What a mess! I put the Christmas lights up last weekend. It was the same design with the same sets of lights as last year. None of it went together right. What seemed to go together as smooth as silk last year was a clunky mess this year.
Why? I guess I got lucky last year.
Humans have particularly short memories. Sure we remember some things long-term, but the small details evaporate quickly into the ether.
We recently published an article by Todd Elliot at churchproduction.com in which he encourages us about not making the same mistakes twice. But how do we learn how to get better at something we only do once a year. Face it, we'd “do Christmas” much better if we did it more often.
In addition to putting up Christmas lights, most of us are in the thick of our Christmas productions, or we're gearing up for Christmas Eve. In the midst of the pressure and chaos, it's important to document what works and what doesn't. Our natural inclination is to only work on areas that need improvement, so they get the most attention. Wrong. We need to document what went right so we can repeat it.
My Christmas light design couldn't be simpler: all the white lights go on the front and the colored lights go on the side and the back. Worked great last year. Why not again this year? Everything worked great last year, so I didn't take notes on which specific sets went where. I turns out I'm working with at least three different lengths of lights. Last year I got lucky and the lengths of lights perfectly matched the lengths of the porch rails and rain spouts. This year? Not so much.
Regardless of how large or small your church's Christmas production, take few moments from time to time to capture your thoughts (use paper, or the notes section on your smart phone) on who and what is working. Then you have something to refer back to --- a starting point --- when it comes to time to start planning for next year. You won't be starting from scratch. This will help you repeat the things that went right, and you'll have a head start on correcting the things that need fixing.
Merry Christmas and Best Regards,