Why You Might Want to Do a Holiday Debrief

In my first publishing job, at the end of any big project, we conducted a “post-mortem,” also known as a debrief, After-Action Review (AAR), and any number of other terms and acronyms. Since “post-mortem” sounds a little too morbid for anything Christmas-related, we’ll call it a debrief here. The general idea is to just do a brain dump of what went well, what didn’t, what we learned, and anything we might want to do differently next time.

I’ve never done a post-Christmas debrief before, but this year seemed to call for one. The two most recent holiday seasons have felt a little too chaotic to me. A little too disorganized. A little too last-minute. The last few days before Christmas were especially hectic. We failed to fit in some of our favorite activities. I never ordered Christmas cards. We never baked and decorated sugar cookies.

In part, we’re just busier. Fall is busier than it once was. I have a teen daughter and a preteen daughter. I work 30 hours a week. We homeschool. We have book clubs and Girl Scouts and approximately 3,692 other activities. I don’t start thinking about Christmas until the week before Thanksgiving, and that’s beginning to be too late, at least in our current season of life.

Personally, I need to decorate the house for Christmas more gradually from now on. I just can’t get it done in one weekend anymore, and having open bins of decorations sitting around for weeks stresses me out. So this year, I’m packing up decorations by room. Next year, I can pull out one bin at a time, as I have time. I’m still debating whether it will be best to start with the tree (after all, that’s the most important piece) or end with it. It could be that putting up the tree first means I throw the rest of the decorating to the wind. But would that be a bad thing? My kids would say yes—emphatically. They like the Christmas shower curtain (which never made it out of a bin this year, by the way, and no one died). So the question of tree first or tree last is still unanswered.

I also need to plan sooner so I can begin sooner. I need to prioritize, deciding what matters most and what can be culled—and I need to do it before the end of November.

I have a handy little Mary Engelbreit Christmas notebook that I found in the dollar aisle at Michaels years ago. I use it every year to record Christmas cards received, make shopping lists, plan menus, and so on. This year, I added a couple of pages of notes from my debrief to it to refer to next year—and then I set a reminder in my digital calendar for Nov. 1, 2026 to pull out that notebook and review my notes (I realize this might seem a little extreme, but a calendar reminder is the only way to ensure I do that review before the holiday season is upon me in 2026).

You can do your holiday debrief on your own or together with your family. You might actually want to do both in order to get their input and then filter it through the lens of what is doable for you, the Maker of Merriment. Then you can come back to your team family and find out if they’re willing to pull some additional weight or make a few sacrifices to make the things that matter to them happen—or not.

You can also break down your debrief into areas: decorating, events and activities, gift-giving—you get the idea. Identify your areas of holiday focus, and make sure you consider each one.

Questions to Ask During a Post-Holiday Debrief

• How did I feel during the holiday season this year? How do I want to feel?

• What went well?

• What didn’t go as planned?

• What did we fail to accomplish that I wish we had made time for?

• What am I willing to give up next year to make room for what matters more?

• What did I learn that I can apply to make the next holiday season better?

When you’ve finished your debrief, ask yourself if there are any next steps you need to take now. Do you need to purchase anything, like storage bins? Do you need to set any calendar reminders for future you?

It can be helpful, too, to debrief with Kendra Adachi’s 13 Lazy Genius Principles, asking yourself how you can apply these life management practices to next year’s holiday season now: Decide Once, Start Small, Ask the Magic Question, Live in the Season, Build the Right Routines, Set House Rules, Put Everything in its Place, Let People In, Batch It, Essentialize, Go in the Right Order, Schedule Rest, and Be Kind to Yourself.

In addition, the Lazy Genius has a whole playlist of podcast episodes on handling the holidays with kindness and calm, which are great to listen to in October/November, before the holidays begin, or now, when you’re trying to assess this year in the interest of making next year better.

Debriefing at the end of a busy season is kind of like tying a bow on it, or tucking it into bed. You’ll feel a greater sense of completion and ready to move forward, having articulated what you need next time. And future you will be glad you did.