How do we get ready to begin?
The first three chapters explained why. This one shows how.
The holidays have a way of just happening. The invitations show up, the calendar fills itself, and by the middle of December we're mostly reacting. This year you get a head start, setting things up before the season has a chance to set them up for you. Don't let the holidays happen to you. Design them.
The good news is that there isn't much to set up. Advent Overflow starts slowly on purpose, and the reason is a phrase you'll hear again in this book: "No Hurry = No Worry." This season should never add worry to your life, and hurry is where worry usually comes from. So the program begins in the first week of November, early enough that setting up never turns into one more last-minute project. Today is the one day built for setup, but you don't have to get it all done today. Nothing needs to be set up until Thursday, which means you can use Monday through Wednesday to finish. The reason it's Thursday will make sense by the end of the chapter.
If you only have twenty minutes today, spend them reading this chapter all the way through. You can take care of the setup over the next couple of days. Here's what it involves:
Mark your calendar.
Put up the trunk.
Start your Thankful Album.
Gather your supplies.
Make your plan.
The rest of this chapter walks through each one. The plan comes last, because it makes more sense once you've seen how a week actually runs.
Advent Overflow runs from the first Thursday of November to January 4. Here's the whole season on one page.
| When | Block | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| First Thursday through Sunday | Prepare | Read the first three chapters, then set up |
| Monday through Sunday | Improvement | Who made my life better? |
| Monday through Sunday | Important | Who made me feel valued? |
| Monday through Wednesday | Impairment | What blocks my view of what I've been given? |
| Fourth Thursday | Thanksgiving | The first harvest |
| Friday through November 29 | Left Overs | Deliver the leftover thank-yous |
| November 30 | The Pivot | The Thanks Giving Tree becomes the Giving Tree |
| December 1 to 7 | Generosity | Giving what you've been given |
| December 8 to 14 | Hope | Explained on November 30 |
| December 15 to 21 | Peace | Explained on November 30 |
| December 22 to 28 | Joy | Explained on November 30 |
| December 29 to January 4 | Love | Explained on November 30 |
November is built around Thursdays, because Thanksgiving always falls on the fourth Thursday of the month. Every full week follows the rhythm mentioned in the Premise: three days to receive, one day to celebrate, and three days to give. In November those weeks start on Monday, which puts the celebration on Thursday. We call those Thankful Thursdays. You already had the first one: the day you read the Preface. Thanksgiving is the fourth and biggest.
The first Thursday and the fourth Thursday of November are always exactly 21 days apart. The blocks before Thanksgiving add up to exactly 21 days: four days of Prepare, seven of Improvement, seven of Important, and three of Impairment. So no matter what year it is, the program lands on Thanksgiving right on schedule. The only thing that changes from year to year is how many days sit between Thanksgiving and November 30. Those are the Left Overs days, anywhere from one to seven of them. (Not that the leftovers at my house have ever lasted seven days.) They're the right place for flexibility: finishing notes, mailing thank-yous, and resting.
Because Thanksgiving can land on seven different dates, the exact days shift a little from year to year. So the back of this book has seven calendars, one for each date the first Thursday of November can fall on, with every day of the season filled in. Look up the first Thursday of November this year, turn to the calendar that starts on that date, and copy it onto the calendar your family already uses. December's blocks never move, though. Generosity always starts on December 1, which means St. Nicholas Day, December 6, always falls on Day 6 of Generosity week.
One more thing the calendar does on its own. In every full week, the celebration lands on Day 4. Thanksgiving is Day 4 of its week. Christmas is Day 4 of Joy, and New Year's Day is Day 4 of Love. The three biggest days of the season land right where the rhythm says a celebration belongs.
I like to say "Structure Brings Freedom." The calendar carries the structure for you, so on any given day you don't have to work out what comes next. You just look.
This is the only real building you'll do today.
You need brown paper for the trunk. Brown kraft paper or brown construction paper works best. If all you have is white paper, color it brown with a crayon or marker, and let the kids help. The trunk is a plain brown strip about three feet tall and a foot wide, and a few sheets taped together work fine. A flattened cardboard box works too, and it's already brown. It may need push pins instead of tape, and it's a little harder to cut when you trim the trunk down on November 30. None of it needs to be neat.
Pick a wall your family walks past every day, with room around and above the trunk for a month of leaves. Tape or pin the trunk up.
That's it. The trunk stays bare for the rest of the week. That can feel strange, but it's part of the design. The bare trunk is the before picture. Over the next three weeks it fills with paper leaves and photos, and by Thanksgiving it'll look like a full, leafy tree. The first leaves go up on Friday, and the tree tends to grow in bursts: quiet for four days, then a big jump over the weekend.
On November 30, you'll cut this same trunk down to a short stump, and in December it will grow back as an evergreen. You'll get those instructions when you need them.
The Preface spent some time on the wish list, the long list of what we want. Here's the replacement. Instead of making a list of what we want, we collect pictures of who we love.
Start a shared photo album on your phone, or on whatever device your household uses. Name it "Thankful" and add this year's date. That's all you need to do today. Starting Monday, you'll scroll back through the year's photos and add the faces and moments you're thankful for. On Thursdays you'll print a few of them, and they'll go on the tree as photo leaves.
I'd recommend printing two copies of each photo. One goes on the tree. The other goes into a small printed album we call the "Gratitude Album," a physical record of who made your year better. When a photo comes off the tree to be given away, the memory is saved in the Gratitude Album. Over the years those albums start to tell your family's story. Whether you print one copy or two is part of the plan you'll make in Step 5.
Here's the entire list for November:
Brown paper (or a flattened cardboard box) for the trunk
Colored paper for leaves, in whatever colors you like (fall colors look great)
Tape and/or push pins
Pencils, pens, or markers
A place to print photos
Envelopes and stamps, if anyone on your list lives out of town
It's short on purpose. I call it "Simple Is Sustainable": the less a tradition asks you to buy or build, the more likely you are to keep it going year after year.
Most families print their photos at a store, and a home printer works too if you have one. Photos take a little planning, so it helps to know today where you'll print them on Thursday.
Stamps take a little planning too. Notes for people you won't see in person ideally go in the mail on the Monday before Thanksgiving, so pick up envelopes and stamps sometime before then, and request and jot down addresses as those names come up.
If you have the Workbook, it includes printable leaf outlines you can trace or cut out. They're there for convenience. A leaf cut freehand from construction paper works just as well.
December adds green paper for the tree's layers, small paper circles and stars for ornaments, one star for the top, and, if you'd like, five tall, thin candles in holders (often called taper candles or candlesticks) with a long-neck lighter. You don't need any of that yet, and the Pivot on November 30 covers a couple of other options if an open flame doesn't suit your house.
Everything anyone writes during this program, from the first November leaf to the last December star, follows one format.
The name of who or what you're thankful for goes on the front. Why you're thankful goes on the back. On a photo leaf, the photo takes the place of the name. Then you tape it up with the writing facing the wall.
That one rule is what makes the whole thing work. Because the words face the wall, the tree can sit in the middle of your living room all month and nobody's note gets spoiled. Nobody has to sneak around or hide anything. The tree is public, but the words stay private until the day they're read.
For children who can't write yet, either of these works. They can draw a picture on the back, or they can tell a parent what to write and the parent writes it down, just as they said it.
The Premise described the rhythm. Here's what it asks of you, day by day.
Monday through Wednesday are quiet days. Each day there's a short entry in this book for adults and teens, to read on your own or out loud together, and, if you have them, a story for younger kids in the Wanderful Woods storybooks. Each entry also includes a question for elementary-aged kids. Then comes one small action: write down who you're thankful for and why, and scroll back through your photos for the faces and moments that go with it. Add them to the Thankful Album. No scissors, no printer, nothing to build. Monday looks at the people in your house (Core), Tuesday at the people within your reach (Community), and Wednesday at the gifts no person arranged (Cosmos).
Thursday is the celebration. It follows the three steps from the Premise: remember, rejoice, ready. First, everyone says out loud a little of what they noticed over the past three days. Then the household celebrates, with a round of applause one week and a favorite dish the next (each Thursday's entry has the plan). Last comes the only production session of the week: print the photos you picked and cut the leaves. Everything the weekend needs is now ready.
Friday through Sunday are for writing. Friday you write notes for the people in your house, Saturday for the people in your wider circle, and Sunday for the gifts no one person gave. Each one goes on the tree, name or photo out, words to the wall. Friday has a simple count: each person writes one note for every other person in the house, so in a household of four, everyone writes three. In a bigger household that adds up fast, so families of six or more can draw names or split them up, as long as each person writes about three notes and everyone still receives several. Everyone gives some, and everyone gets some.
Two full weeks run that way: Improvement, then Important. After that, the shape bends a little to fit the holiday. Impairment is three days, Monday through Wednesday, spent clearing away what keeps us from seeing our gifts and getting ready for the big day.
Then comes Thanksgiving morning. Before anything else happens that day, your household says a short thank-you together, a call-and-response called the "Enough Echo." Then each person goes to the tree, finds every leaf and photo with their own name on the front, takes it down, and reads what their family wrote. We call this the "Opening." It's the moment the whole month has been building toward, and it may turn out to be your favorite part of the program. Reading aloud together is the easy default, and a grown-up can sit with each child who can't read yet and read theirs to them quietly. After the Opening, you bag up the leaves for anyone you'll see later that day. The notes for people outside your house get delivered in their own time: some by mail early that week so they arrive by Thursday, some by hand the evening before Thanksgiving, some at the Thanksgiving table, and the rest during Left Overs. By November 30, every note should be delivered or in the mail. You'll choose your own version of this in Step 5.
December runs the same weekly rhythm with a few changes: ornaments instead of leaves, an Opening every week instead of once, a candle lit at each celebration, and three ways to give on the last three days of each week. You'll get the full December instructions on November 30. For now, November is plenty.
Now that you've seen how a week runs, there are a few choices to make about the leaves. You could make them as you go, but a decision left for a tired Thursday night, with a stack of fresh prints on the table, usually gets made in a hurry or not at all. I call this "The Power of a Predecision": choose tonight, with the whole month in front of you, and the busy weeks only have to follow the plan.
Here's the default. It's what the rest of this book assumes, and for most households it's all you need.
Write it, then hang it. Each note gets written on the day its leaf goes up: Core on Friday, Community on Saturday, Cosmos on Sunday. The week already spreads the writing across three days, so no single night carries all of it. If a note doesn't get written on its day, hold on to the photo and hang it once the note is done.
Two prints of each photo. One goes on the tree and is given away with its note on the back. The other goes straight into your Gratitude Album.
A bare tree by the end. Leaves come down as they're given away. The Core leaves come down on Thanksgiving morning. The Community leaves come down as they go out: in the mail the Monday before Thanksgiving, by hand the night before Thanksgiving, at the table, or during Left Overs. The Cosmos leaves aren't headed to anyone, so they can come down whenever you're ready. By November 30 the trunk stands bare, ready to be cut down.
Mail early. Notes for people you won't see in person go in the mail on the Monday before Thanksgiving, so most of them arrive in time. A few may still land after Thanksgiving, and that's okay.
If part of the default doesn't fit your household, here are the alternatives and why you might pick one.
Hang the photos Thursday, write them on their day. Some families like to see the new photos go up the night they're printed. Hang them all on Thursday, then write the notes on the usual days: on Friday, take down the photos for the people in your house, write on the back, and put them back up. Do the same with Community photos on Saturday and Cosmos photos on Sunday. Paper leaves still get written before they go up. If you go this way, mark the photos still waiting for a note, either by hanging them low on the tree or by sticking a small torn piece of sticky note on the front, so none of them gets given away blank.
A fair tree. Some families would rather keep the tree full right through Thanksgiving. Write the note on the back of the second print instead, and give that one away, so the first print never leaves the tree. When the tree comes down, the photos that stayed up go into your Gratitude Album.
One print, no album. If you'd rather skip the printed album, print one copy of each photo. The tree thins out as notes are given, which is the default anyway.
Give as you go. Instead of saving every Community note for Thanksgiving week, hand some out the same week you write them.
Mail after Thanksgiving. If Thanksgiving week is already full, mail the notes during the Left Overs days instead. Either way, everything is delivered or in the mail by November 30.
Once you've chosen, write it down. The Workbook has a planning page for this. If you don't have the Workbook, a sticky note on the calendar works fine. Five lines cover it, and a sixth if you live alone:
Photos: hang them after writing, or hang them Thursday and write them on their day?
Bare tree or fair tree?
Prints: two of each photo, or one? (One means no Gratitude Album and a bare tree.)
Community notes: deliver as you go, or all in Thanksgiving week?
Mailed notes: the Monday before Thanksgiving, or during Left Overs?
Only if you live alone: Who is Core? (See "If You Live Alone," below.)
The prints line is the one choice you need before Thursday, since it decides how many photos you print. If you're not sure about any line, write the default. A plan only has to be good enough to follow, and you can change it.
There's one more decision, and it's only for people who live alone.
Core, the first of the three C's, is built around the people you live with, and that design leaves two gaps for anyone who lives by themselves. First, nobody in your house will write Core notes to you. Second, nobody in your house will be there to receive the Core notes you write, so on Thanksgiving morning and at each December celebration, there's no one to take them down and read them. Here are three ways to handle it.
Option 1: Gather a Core. Invite a few of the people you're closest to, family or friends, to do Advent Overflow alongside you, and decide together who your Core is. It might be your siblings, or a group of close friends who all know each other. Each of you writes Core notes for the others and hangs them on your own tree. Then plan to get together on Thanksgiving morning and on the December celebration days, bring the notes you wrote, and hold the Opening together. This closes both gaps.
Option 2: Core at a distance. Choose your closest people, your immediate family or your closest friends, and write to them as your Core. Get each note to them in time for the Opening (in December, that means by hand, since the notes are written only three days before), and ask them to open it that day. If you can, call while they read it. This closes the second gap: your notes are read on the day they were written for. The first gap stays open, since nobody writes back unless they choose to.
Option 3: No Core. Skip Core and give Community two days instead: one for your closest people and one for everyone else within your reach. Those notes go out the way any Community note does. There's no Opening for you on Thanksgiving morning or at the December celebrations, but the rest of each celebration is still yours. This is the simplest option, but it leaves both gaps open.
Whichever you choose, write it down as line 6 of your plan.
Advent Overflow comes in four pieces, and each has one job. This book is the only one you need. The other three are optional extras, and every day in this book works without them.
This book, Advent Overflow: A Family Guide to Giving Thanks, Then Giving Back, from Thanksgiving to New Year's, holds the daily entries for adults and teens, plus every instruction you'll need. The other pieces call it the Guide.
The Wanderful Woods storybooks have a story for younger kids every day, told through the animal characters who live in the Wanderful Woods: The Thank-You Adventure in Wanderful Woods for November and The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods for December.
The Workbook, Advent Overflow Workbook: For the Grown-Up Guiding the Family from Gratitude to Generosity, holds gratitude journal pages, planning pages, and cut-outs. A notebook, a sticky note, and some construction paper can stand in for everything in it.
The activity books give kids their own pages to go with each day's story: Advent Overflow Activity Book: A Kids' Companion for The Thank-You Adventure in Wanderful Woods for November, and Advent Overflow Activity Book: A Kids' Companion for The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods for December.
When a day in this book mentions one of the others, it's pointing to extra pages for families who have them.
This one is optional, and it's the only time I'll bring it up before November 30.
Most families already own stockings. One way to cut the crud from Christmas is to change what goes in them. Instead of filling each other's stockings with small plastic things and candy, some families spend December slipping in thank-you notes and words of encouragement, to be read on Christmas morning. A stocking also makes a good keepsake spot. In December the notes on the tree are paper ornaments instead of leaves, and once each person has read theirs, they can go in that person's stocking. If you like either idea, hang the stockings by November 30.
It's an extra layer. The tree is the program.
You're fine. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday don't need any materials at all, just a few minutes of reading and noticing. The first time you'll need paper, tape, or a printer is Thursday, so that's the only real deadline. If your plan from Step 5 is the last thing left, make it before Thursday, since it decides how many photos you print. Each of those first three days ends with a short "Still Getting Ready?" checklist, so nothing sneaks up on you.
There's no prize for finishing early, either. No Hurry = No Worry. The point of this season is to slow down enough to notice, so start that way.
Tonight there's a bare trunk on your wall. Tomorrow the noticing starts, with a question that's easier than it sounds: who made my life better this year?
You already know one answer. You pictured them at the end of the Preface. Before long, their name will be on your wall.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, the whole river turned to gold for just a little while, and Tessie asked a question nobody could answer: what is a present for? Today is the last day to sign up for the Great Big Present Swap.
How do you get ready for something really big? Let’s go see how Wanderful Woods gets ready.
The wind came whooshing through Sunny Square, whoo-shhhh, whoo-shhhh, and pulled the very last leaves off the big maple tree. They tumbled across the grass like they were racing each other to the river. By the time the wind calmed down, the maple was bare, just a tall brown trunk and lots of empty branches reaching up to the gray sky.
“It looks cold,” said Mr. Monkey, looking up at it.
“It looks like it’s waiting for something,” said Mr. Moose.
Ricky came hurrying across Sunny Square with his list and an armful of little bark cards. “Sign-Up Helpers! I have the best idea since my last best idea!”
On every card, Ricky had copied one wish. Bruno’s big purple paw print. Dottie’s stick that throws itself. A whisper wish for Benji. Shiloh’s “nobody left out.” Hazel’s card just said SWAMP. And Mr. Monkey’s card was the biggest of all: the Mr. Monkey-shaped banana, cut out of a whole piece of bark.
“We’ll hang every wish on the big maple,” said Ricky. “Then everybody can come and see what everybody wants. It’ll be a WISHING TREE!”
“Ooh,” said Mr. Monkey.
Soon all of Sunny Square was busy getting ready. Daddy Monkey swung in with a big coil of vines over his shoulder, new ones and fuzzy old ones. Mama Moose brought baskets of berries for paint. Sammy brought pinecones, so everybody could measure their presents. Dottie brought her stick, just in case.
Bruno picked up a pinecone and started measuring things. He measured a rock. “One pinecone.” He measured Benji. “One pinecone and a little bit of ears.” Then he measured Mr. Moose, all the way up from his hooves to his antlers, pinecone over pinecone over pinecone, until he had to stand on a stump to reach the top.
“Forty-seven pinecones,” said Bruno. He shook his head sadly. “Mr. Moose, you’re too big for the Swap.”
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose. “I’ll try to shrink.”
“Haw haw haw!” went Bruno.
Then it was time to hang the wishes. Mr. Monkey climbed up into the bare maple with the cards tucked under his arm, and Ricky handed them up one at a time. Mr. Monkey hung Bruno’s card on a branch. He hung Dottie’s card on a twig. He hung Hazel’s SWAMP right at the top.
Then the wind came back.
WHOOOOSH.
Every card on the maple lifted off its branch at once and went flying. They flew over Sunny Square like a flock of little brown birds. Dottie leaped and caught one in her mouth. Hazel galloped after two more. Sammy zipped up a tree after one that got stuck. Benji chased the whisper wish across the grass and pounced on it with both front paws.
And Mr. Monkey’s big banana card caught the wind like a sail.
Mr. Monkey was still holding it. “Whoa! WHOA!” It pulled him right out of the tree. He landed on his bottom in the grass, still holding on, and the wind dragged him across Sunny Square, shhhhhhhhhh, skiing through the leaves on his bottom, around the maple once, around the maple twice…
“Mr. Moose! My wish is taking me somewhere!”
Bruno stepped right in front of him and sat down on the banana card. FWUMP. It stopped. Mr. Monkey stopped. He was covered in leaves from his ears to his toes.
“Thanks, Bruno,” he said from inside the leaves.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha!” went Sammy from the top of a tree. “Mr. Monkey went SKIING!”
Everybody brought back the cards they had caught. Some were bent. Dottie’s was a little slobbery. Ricky sat down on a root with the whole pile in his lap, and his ears went flat.
“It’s not going to work,” he said. “The wind will just blow them off again. And today is the last day.”
Mr. Monkey felt it in his own tummy. Ricky had worked so hard, all week long, and he wanted the Wishing Tree to work for him. “We’ll help,” said Mr. Monkey. “Right, Mr. Moose?”
Mr. Moose looked at the cards. He looked at the bare branches swaying in the wind. “We were only hanging them,” he said slowly. “Hanging doesn’t hold on. We need to tie them on. Tight.”
He looked over at Daddy Monkey’s big coil of vines. “And Ricky has the best knots in the woods.”
Ricky’s ears came back up.
Mr. Monkey climbed back up into the maple with an armful of vines. Mr. Moose stood underneath and held each card up high, steady between his antlers, right where Mr. Monkey could reach it. And Ricky climbed up beside Mr.
Monkey and tied every single card on, with his very best knot, the one that never slips. Bruno held the bottom of the ladder, even though there wasn’t a ladder.
When the wind came back, whoo-shhhh, the cards swung and clacked and spun on their vines. But not one flew away.
“It’s a Wishing Tree,” said Ricky softly.
Then Ricky counted the cards, and his face fell. “Wait. There’s one more. I still haven’t signed up the Silent Stag.”
Mama Moose smiled. “Oh, Ricky. The Silent Stag doesn’t sign up for things.”
Some of the youngest friends had never heard of him, so Mama Moose told them. He was the oldest friend in all of Wanderful Woods, she said. He shone a soft silver-blue, as if he were made of morning mist and river light. He never said a word.
And he never, ever came when you called him. “Most of the grown-ups in the woods have seen him once or twice,” she said. “Usually when they weren’t looking for him at all.”
Ricky thought about it. Then he made one more card. It said SILENT STAG and nothing else, with a big empty space underneath. He tied that one on too, right in the middle.
By the time the sky turned orange, everybody had gone home to supper, everybody except Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey. They stood under the Wishing Tree, looking up. Dozens of wishes turned slowly on their vines.
Mr. Monkey found his own card. The big banana. It was the biggest wish on the whole tree.
He looked at it for a long time.
“Mr. Moose,” he said quietly. “When I look at my wish, my tummy feels heavy. Like I swallowed a rock.” He rubbed his tummy. “Isn’t wanting supposed to feel good?”
Mr. Moose looked up at the tree, too. Every card was something somebody didn’t have yet. Almost every card. There was Daddy Moose’s NOTHING. There was Tessie’s THIS. There was Orion’s big question mark. And there was the empty space under SILENT STAG.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Moose. “I’m still thinking about it.”
The wind went quiet.
At the edge of Sunny Square, down by the river bend, stood the Silent Stag.
He was tall and still in the orange light, as if he were made of morning mist and river light, with antlers like branches made of light. He wasn’t looking at the Wishing Tree at all. He was looking at the two friends standing underneath it.
Mr. Monkey’s heavy tummy went quiet, too. For a moment, he didn’t want anything at all.
Then a puff of mist drifted off the river, right through the Stag, and when it was gone, so was he.
“He was here,” whispered Mr. Monkey.
“He was,” said Mr. Moose. He looked up at the empty space on the SILENT STAG card. “And he still didn’t sign up.”
They walked home slowly, side by side.
“What a day!” said Mr. Monkey at Mr. Moose’s door. “Bruno measured you, and you were forty-seven pinecones. My wish pulled me all over Sunny Square. We tied every wish on the Wishing Tree so the wind couldn’t take them. And the Silent Stag came, but he didn’t look at the wishes. He looked at us.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And in the dark, the bare old maple stood in the middle of Sunny Square, its branches full of wishes, swaying softly, waiting.