Turn the focus onto a single person who would probably really love that attention. Or ask something specific, like what is something everyone is looking forward to before this year is out? You could even have categories written on pieces of paper in like a little bowl and a person

draws out of paper and says what thing from that category they're grateful for. So like an event, a day of the week, like, listen, I love a Friday, food, a friend, a hobby, a song, a TV show, a piece of technology, a class in school, a project that's finally done. It's a long list. You can still offer opportunities for people to share about themselves and access their own gratitude without it being full of like typical gratitude pressure. lighten up the gratitude so that it scratches the itch of the people who do care about that kind of thing and maybe even the tradition of that kind of thing. But it's separate enough from that energy that someone who is uncomfortable or kind of eye-roly about that approach can still participate without a lot of like pushback or pressure. Okay, number nine, ask great questions.

One of the most complicated parts of a holiday gathering is the conversation, right? We've already had a couple of tips about that. It can just feel like a minefield, which is why we are trying to like lighten up the gratitude and play overrated underrated, that you can also have a slew of questions ready to go that get things going for you and the table without it feeling too forced. I mentioned this a few weeks ago in episode 437, 10 things I always do when I have people over. Actually, that's a really great episode to listen to if you're hosting anything over the next few weeks. But in that episode, I shared the concept of magical questions, not the magic question,

which is one of our 13 lazy genius principles. What can I do now to make something easier later? Magical questions are something that Priya Parker came up with. She is an expert on gathering. Her book, The Art of Gathering, is so very good. But she presented this idea of magical questions, which are questions that everyone wants to answer and hear the answer to. from everyone else, which is honestly a tough ask. It is. That's why having a few great questions

in your pocket can help keep things rolling and connective or everyone feels seen and important. Plus, it's also a lot of fun. At my mom's birthday a couple weeks ago, we're gathering around the table and I asked, I asked her what some of her favorite songs were. And it led to like half an hour of playing favorite songs over the Bluetooth speaker. It was really fun. So even a simple question like that, it can spark a lot beyond it. If someone has a hard time answering that kind of question, like, what's your favorite song? You can make it more specific by asking, like, what was your favorite song in high school or something like that? Or what's a song that when it comes on, you have to dance, right? Other questions you could use. What's a movie that if it's on

TV, you have to finish it no matter what? For me, it's World War Zee. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, I'm finishing the whole dang movie. What posters did you have on your wall as a teenager? I used that one at a group dinner recently and it was a fantastic conversation story. It was it lasted a long time and it was hilarious. Another question, what is an anti-pet peeve? Something that's so small but brings you enormous joy. What's the worst fashion choice you ever made? What's your go-to karaoke song? How do you like your eggs? If you were going to sail around the world, what would be the name of your boat? Just ask great questions. Have a little list on your phone.

Log a good question when you hear it from someone else. Like not even around like a holiday gathering. Like you hear a really great question, build up a little stockpile for yourself. Great questions. Simplify complicated conversations so well. And they actually lead to warmer connections between people. And then finally, number 10, be thoughtful, not impressive. This is not at all surprising coming from me.

And while it's not the most like nuts and bolts practical idea, it is one of the greatest perspectives that you can carry within yourself, whether you're hosting or not, in order to simplify this gathering. Be thoughtful, not impressive. So what does this look like? Well, being thoughtful is you thinking ahead about the other person, the other people, and their needs, their experience, their preferences. being impressive is you thinking about how another person is going to think about you because of

what you already thought about. So the focus of the two things could not be more different. The behaviors might look identical, right? Cleaning the bathroom and lighting a candle in there and maybe having like obvious extra toilet paper and poop spray or air freshener or whatever, having all of that available, that's a behavior. You know, that's something that you're doing. Doing that thoughtfully towards someone who doesn't want to poop at your house but has to and making it comfortable for them versus doing all of that so that someone will say to you, man, you really set up that bathroom

really nice. Like, in fact, that could be a lovely litmus test for your own posture. Being thoughtful does not require anyone to say anything to you about what you did. Being impressive absolutely requires someone else saying something to you about what you did. If you try and be impressive and no one comments on it, you're going to be in a funk immediately. But thoughtfulness is not about that. It's not about you. It's about them. So be thoughtful, not impressive.

So to wrap up, as you enter into a holiday season that will likely have some gatherings involved, remember these 10 things, especially if any of these things, simplify. something that feels already complicated to you. Let the food be your table decor. Cook fewer things. Use your local bakery. Only have one to two ornery things. Pad your timing. Play overrated, underrated, embrace yes and, lighten up your gratitude, ask great questions, and be thoughtful, non-impressive. And those are 10 ways to simplify your holiday gathering. The moment you've been waiting for is here. GMC's truck month is on. For a limited time, get 0% financing for 72 months on the 26 GMC Sierra 500 crew cab pro graphite.

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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. For today's A Little Extra Something, I'm going to share with you. some of my favorite games to play with a group. Some are games that you buy. Others are just games you play. But here's my favorite list. First, code names. I love code names. Oh my goodness. Code names is a great time for a group of people, especially as a way to like forge connection where it might be hard to find.

So one person, if you've never played before, one person tries to get the rest of their team to identify the code names on a big board with one word. It's almost like, It's almost like the New York Times connections game, but with like higher stakes. It's so much fun. It's so much fun. Codenames is great for a group. Another game I love with a group is hues and cues. This is a color guessing game.

You have this huge board, a ton of colors, like gritted in rows and columns. It's like this giant umbrella rainbow. Each person tries to get the rest of the group to guess their secret color that they chose by using just one or two word clues. and then those clues cannot themselves be colors. So if you have like a green on your card and you see the grid, it's like, hey, 34 or whatever, you might set, your clue might be grass. But there are so many greens on the board.

It's a great game with kids too. It's surprisingly fun. It's just, it's a solid one. It's one of our favorites. We pull out all the time. Now, I will die on the hill of Taco Cat Go Cheese Pizza. If you have kids at your house during a holiday gathering and they are getting a little bored, one of those kids, they're going to know how to play. Pull out Taco Cat Go Cheese pizza. It's like war,

but with silliness with like cats and pizza with eyeballs. And you also like slap if you have, I forget when you slap, but it's like you slap as well. It doesn't matter. It is so fun. It is so much fun. We bring it with us to restaurants sometimes, like as a family, because it's always a hit. It's always a hit. Okay. Of course I'm a huge fan of Bananagrams. I've mentioned that several times. It's one of my favorite games to play. It's like making your own crossword puzzles as fast as you can. I was undefeated. I'm no longer undefeated, but it's because I drew two cues, and there were no use or eyes on my board. And so I just had to keep peeling letters while everybody else built their board waiting for cues and eyes, and they didn't come for a very long time.

This was a bit stressful. So I've only, I've only lost once, though. Okay, another great word game that kids love, at least mine do, is just one. Okay? You have one guesser, and that guesser has to guess the correct word from a card. They don't see the words on the card. Everybody else sees the word, but the guesser does not see the word. What they have to do is they choose a word from the card. There's five words.

So the guesser might be like, number two, the number two word. and everyone else, the whole group, they write down one word, just one, right? One word that will be a clue for the guesser to guess that word. The only thing is that if anybody in the group writes down the same word, like if they have duplicate clues, then those words cancel each other out. So then the guesser is looking at, like if the word, for example, was mountain, somebody might write tall, somebody might write rock, somebody might write Everest or something. And so that person would see tall, rock, Everest, and they go Mountain and guess Mountain. It's really, really fun.

Kids, it's great for all ages too. And if a kid is the guesser, this is what we do with Annie, because she doesn't know every word on the card. We're just like, don't choose one and four, and then she'll choose two, three, or five, and then we'll play. So it is just a really, really fun game that also helps with like making connections with words and writing and just the comfort of like sharing the like language development with little kids as a group like it's just a great it's a great game we've been playing it for a long time okay I have two more um another one that we love especially Annie Annie loves this game what do you meme and there's a family version basically you have like you have a deck a card deck of captions and then you have a deck of crazy images and they have to match them it's

almost like apples to apples, but for memes, where somebody has a card and you submit what caption you think is the best one. And if yours gets picked, then you get the points or whatever. It's so fun. It's ridiculously silly. Great for a crowd. And then one final game that is a sleeper hit that requires nothing except a stack of Post-it notes is the Post-it-note game where you write a person's name on a Post-it note. You stick it to your head. Actually, you stick to someone else's head. And then they have to guess, I have to ask yes or no questions to try to guess who the person is. It is so silly. It's so fun. It's so easy. So you could play that game. Now, you might already know about all of these games. But even if there's one that you haven't tried yet or you haven't heard about, you will be in luck. Games are just so much fun to play. You also might be reminded of a game that you already have in your cabinet that you haven't played in a while. And you're like, oh, this would be great to pull out for our next holiday gathering. But also, you can bring games with you when you go to someone else's house for a gathering, even if it's just like check. and chess, a deck of cards, scrabble, rummy cube, like those classics, those are on people's

shelves for a reason. So anyway, games all day long, those are some of our favorites, and that's today's A Little Extra Something. And now for the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Claire De Silva. Claire writes, today I had an inspiration about how my family will celebrate Thanksgiving this year, and I just had to share it with you. My spouse is a physician, and it's his turn to take the Thanksgiving holiday call shift at the hospital. It's always a bit of a bummer when he has to work on a holiday, especially now that our kids are older, four and seven, and really notice his absence. I realized I was feeling unmotivated to host extended family, cook a big turkey meal, or travel without him this year. I felt guilty about my lack of enthusiasm and just uninspired

overall. Then it hit me. We already have a decide-once meal for nights when dad is working. We call it spinner dinner. A mix of finger foods, charcutory, and handheld leftovers served on a divided lazy Susan. We grazed together with toothpicks and my kids absolutely love it. It makes what would be and otherwise sort of disappointing dinner time, no dad jokes, a fun event with a little effort on my part. And then I realized my family's favorite part of Thanksgiving has always been the appetizers anyway. So this year we're going all out with gourmet, no leftovers, a Thanksgiving spin. dinner dinner feast, our own fun, meaningful twist on the holiday that will no doubt become a family tradition. This is just a beautiful idea. This is a great example of how routine during the

regular parts of life can inform and even enhance the special busy times. Routines and decisions and things that find their deep grooves over time, they allow for life to remain just as meaningful even when pivots are necessary. So I just love this Claire. Congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week. Okay, let's finish with a mini pep talk for when you hate everything. So I was going to say that the last couple of weeks have been crazy, but I feel like I've been saying that for like two months now. And I think I have. Some seasons are just extra in every way. I'm in one of those now in that weird space where my kids are old enough to have a lot of things going on, but not old enough to get themselves there.

They are independent, but they still need me all the time. And then there's the fact that I have, I don't know, a job and a spouse I love and friends and family and hobbies and rest and all kinds of things that are competing for my time and energy, of which I feel like I continuously have less and less, especially right now. That's how it feels right now. So recently in a text to my pal, Emily, Emily Freeman, I said something I think we've all said before. I said, I hate everything.

that then immediately I was like, no, I definitely don't hate everything. My life is so rich and full. And even though there are aspects of it that I would like to be different, I don't hate everything, not in the slightest. And I bet you don't either. I bet you don't either. But what we probably do hate is everything at once, everything at maximum capacity, everything that needs juggling and managing and getting in the right order and place

to make it happen. Now, that's a spectrum, right? No one is organized in everything all the time. Literally no one. You pivot, you adjust, you make plans and hold them loosely. You remember how valuable it is to notice the people and energies around you rather than try and make everything fit into some logistical puzzle. Like we know this intellectually. But I know I still struggle sometimes to embrace it internally, especially when life just feels really busy.

It's easy for me to be like, I hate everything. So here's your reminder today. and mine. Everything at once is not how we're made. Everything at once is not a sustainable practice. The reason you hate everything is because your body and brain and soul are not equipped to deal with everything at once. And when you're in a season where you have to, it's easy to just make a blanket statement that everything is too hard, everything is the worst, everything needs to stop, and you just need a huge vacation for your life. That if you shift that sentiment, to, oh wait, I don't hate everything. I don't. I'm just in the middle of everything at once,

and that is not doable. Now, you can lament that season if you need to. I know I have and do. And then alongside of your honesty, you tell yourself the truth. You do one thing at a time. You let something go. You do something with less excellence than you would prefer, but it's something that doesn't matter as much and it's getting done, right? Making those kinds of choices is good. It's wisdom. So in this likely season of everything at once, remember you're not made for that.

The fact that you hate everything is not because you're not good at life or at planning or at juggling everything. The fact that you hate everything is a natural response to a pace you were never made to keep within a culture that doesn't have your needs and priorities in mind. We live in a culture of greatness and optimization, rushing toward an imagined future that we think that we can control. That is not our life anymore, pals. We are whole people here today. Our goal is not greatness.

It is to be ourselves where we are, no matter the circumstance. So hold fast to that when you hate everything, and you'll probably see far more of what you love. And that's a mini pep talk for when you hate everything. If this episode was helpful to you or if you've been looking for a way to support the show, it would mean so much if you would share this episode with a friend. Go ahead and click that little arrow on top of the box and just text the link to somebody who would enjoy this episode. We appreciate you sharing it with people. This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. If you'd like a podcast recap every other week, be sure to sign up for latest lazy listens. It goes out every other Friday. You can go to the lazy genius collective.com slash listens to get it. Thanks y'all 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.