The short version
- Holidays and big celebrations mean a lot, but planning for them tends to get pushed to the back burner.
- Planning early mostly means deciding early: are we hosting, going somewhere, keeping it small, or skipping it this year?
- My AI reminds me weeks ahead to start, and keeps reminding me until I tell it the plans are made.
- One instruction sets it up for every holiday in the next year. Just want the instruction? Jump to it.
A week or two before the 4th of July, my local friends and I were talking about it in our group chat, and we realized none of us had plans yet. We were all busy with the normal stuff, and it was July before we knew it.
So it turned into a scramble. I offered to host a party, and everyone came over. It worked out. But it was more stressful than it needed to be.
I didn’t want that to happen with the other holidays. So I worked with AI to set up reminders to start planning early, and to keep reminding me until I’ve actually done it.
How do I get started?
Ask your AI for every holiday and celebration in the next year, with a date to start planning each one. Then ask it to remind you on those dates, and to keep reminding you until you say it’s handled.
Copy this into your AI
List the holidays and celebrations my family will have in the next 12 months. Ask me which ones we usually celebrate and how. For each one, give me a date to start planning that leaves enough time to make plans without rushing. Remind me on that date, and keep reminding me until I tell you the plans are made.
Whether your AI can send reminders on its own depends on which one you use and how it’s set up. If yours can’t, put the start dates it gives you on your calendar, with a note that says ask AI to help plan [holiday].
What should I tell it about our holidays?
It will ask, but these are the answers that make the plans fit your family. Write them once in a note on your phone, and paste the note in whenever you ask for help with a holiday.
What you skip. Elf on the Shelf, the cards, the cookie exchange, whatever it is. Write down the thing you don’t do, or it comes back every year.
Who hosts, and who travels. Hosting and traveling need different plans.
What you always cook, and what you buy. Saying so once means the list stops guessing.
The order you want to focus on. From late October through December it’s one long season, and your AI will happily give you three plans that all want the same weekend. Maybe you’re okay with that. Or maybe you do not want to think about Christmas until after Halloween is over. That changes when the reminders show up.
How much runway you want. I use eight weeks for Christmas and Thanksgiving, four for the mid-size ones, and for the ones we don’t always celebrate, two or three weeks.
What I do now
The reminder comes in weeks ahead, and it starts with the decision: are we doing anything this year? For the ones we don’t always celebrate, that question is all I get. If the answer is no, nothing else happens.
If the answer is yes, we make the plan while there’s still time to make it. Who’s coming, where, what I’m cooking, what we’re skipping. Then it builds the list with dates on it.
If I don’t tell my AI I’ve done something, it reminds me again. That’s the part that keeps it from turning into another notification I swipe away.
Does it get the timing right?
Mostly, once you remind it holidays happen in order.
The first time I asked for a Christmas timeline, my AI counted back eight weeks from December 25 and gave me a start date of October 30. The day before Halloween.
What I said, and I’ll stand by the phrasing: I am not gonna start Christmas planning the day before Halloween.
So now I tell it to keep planning out of the week before another holiday, and it does.
How does it get better?
Teach your AI your family’s pattern once, so next year it already knows what you skip and who hosts. Most assistants can remember things between conversations or keep a saved note. How that works, and whether it’s free, is different on each one, so check yours. Pasting your note in still works everywhere.
And tell it when it’s wrong. The first plan will have a guess or two in it. The next one is closer.
What’s still my job
Deciding how we celebrate. My AI reminds me and keeps the list. I’m the one deciding whether we host, who we invite, and what we skip this year.
It’s working, mostly. The reminders come in, and I push some of them back. But nothing has snuck up on me since July.
Keep going: the gift side of this has its own post.
About the author: Heather Pocorobba has spent 15 years in communications, simplifying complex topics and answering the question “what does this mean for me?” She writes AI at Home with Heather, showing how anyone can use AI to get more of the household to-do list done without giving up family time.
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