Margaret Ables on how moms can have more holiday fun.

I have been thinking a lot about the pressure on moms to make the holidays magic! Perfect! Memorable! Fun all day and all night! But what we don’t talk about enough, is how we can have more fun over the holidays — not necessarily to make more fun. And the perfect person to discuss this with me on Spawned this week is Margaret Ables, the co-host of your other favorite parenting podcast, What Fresh Hell.

Take a listen right now for some terrific tips, sweet memories (the pancakes for dinner story made our engineer John tear up), really smart insight and a lot of laughter. We’re all about taking the pressure off. Because one thing you shouldn’t feel: the pressure to make BE THE FUN MOM one more thing on your holiday to-do list.

(And don’t get me started on the elf/shelf business.)

This week’s episode is graciously sponsored by Mylio Photos

Related Episodes and Other Reading:

– KJ Dell’Antonia on how to be a happier parent
– Liz’s story about her family’s traditional Jurassic Pole display (on her new Substack!)
– Margaret recommends Jennifer Senior’s classic book, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood
– Pancakes for dinner? Yes!
– Find the corny light shows near you — Mommy Poppins is a great resource.
– Tips on fun from fun dad and Magic for Humans host Justin Willman

Be sure to subscribe to Spawned wherever you get your podcasts.

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Image: Books Are Magic on Instagram

Margaret’s Cool Picks of the Week: She has rediscovered the love of books by reading fun page-turners. She also gets books on Kindle and Audible at the same time, so she can trade off — and now she’s finishing 50 books a year! (PS Liz recently wrote about her tip for getting into audiobooks and now she’s reading more too!)

Liz’s Cool Pick of the Week: Local neighborhood bookstore like Books Are Magic in their new Brooklyn location are perfect for last-minute gifts. (And D’OH I mentioned Books of Wonder which is also a terrific local bookstore, but it’s in Manhattan, not Brooklyn. You could see why I confused them!) You can also go to bookstore.org to shop independent bookstores online or to libro.fm for audiobooks that support indie booksellers, as an alternative to Audible too.

Hey, you can also subscribe to our Cool Picks of the Week newsletter to find exclusive favorites each week in your inbox that you won’t find here or on Spawned. Thanks for listening!

Top image: Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash