Welcome, November!
The leaves on the Amelanchier canadensis in the Wildlife Garden are glorious!
Well, here we are in the penultimate month of the year. I’m not sure about you, but I’m not ready for this yet. I have enjoyed our long, warm fall — even if it meant more work outside than previous years. That work also meant more flowers and more beauty — and I’ll take that once in a while.
We didn’t have frost until last week — a month later than average. So last Tuesday night, my son and I scurried around at dusk cutting all of the dahlias and roses and other blooms anticipating the cold to come. We cut three full trugs of flowers and arranged them into bouquets for neighbors and teachers and friends — and still our house is full of blooms, too.
Dahlias and roses from what I call “The Big Cut” — the last cutting of the year.
I added an October garden tour — filmed not long before our first frost. So you can see what’s going on in the garden, and get a peek at how it looks during a long fall.
Of course there are jobs to be done in the garden in the coming month, and we are moving into a busy season of holidays and celebrations, family and friends. I have multiple resources that may help at this time of year — simplifying and taking the pressure off, too.
The first is my Christmas planner — The Nice List. I think of this as my love-letter to the holiday season, and if you celebrate Christmas but sometimes find this time of year to be overwhelming, this planner is intended to help you reign it all in and make a fresh start. The Nice List includes budgeting tools, calendars, gift planners, journaling, and so much more. It’s available in my shop, and there’s a page below with all of the details about The Nice List, too. It’s economical and so easy to use!
This listing is for The Nice List Christmas Workbook + The Nice List All Year.
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Free Gift with Purchase: The Nice List books are designed so that they can be used in a Traveler’s Notebook -- a simple way to keep them together. For a Limited Time we will include a FREE handmade, upcycled traveler’s notebook with each purchase of The Nice List Bundle (while supplies last).
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Christmas is a busy time, particularly for parents. With school performances, parties, shopping, baking, and decorating on top of the normal busyness of life, I know many people find the Christmas season to be… overwhelming.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Over the years I have developed a system that helps me stay on budget, on time, and sane! And now with The Nice List, I am sharing that system with you so you can have a more organized and more beautiful Christmas season.
The Nice List Bundle includes two separate notebooks:
The Nice List All Year: a gift-giving tracker to last for years to come
The Nice List Christmas Workbook: a planner for the entire Christmas season to keep you organized and help bring a little sanity to your holiday season
Both are available individually or together as a bundle.
The Nice List Christmas Workbook includes:
How to Use The Nice List
How to Use The Christmas Workbook
November Calendars: weekly and monthly (undated)
December Calendars: weekly and monthly (undated)
Weekly To Do Lists for November and December (undated)
What Sparks Joy for You? Setting priorities for the holiday season
Budgeting worksheets: to establish a budget for your Christmas season — and for each gift, too
Coupons & Codes: tracker for holiday sales and discount codes
Giving Lists: to help you prioritize where you spend you money and on whom
Thoughts on Thoughtful Giving: ideas for gift giving and reducing the stress of the holidays
Thank You Note Tracker
Holiday Card Tracker
Menu Planners
Baking Planners
Shopping Lists
Blank pages for notes and planning
With a little planning and some careful thought before a gift is ever purchased, The Nice List can help you keep Christmas from spinning out of control and help you find the perspective you need. The Nice List helps you set deadlines to avoid high shipping charges and has a tool for tracking all of those promo codes and sale codes that start to flood your email inbox, too.
The Nice List All Year gives you a place to track all of the gifts you give the loved ones in your life -- not just at Christmas time. It is designed to be used for multiple years and can be purchased separately if you have more than 15 people in your life to track.
The Nice List All Year includes:
How to use The Nice List
How to use The Nice List All Year
Giving Records for 15 people covering multiple years
The Nice List All Year is also designed to be used by anyone -- not just people who celebrate Christmas. From Hanukkah to Lunar New year, Kwanzaa to Eid, and birthdays, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and more -- record every gift you give and make notes for coming occasions, too.
Plus, when you use The Nice List All Year year after year, you develop a record of your gift-giving, so you never give the same gift twice!
Not only is The Nice List a beautiful planner, but it also comes with online tools including an extensive giving guide with gift suggestions in every budget for every person on your list — parents, inlaws, kids, friends, teachers. We have suggestions for them all and exclusive discount codes as well.
I love the Christmas season so much I have written what my husband described as my “love letter to Christmas” — The Nice List!
Order your copy of The Nice List today, and give yourself the gift of a very organized and holiday season!
LET'S BE FRIENDS!
Check out our shop:
INSTAGRAM: @owlandember / @midmodernmama and @messymamaholly
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/owlandember
A NOTE ABOUT RISOGRAPH PRINTING:
Garden Notes is produced using a Japanese Risograph printing duplicator. Imagine an old-fashioned printing press and a fancy copy machine had a baby -- that’s the Risograph. Each color of soy-based ink is laid down separately -- like a printing press -- on rich, toothy paper. Like screen printing, each page must dry completely before the next color is applied -- a process which takes days.The soy inks are applied like paint, and occasionally some smudging may occur. This is to be expected. And as with any handmade product, imperfections are part of the charm! The result is a beautifully printed, handmade product with rich colors and an artistic feel.Owl and Ember produces each printed product in small batch runs at our headquarters in Menlo Park, California. All Owl and Ember products are printed on FSC Certified papers.If for any reason, you are dissatisfied with your purchase, please contact us so that we can make it right.
ABOUT THE CREATORS:
Angela K. Nickerson (@midmodernmama), author, and Holly Kennedy (@messymamaholly), designer, both love office supplies, planners, stickers, and creative living. They have been producing The Nice List, their first journal product, since 2016 and have been collaborating on projects big and small for almost 15 years. Together they are @owlandember and owlandember.com.
All designs © Angela K. Nickerson and Holly Kennedy, 2015-2025
Reproduction rights do not transfer with sale of items.
And while Christmas is coming, for those of us who celebrate it, Thanksgiving is first. I also have a guide to Fall Decorating which is great for the Thanksgiving season with ideas that will transform any table into something special. And don’t forget to check out my seasonal book list for the children who might gather around your table this year. There are so many beautiful books for this season!
And as we are thinking about giving thanks, I want to give thanks for you! I appreciate your loyalty, your questions, your participation, and your enthusiasm. As I take on project upon project, I know there are so many of you out there who support what we do through. And I am so thankful!
Big changes are coming soon to Mid Modern Mama. I’ve been working all fall to get the scaffolding in place, and I’m excited about what is ahead. More will be revealed soon, and I can’t wait to share it with you!
Wishing you all the best this month!
Cheers!
Angela
Wondering where to find me? Here’s the breakdown:
Stories: daily project updates
Reels & Posts: a few times per week, bigger project updates and lots of gardening education
Highlights: plant and product recommendations, project updates collected in one place
YouTube: I am hanging out here a lot more of late!
Longform Videos: monthly Gardening Checklists, gardening education, big project recaps
Shortform Videos: a few times per week, bigger project updates and lots of gardening education
Blog and Website: you are HERE!
Pages: big project recaps, how-to projects, reviews, and idea lists; use the search and the top navigation to find all kinds of goodies!
Blog: monthly updates with links to new content
ORC blog: weekly updates when a project is underway