163: Holiday Homeschool: Peace Over Perfection This Season with Kelly Warner
Feeling the pressure to homeschool perfectly through Thanksgiving and Christmas while also hosting, baking, and keeping everyone cheerful? In this conversation with Kelly Warner from Hope in the Chaos, we're exploring how to make holiday homeschool simple, peaceful, and actually enjoyable—without the guilt of falling behind or missing out.Kelly shares honest stories from her decade of homeschooling (including the year she made her son do school through Christmas break!) and practical wisdom that will help you choose rest over stress this season.In this episode:✅Real holiday homeschool options from keeping rigid schedules to taking December completely off✅How to keep learning simple but meaningful through topic studies, service projects, and family traditions✅Why rest needs to be as much a part of your homeschool as the busyness✅The mindset shift that frees you from the pressure of being "behind"Practical ways to prioritize peace over perfection and connect with your kids during the chaosReady to simplify your holiday season? Grab Kelly's free Ultimate Holiday Planner mentioned in this episode to organize everything from cookie baking to gift wrapping in one simple place!Resources Mentioned:Homeschooling Through The Holidays 2025 The Ultimate Holiday Planner 25 Family Christmas TraditionsThe Heart of Serving Others at ChristmasKelly Warner is a seasoned homeschooling mom from Maine, where she lives with her husband and their four children, two of whom are proud homeschool graduates. With years of experience navigating the ups and downs of home education, Kelly is passionate about helping families simplify their journey and find encouragement amidst the chaos of daily life. She shares practical tips, inspiration, and real-life homeschooling wisdom on her website, Hope In The Chaos, and across social media.FacebookFacebook GroupInstagramPinterestShow Notes:Finding Hope in Holiday Homeschool ChaosToday, y'all are in for a treat, because I know overwhelm starts a lot—well, all the time, but especially during the holidays. How do you go through the holidays? How do you try to homeschool through the holidays?My good friend Kelly Warner is here, and we're just going to sort of pick her brain for some ideas.Kelly: I am so excited to chat about homeschool overwhelm and how your listeners can homeschool through the holidays with some simplicity, and hopefully get to the end of December and not feel like they missed it.Y'all, I didn't really think about this, but the name of her company is Hope in the Chaos. Just think about that. She talks about finding hope in the chaos of life, the chaos of homeschooling, the chaos of kids.Meet Kelly WarnerKelly: My name is Kelly Warner. I'm a homeschooling mom from Maine. My husband and I have 4 children, 2 of which are homeschool graduates.When I say we've done it all, we've done it all. We did start in the public school system, so I can talk about withdrawing and transitioning. I'd love to just help you make your homeschooling simpler.There is hope in the chaos, and life is chaotic, parenting is chaotic, raising children, homeschooling, but we can find hope. I find my hope in Christ, of course. That is where my hope is found, that's where we put our hope in this household.Those people that follow me know that I'm a person of faith, Kelly and I have similar faith, and so you might hear some of that sprinkled in here and there. Whether you agree with this or not, there are still things that you can grab, take hold of, and put into practice.The Homeschooling Through the Holidays SeriesFor those of you that don't know, she is the host of Homeschooling Through the Holiday series. Tell us a little bit about what inspired you to start this, and then are there any common struggles that you see with families during the holiday season?Kelly: Homeschooling through the Holidays is a 4-week series. We're starting November 17th. We have 16 amazing bloggers who are joining us to give readers just some practical tips and tried-and-true advice that works in their home.Homeschooling through the holidays has one goal: We want to make holiday homeschooling simple. For some, we're gonna talk about exactly how to homeschool through the holidays. Maybe you want to stick to your current schedule, your child needs that routine, you need the system.For others, perhaps you're wanting to take a break, and you want to feel okay about that. We cover it all.This whole series was dreamt of—I was thinking about this earlier today—actually in my bathroom. I was getting ready, I was dealing with the hustle and the bustle and the stress of it all. I was a newer homeschool mom, and just thinking about how do I make this all work? How does my family make this all work?It just seemed like every year the holidays brought in more stress and more chaos. I said, my readers feel the same. I know they absolutely are dealing with what we are, there's nothing new under the sun.I talked to some of my mentors, I think I might have even bounced some ideas off of you, Kerry, in the first year of this series, because this was a huge undertaking. This was the first time I had ever put anything like this together.But I had a mission, and the mission was to help other moms who were already in that October time of the year, and feeling the pressure to homeschool well, to host the holidays well, and to do it all with cheer, and with joy, and to never let anyone know that it's hard, or that it's difficult.I've been really open with my audience about the struggles of homeschooling. Part of the reason I do that is because when we started, which was more than a decade ago, nobody wants to talk about it. Everybody talked about the happy parts of homeschooling, and those should be celebrated. We are in the season of gratitude, we are being grateful and having positive attitudes, and those are good things.But sometimes we also just need someone to come along and say, the season's rough. And that's okay. And just someone to be with you.That is kind of where homeschooling through the holidays began. I really had a heart for homeschool moms that are stuck on the struggle, the overwhelm, the complexities, and just feeling like they have to do it all.That is so good. You are so transparent, I know, and that's one reason I wanted to have you here. I remember when I would speak at conferences, and these people are going, oh, my kids just love homeschooling all the time, they just love this, that, and the other, and I'm like, well, mine didn't always love it.Let's be real. I think we are now in a place, especially the last several years, especially after all the COVID stuff, that people are more open to say there really are struggles.What Holiday Homeschool Can Look LikeLet's talk a little bit about realistic expectations. What would that realistically look like in your homeschool?Kelly: If you are someone—if your child or your home thrives on order, it is okay to keep your schedule. Perhaps you do have a more rigid plan where you start school at 9, and then maybe you're done at 1. Perhaps your holiday homeschooling is going to look like we're going to curve that back.Maybe we're going to leave school from 9 to noon, because some children and some families, they thrive on systems and routine. To come out of that routine is just going to cause too much chaos, and that's okay.For other families, and we've done this ourselves, sometimes we take the whole season off. I had one year where I told the kids, we're going to do topic studies for December, not going to assign you any math, any history, any reading. My kids studied geography, they studied history, they studied mechanics, all through topics. One was studying hunting, so he learned about guides and hunting and different rules, and it led to animal studies as well.I had one that wanted to study the radio. So he learned about the history of the radio and radio programs, which does naturally lead into podcasting, because that's a very similar medium.I can tell you, we've done the rigid holiday homeschool, where I didn't leave any margin. One of our very first years, we had a program that had 180 days of learning. I was a new homeschool mom, I am very orderly, very by the book. I like structure.I had divided up all of our resources, I had scheduled all of our breaks, and kids get sick, and I didn't leave any wiggle room for sick days. So my poor son, while the rest of us were on Christmas break, was still learning because he had had some sick days.I made him sit there and do the work because that's what I thought homeschooling was. I was sucking the joy right out of it. When I say I've made every mistake in the book, I'm not exaggerating.It's an embarrassing story, it's a horrible story. I still feel bad for my son. He's an adult, he has moved on, he is functioning well in his adult years. But I started homeschooling him in middle elementary school, and I thought we had to be by the book. I thought the holiday breaks started when the work was done, rather than when we wanted the breaks to start.That is so good, because homeschooling is all about freedom, and we should be able to take the freedom that we have when we are schooling at home, or educating our kids at home. That doesn't mean it has to look like the two-week break that public schools take.I was actually—I feel very blessed. One of my good friends, we started homeschooling when my daughters were in third and fifth grade, and she'd been homeschooling since the beginning, kindergarten. She told me in November, she says, Kerry, one thing we've always done is we take the month of December off, and we make our homeschool centered on Christmas.I was a public school teacher, check those lesson plans, scope and sequence, all that stuff, but I was like, okay, I'm going to follow this, because one of the reasons we wanted homeschool was to get away from that system. That first year, that didn't mean they quit learning, it just didn't look the same.For us, at that age, we centered everything on Christmas kinds of things. When I taught school, every year, even in the public school, we did a Christmas around the world unit. So I knew that, so I was like, okay, we can at least do something that I don't have to figure all out.Keeping Learning Simple and MeaningfulHow can we keep learning simple, but also have meaning in our learning through November, Thanksgiving, December, Christmas, Advent, and all of that?Kelly: One of the best ways that I think we can keep learning simple is to make it relative to the time of year. This time of year, we're in our Thanksgiving and our Christmas season. It is a wonderful time to look at opportunities such as baking cookies for your neighbor.First of all, the serving. Scriptural lessons abound there. You are caring for others, you are being giving, but you're also, when you're cooking and when you're baking with your kids in your home, you've got measurements, you've got budgeting, especially if you're talking about how many cookies do we need, how much flour do we need?The other day, my daughter, she's 11, she wanted to start sourdough. There we are at 9 o'clock at night, talking about ratios, talking about flour, water, in starter, we're talking about how long it has to rise.You can do scripture copy work. It's a fabulous time. One of our favorite lessons that we do is we read through the book of Luke in December as a family. Everybody reads one chapter per day, and then we just have open discussions about it. Not everything in homeschooling has to end with a test.Many of the best lessons we give to our kids allow them to have a real-life application. Perhaps you're shoveling snow for neighbors. If you know a family that is affected with some food insecurity, maybe you're doing some secret Santa stuff, or you're just delivering a welcome basket.Churches often have opportunities for service. If you have any interest in the shoebox program, the shoebox program is a wonderful way to homeschool through the holidays and to really give an applicable lesson to your children that they can carry well into adulthood.If you are someone who wants to have a little bit more in your learning, there are Christmas books you can read, watch the movies, do a compare and contrast. You can bake through the movies. If your family likes, perhaps, ELF, there are some interesting recipes in that. Then you can lean into a study of nutrition.We love reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and then, of course we watch the movie, so that we can have some compare and contrast. It's one of my favorite things to do with books and stories. You can do copy work, you can study the authors, you can study the time period or the place where the book has been set.Sometimes we say that, because we've been homeschooling for a long time. For those of us that have been in this, we say, oh, it's easy! Grab a book, think of a lesson. If your listener is going, I have no idea how to sit with a book and think of a lesson, that's okay. Contact me, contact Kerry, and we would happily teach you how to read a book and pull out those lessons that are naturally just around your home and around your children.Favorite Holiday TraditionsYou mentioned Charles Dickens is one of your favorites. Can you think of anything that's either your favorite seasonal activity, tradition, or something that was your kid's favorite thing?Kelly: One of our favorite activities, and this is more of a family tradition, but it does fall into the homeschooling realm, and we still do this: when we decorate our home for the holiday season, we make homemade hot chocolate, we listen to classic Christmas carols.We just run around our house, we talk about our ornaments, we talk about the things that are going up, because I really want my holidays steeped in tradition. I want my children to look back with merriment and excitement for the times that they had. I firmly believe the holidays are a season, not just a day.My children will say they loved, absolutely loved the year we took December off from book learning, and we did the topical learning. That is not something that I have brought back, but it was a wonderful experiment for myself, more so than the kids. It gave me the permission to let go as we were diving into more relaxed learning.Charles Dickens, as I mentioned, that's a favorite. We read that every year, and we do read through Luke every year because I think it's important.This year, I'm hoping to throw in some Christmas around the world studies. It's not something we've ever tackled, but this year, I only have two—we're only homeschooling two, which is so different, it feels so tiny. I think it would be really interesting to learn how other cultures and even other time periods have celebrated Christmas.Of course, our modern Christmas, I don't think that it's reflective in many homes of what it should be. This year we're really taking a spin. We're doing character training. We're really working on characters and hearts, and really just making sure that hospitality, bravery, integrity, and gratitude—those are some of our big focuses for this year.I think some holiday around the world studies are going to just help pull us back, and really have my kids thinking, and of course, any of our listeners, put a little perspective.We don't realize that sometimes our traditions that we have here in the United States have come from other countries. There's one story about a man named Boniface, who was in Germany. He moved from England to Germany, and there's a whole long story to get to why he's whacking off branches, and the branches end up being the boughs that they put over their fireplace.I have a hard time with this. People are like, oh, but that's a pagan thing. I'm like, you know what? Jesus went and spoke parables about where those people were at that moment in time to draw spiritual truths, and that's what Boniface was doing.When you do start, you're going to learn things in history that are not in a textbook. You're just going to grow so much. I loved Christmas around the world, and plus, you can always throw food in there, and if I threw food in something, my kids always paid a little more attention.Kelly: If you keep little hands busy with a snack, that's one of my favorite tools, especially for a longer lesson or a boring lesson.Changing Your Mindset About Being "Behind"I know some moms are like, okay, well, that all sounds good. But I'm either not sure if I can really take a break. I've even had some moms, what do you do with your missing days? And I'm like, those aren't missing days, those are creative ways you can still count English or reading and all that stuff.But some people are like, how do I take a break? How do I not be behind? I don't want to be overwhelmed. To me, it's all a mindset thing. We've got to sort of reset our mind, our expectations. What do you have any suggestions to where they can sort of change their mindset and still come out with some semblance of peace throughout the holidays?Kelly: That was part of the reason I started thinking about the story that I shared earlier about my son. I was so worried about him being behind in his book. Here he is, I think 4th grade maybe, and I am cutting into his Christmas break while everyone else is pausing, because I am worried about some outside pressure.If you've got mom guilt, it's okay. I've got mom guilt, too. We feel guilty because we care, and we feel guilty because we want to make sure that we're doing a great job. That, in and of itself, already tells me you're doing amazing as a homeschool mom.However, I will say, over the years that I have learned, rest needs to be as much a part of our homeschooling as the busyness. We have got to allow for natural breaks, and encourage our children to not always run on autopilot.American society, especially in this modern world, we are go, go, go. We are always talking about time hacks and efficiency, and how can we learn more, do more, multitask. We've done it to a fault. Our children aren't robots.Our children need natural times of rest, to decompress, to allow our brains to process what we've learned, to slow down. I go back to Scripture. God created rest in the beginning. His seventh day, right after he put humanity on this earth, he rested from His work.I'm not going to go so legalistic as to say following the Sabbath, but God put rest for Himself, and he gives the Earth a natural rest. Winter and the slowing down of the seasons—especially, again, I'm up here in Maine. Nothing is growing, nothing is blossoming and blooming, because everything's at rest during the winter.As the days get shorter, as our daylight hours decompress, maybe that's time for us to just say, you know what, we're gonna slow down too. We're gonna focus on the birth of Christ, we're gonna focus on our families, we're gonna really understand what this means, rather than just check boxes.Because when our kids are stressed, and when everybody's under pressure to learn, is anyone actually learning? I just had this conversation yesterday with my daughter. She's working on the countries of Central America. She just wants to get through it as fast as she can.She's just reading them off the map, she's saying them all wrong, Ecuador, El Salvador, and I'm like, let's slow down. And she's like, it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon! That's okay. Learning can happen on the weekends, can happen on the evenings, and it often happens best when we have our children's attention, when we have their curiosity, and when we can make it fun.Our children are programmed for fun. I go back to that story, my son was not learning that year. I was just drilling him, finish the workbook, finish the worksheet, finish, go, go, go, go, go. I don't think he remembers those lessons. I don't think those have applied.I learned more out of what NOT to do in that season. If we have a listener out here who is struggling with, how do I take a day off? How do we take a week off? What about all this math? It's a 36-week program.It's gonna be okay if you get to May, and you've only done 30 weeks. You can still be done with their school year at 30 weeks and pick up with week 31 when your school year resumes.You can always, if you've got a child who's interested and they want to move a little faster in the spring when the days are longer, that's okay. No one says that we have to finish every book, finish every worksheet. No one says we have to do all 45 minutes of the curriculum every day.If we have moms out there that are struggling, the best thing they can do is say, I feel guilty, but I'm still gonna pause because I know it's what's best for my kid.As we as moms learn how to do that, and teach ourselves how to rest, it will be easier. Next year will be easier, because you'll get to January this year and be like, okay, we're gonna pick up, we're gonna start, we're all refreshed, we're ready to learn.Then next year, when the guilt comes, or the concern about the slowing down for the holidays, you're gonna be like, no, we did fine. We get to January, and nobody missed out on anything.You know, I was a public school teacher for 6 years. I don't know that I ever finished a textbook. Even in math, because mastery was more important to me. I think that is an artificial pressure that moms are putting on themselves. They're comparing themselves and thinking they're behind because everyone else is ahead, and those people aren't telling you the whole story anyway.I love the idea of rest. I probably would get on the Sabbath soapbox, because I totally believe that we do need a rest. Our bodies do, and when I think about between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we have four weeks of Advent, and you can take that Sunday and spend some time, not in education, but just discovering what—I don't know the order, joy, peace, love, and hope are the four weeks of Advent.You could begin that Sunday reading something in the Bible about that. That is educational, and sometimes I personally believe that is more important than whether they know what 3 plus 3 is, or whether they know trigonometry, or the law of physics.I'm not saying those things are unimportant, depending on the job. But I think we need to always keep our priorities. This is a perfect time to bring Jesus Christ into our homeschool, into our education.Prioritizing Peace Over PerfectionWhen families prioritize peace over perfection, and peace, meaning their focus is on Jesus, that is the reason for the season. Have you seen some benefits from doing that, or any tips and tricks on how you could do that?Kelly: I have been very open with my first few years of homeschooling, and there was no peace. Peace was not the priority at all. In fact, my priority was doing better than the public school. That's it. I had pulled my kids out, and we were going to do better than them, no matter what.I can tell you that that was the wrong motive. My relationship with my children suffered during that time. My relationship with my spouse suffered during that time. I quit homeschooling, actually, during that time, because I was going at it with all the wrong motives. I was going at it from the wrong direction. It was more about me than anything else.When families choose peace over perfection, as you had mentioned, the atmosphere of the home changes. All of a sudden, kids are okay. If they spill the milk, they know, maybe someone's gonna come help me clean it up, instead of someone just coming and lashing out.We do this thing in our home. We go back and forth with food. Sometimes we have breakfast brownies, because fun. The kids' love language is fun. Sometimes we eat breakfast brownies, but sometimes we eat Froot Loops, too. In all honesty, what's the difference between Froot Loops and brownies? I don't think there is any.It's just a matter of how can we connect with our kids? Jesus never hurried in His ministry. He knew he had just the right amount of time.In our world, we tell everybody we have to hurry. If you look online, you will be told that you only have 18 summers with your children. You only have 18 Christmases. We're told to just soak it all up, and just enjoy it while it lasts.I still see my adult children, and I know you do as well. I still see my parents. We have this fallacy that we need to rush through life, we need to make sure that we're perfectly preparing our kids academically, and we just miss the heart.We need to connect with our kids, especially in this modern world where everything is trying to pull our kids away. I firmly believe that when God created the family unit, there was a purpose behind that—the two parents, the children, and God gave us these children.Some of us have parented through many difficult seasons. If you ask any parent that has an adult child, they've got some stories. It's okay, because we can share those stories, and we can share those accounts with other moms that are in the trenches.Titus 2 talks about sharing, and the elder women are to teach the younger women how to love their husbands and love their children. I can remember when I read that passage and it clicked. Motherhood might not always be instinctual and natural. We need the village, so we need other homeschool moms, we need Titus 2 moms.When the enemy comes in, and he tells us to rush through holidays, or to rush through the lessons, or to just hurry our children alone, or to fix the cookie because their candy cane cookies aren't perfectly shaped, just tell him no.No is a complete sentence, and it is the best defense you have against the outside pressures of the world.As I mentioned earlier, we do a lot of traditions, because I think traditions keep us rooted. It's okay if traditions change, too. We used to just bake cookies as a family, but a few years ago, I read another mom blogger, and she bakes one batch of cookies with each of her children.I said, oh, I love that. So I'm going to adopt that tradition, because the more my kids get older, the more I said, okay, I want to be rooted with them. I want to figure out how to transition and have good adult relationships with them.If you're home right now, it's feeling chaotic. If the idea of the holidays are stressing you out and you're concerned, think about a way you can just add one thing. Maybe it is cooking with your kids, rather than worrying about math.Maybe you are going to pause history in exchange for maybe a movie night with your children. Perhaps you're gonna say, you know what, we need some new holiday traditions, and just hop on Google real quick. I'm sure a quick Google search will yield you dozens!I know I have a blog post about holiday traditions that you can start with your family. So there are many ways, and I think those traditions, and remembering that rest is okay, are two of the best ways that you can maintain peace in your home and homeschool during the holiday season.I will say rest is so important, and I love the idea of winter is when everything dies. But then, at the end of winter, spring comes up, and there's beauty and flowers and all of this. It's just a season of the year, and just like it's a season of your life. Sometimes we do need to rest.I could get on my soapbox about all the health benefits, and all the emotional benefits, and everything. It's more than that, but if for no other reason, God tells us to rest, and so we need to, and there is beauty after that rest, or that dead season.I do have to share real quickly, you mentioned, y'all, the baking with your kids. We bake cookies, but my kids sold the cookies that they baked, and then they used the profits to buy gifts. We would choose one missionary family every single year, and then they would use the profit to go—this is back before you had Amazon and you could ship all around the world. You had to actually go buy it, wrap it, put it in a box, and go to the post office to send it over to Europe.To this day, all three of my kids will tell you that is their favorite Christmas tradition that we did. We also made pumpkin bread, and my middle daughter doesn't like pumpkin bread at all, but when she had to do something at work to represent her favorite family tradition, she baked that pumpkin bread and took it up there and gave it to everyone else, because there were just so many memories, and it had more purpose than just baking cookies and eating them. Or like you said, baking cookies and giving them out to your neighbors. There's so much you can do that can add some purpose to it as well.Kelly: There is. I know you've actually shared that story before, Kerry, when you were a contributor to homeschooling through the holidays, I have a whole blog post where you shared in depth how people can utilize that in their homeschool, and it is a wonderful tradition.I don't even know how I ever got it, but somehow God laid it on my heart. But speaking of homeschooling through the holidays, how can people learn more about that, or if they want to get in contact with you, how can they reach out to you?Kelly: As I said at the beginning, homeschooling through the holidays, we're in our third season, or our third year. This year we launch on November 17th. Everything's gonna be on my website, it's hopeinthechaos.com.That's the easier way to get through it. We can drop the full URL in the show notes, wherever people are watching. We do have the two previous seasons as well, if someone wants to catch up, if they want to see your tip on how to do the baking and the selling.I really want moms to get to the end of the holiday season, whether that's December 26th, whether that's January 1st, wherever, or if you go right through Advent into January. I really want moms to get to the end and be able to say, I enjoyed that, not I survived that.Raising children is a season in life, and it's not one that we need to be surviving. We do need to be enjoying it, and we do need to be finding the opportunities to cling to the hem of the garment, because there are times when it's hard. There are times when it's just downright depressing.This is where the Lord is leading me. He tells us that we can find rest with Him. That's part of the reason for this series, is to give moms practical tips and advice that allow them to remain centered on Christ, remain focused on their families, and be able to get to the end of the holiday season and just say, I enjoyed that.There are so many people that don't have that opportunity. Those of us who are blessed enough to be in the homeschool world and to be sharing our knowledge, we have an amazing opportunity to help lift homeschool moms up, and to share what we have learned, and spare one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ as we do that.That's where the heart is, in this series, which is 4 weeks long. It is a whirlwind of information. We have some amazing contributors, including yourself, and we have some amazing sponsors.I know that you said you weren't sure if this was coming out during the first week or the second week, but even if this comes out the second week of the series, during the week of Thanksgiving, we're gonna launch the anchor post, which is the start of the series, and it's gonna allow your readers to find all 20 episodes in this year's series.Final Encouragement and Free ResourceThat is awesome. Well, that sort of sums it all up. I was going to ask you if there was anything else you wanted to leave our moms with before we close. You said so many good things, but if there is, now would be a great time to do that.Kelly: I did—I think we had talked about this briefly, it never came up in any of the questions. I would love to help your audience kind of combat some of the chaos of holiday homeschooling by offering them a free copy of my Ultimate Holiday Planner.It's just a simple way, I'm a planner, and so it is a simple way for them to just jot down all of the things, whether it's hosting holiday parties, finishing up Christmas shopping, wrapping gifts, baking cookies, or other traditions with the kids, and to put it all in just one simple place.I'm gonna have that link available. It's gonna be down in the show notes, rather than trying to spit it out and have someone try to type it and remember it. Because I really want to help your audience get to the end of the holiday season, whatever that is for them, wherever that date falls, and thoroughly feel like they enjoyed the time.It was memorable, it was peaceful, it was not stressful, even if there might have been some times where it was kind of a little bit chaotic. Because we can handle chaos without letting it overwhelm us. We do that by having systems, by having tools, and by having support.Very good. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for spending time with us, taking some time out of your day. I really appreciate it.Kelly: Yes, Kerry, I thank you for having me. You have a wonderful holiday.Ready to simplify your holiday homeschool season? Grab Kelly's free Ultimate Holiday Planner at the link above and check out the Homeschooling Through the Holidays series at hopeinthechaos.com for 4 weeks of practical tips from 16 amazing bloggers. You can get to the end of December and say "I enjoyed that" not "I survived that"!