It’s Fall Y’all! How to Crush the Holidays, Feat, Katie Schroeder

It’s Fall Y’all: Why Your Construction Trailer Needs Pumpkin Spice Right Now

Katie and Jason just went to the temple this morning. It’s Wednesday, like eight o’clock in the morning. They just got back and were having a good conversation and Katie’s like “What else?” So Jason literally just hit the record button and said “We’re doing a podcast.”

Where are they going right now? Katie says they’re going to Home Depot to pick up a Halloween skeleton demon guy that is in a boat and he is carrying people, dead people. It’s some kind of Greek mythology kind of guy. The kids are into Percy Jackson and stuff so she thinks it’s basically he’s shuttling the dead from where they need to go. Maybe like River Styx.

To give you a little bit of insight, if you’re anti holiday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, this podcast is not for you. You might want to sign off right now because they’re those people. Like when you see Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram posts making fun of people when they’re heading to Walmart and Home Depot and other stores picking up holiday decorations and they’re like “It’s August people, it’s September people, it’s not October,” that’s them.

What Jason wanted to do this podcast about is the holidays because we’ve been so cooped up for so long for COVID-19. Holidays are such fun traditions and it creates something that we can look forward to. If you’re a part of a company, if you have a project site, if you own a business or if you have a family or even if you don’t and you’re just kind of empty nesters, you can make the holidays fun.

When Jason Hated Holidays and Now Calls Halloween First Christmas

Jason’s going to put Katie on the spot. What do the holidays mean to you like as a kid and now that you have a family? Katie says to be honest it can be a little stressful. They’re in a unique situation because they have a big family. So that load is a little heavy sometimes as far as the expectations of kids at Christmas. She’ll have a kid that will say kind of offhandedly “Oh, my favorite thing is stockings, opening all the little fun things that are in my stocking.” So then she feels super stressed to make sure stockings are on point. She definitely puts some stress on herself when she does stuff like that.

But holidays when she was little, she just remembers fun. She doesn’t remember obviously any of the stress or any of the chaos that was involved. She just remembers having fun. Now as a mom, she really tries hard to create that opportunity, create that space for fun. The funny thing is Jason, when they first got married, he hated all holidays. He was super Grinchy, Scrooge-y. He did not want to decorate. He’s still a little bit like that as far as if you’re like “Well, my birthday’s coming up,” his first thought is resentment that he has to do something. He doesn’t like the obligation.

But somewhere along the way, he adopted that. They call Halloween first Christmas and they call Thanksgiving second Christmas. Now when Katie says “we” she really actually just means him. He calls it that. He went to Germany and Sweden a few weeks ago. He wanted to decorate for Halloween before he left. He left August 30th. So he wanted to decorate for Halloween at the end of August. Katie put her foot down. She was like “We’re not doing that this year. We’re going to be more rational.” That’s why it’s the 22nd of September and they’re just going to start decorating for Halloween now.

He wants to leave Christmas up until he gets sad. So when Jason enters a state of depression and needs some quiet time and some counseling, that’s when it’s time to take down Christmas. Sometimes that’s earlier and sometimes that’s later but it’s always in January.

They always leave it up at least through Noel, which is January 6th. Sometimes he says he wants to leave it up through something in February that has to do with maybe Catholicism where you leave your nativity up. But they never make it that far. He always gets depressed looking around at these kind of tired Christmas decorations and he’s like “Okay, I’m done.”

January is a hard time for them when there’s no other holidays on the horizon. They’ve got little ones like Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. Those are little but they’re not the big joyous holiday season. So he really tries to get his bang for his buck starting as soon as he can in the fall. You have to hit it early. That’s what all the Facebook haters don’t understand. Once New Year’s is over, the feeling of Christmas is gone and the magic is gone. It’s just sad.

So how can you get more Christmas? It’s just like we do it in construction. We do more preparation. We put it ahead of the actual activity. So absolutely, we’re starting now everybody. It’s fall y’all. It’s time for Halloween. It’s time for Thanksgiving. It’s time for Christmas. Jason literally works the entire year and exists and takes breath just so he can get to the holidays. This is his time. Winter is his time.

In Tony Robbins Business Mastery, there’s a saying that says “We are gladiators. This winter is my season.” It’s basically saying like in a recession or a depression, as a good business owner, this is my season, I can still thrive. But Jason’s taking that as also winter is his season because of the holidays.

Pumpkin Spice in the Research Laboratory Trailer

Why does Jason mention this on a podcast? It’s because you can have a lot of fun. He’s encouraging you, nay, he’s asking you to have some fun with this in your families with the holidays. Let him tell you a quick little story and then Katie’s going to tell you some ideas on how they celebrate at home.

At the research laboratory, when it would get around this time, Katie would start to get orders. In case you didn’t know, Katie’s the purchasing agent for everything. She kind of likes it and they get Amazon packages like six a day. Maybe that’s an exaggeration but they at least get 12 packages a week and two or three Walmart grocery orders to their front door. It might start being Target orders if Walmart doesn’t straighten up their act a little bit with the deliveries.

At the research laboratory, Jason was like “Okay, Katie, we’re ready for Halloween lights. We’re ready for decorations. We’re ready for the fall leaves. We’re ready for pumpkins. We’re ready for all this.” In the research laboratory trailer starting in September, Jason had pumpkin spice scents. Pumpkin spice candles. Probably not sure that’s very legal in a trailer but they still had it.

In fact, Katie was kind of funny. People would come in the trailer and they’d be like “What the hell is that smell? That’s god awful.” And Jason’s like “It’s pumpkin spice. I love it.” Anyway, he didn’t care. He just kept it plugged into the wall. In the conference rooms, in case you didn’t know, here’s your free education: Halloween is purple and orange. There’s black. There’s like black lights and stuff like that.

So they put orange and purple lights up at the top of the conference room lining all the way around the top. They had pumpkin spice scented candles. They had pumpkin spice wall flowers. They had leaf decorations. Katie bought Jason a bunch of little pumpkins that he could put around the office. They had Halloween decorations. They had food. They had pumpkin pies. Jason would bring stuff in. They would actually share some of these things with the workers as well.

It was like a full out blast. When it came to trick or treating, they had candy bowls. They had all kinds of stuff in the trailer. So it just felt like a good, happy place. Now back to Jason’s integrated project delivery podcast where he talks about open office spaces. If your trailer or your office space sucks with a lot of stupid offices where nobody feels connected, Halloween might be sad. You might put up lights and then people associate Halloween with siloed, negative, non-connected feelings. So you have to have a nice office for this. But it was a jam. It made the month of October amazing.

What The Nightmare Before Christmas Did For Halloween

What are some of the things Katie does at home? For Halloween, they decorate the front yard and the house a little bit or a lot, mostly a lot. This year they just finished at Home Depot and apparently they were decorating the backyard too with one of the coolest things ever: the Nightmare Before Christmas with Oogie Boogie. Lock, Shock and Barrel. What the Nightmare Before Christmas gave them was music and theme and traditions and food. Like the green worms or snake and spider stew. There’s all kinds of fun tradition stuff from the Nightmare Before Christmas. They have their kids watch that.

They also have these little favorite YouTube videos. They’re going to bless your life for Halloween. When it’s Halloween, and for Katie this starts on like maybe this weekend or possibly next weekend, they have movies that they only watch at Halloween time. Just like they only have Christmas movies or whatever. Then there’s like one or two Thanksgiving movies that they watch because there’s not a lot there. They wait all year.

They have all of the little Silly Symphonies that have to do with the Skeleton Dance and Mickey Mouse where he’s like the grim reapers kind of bossing him around. They have all of these little traditions where they’ll watch them like a little thing every night. The Shrek ones. Those are called Spooky Stories. It has Monsters vs. Aliens, Shrek. There’s really cute little videos. If you search on Netflix or YouTube Spooky Stories. Something else they do is they put the kids in the back of the truck and drive around and look at spooky Halloween decorations. Like you would at Christmas time. It’s a lot of fun.

Now in Arizona, right now it’s 87 degrees out and it’s 8:30 in the morning. So when Halloween hits them it’s a big deal. If you’ve ever been to Bavaria for Oktoberfest and seen how many people are in the streets minus the drunk people, it really is that busy. It is a big thing.

Jason knows some of you in colder climates don’t have the same kind of a feel because it’s freezing and you’re wearing jackets with all your costumes. But they drive around. The other thing is they play the Nightmare Before Christmas playlist. Emily always says “Play Oogie Boogie” and she’ll just sing that song with her cute little voice and their little kids love singing and hearing those songs. They just have a great time with it. So it’s a lot of fun. Jason thinks it’s something to look forward to. Katie, why do you think it makes the month fun?

Katie thinks it has that spirit of celebration. You can kind of extend that all month long and anytime you’re celebrating it automatically feels like a party. It brings family. It’s a purpose. It’s a reason to bring people together. Halloween just is a perfect example at work. Lights, fun stuff, candles, pumpkin pies. It’s just a reason to bring the team and the foreman and the workers together. It’s a reason to have some fun. It’s a reason to have a worker barbecue slash Halloween fall kind of a party.

And pumpkin carving. Katie forgot about that which actually used to be a nightmare. But now that the kids are older it’s a lot of fun. Jason’s pumpkins are always the best. It’s still kind of a nightmare. They have 11 kids. So that’s 11 pumpkins minimum. But the hard thing about Phoenix is that you can only carve your pumpkin like the day before because it’s so hot during the day that the pumpkin just wilts and dies. But if you live in a colder climate you can kind of stretch that longer. Katie remembers being able to carve your pumpkin quite a few days in advance. So what they’re saying is it’s a reason to bring people together.

Even Just a Trip to Spirit Halloween Is Fun

Pretend you’re one of the Schroeder kids and Halloween starts in October. Go ahead and get your decorations. Put it on the credit card if you have to. Jason didn’t say that. Just don’t do that. Even just a trip to Spirit Halloween. Like so fun. Ava, she’s a 15 year old, said she really wants to take Kevin, he’s like her baby. He’s three. But not her real baby. She’s their baby that she takes care of and has taken ownership of. Anyway she wants to take the three littles with the three oldest. They want to take them to Walmart because they figure Spirit is probably a little too intense for the little ones and just walk around and help them find their costumes and pick out candy and find some decorations.

Even just something little like that you turn it into an event like “Hey we’re going to go get costumes or we’re going to make costumes.” They’ve done in the past themed costumes for the whole family. Now those were like rare events because it’s hard to get 11 people. It wasn’t probably 11 people at the time. One year they did pirates. Everybody was a pirate. That was quite a few years ago. Another year they’ve done Star Wars. Last year all three of the big kids were newsies and they were super cute with some friends.

It’s a lot of fun. Even if you can’t go buy decorations yet, why not get a little strand of lights? Jason got a strand of lights and a pumpkin for his desk at work. It was super fun. It made it just a joyous little thing. Katie says go back to the Dollar Tree and you can have a cute little display that will honestly make you a little bit happy. And for all of us religious people out there, Halloween has nothing to do with Satan or the devil or anything negative. You can just let yourself enjoy it. Let the kids have fun. Do some trick or treating within whatever parameters you have for COVID-19 and whatever you’re doing keeping your kids safe.

But like whatever, we can just have fun with this. If we’re being prudish about holidays and like what we celebrate, then let’s get all uppity about Christmas being on the 25th, December 25th, which is a date that came originally from paganism and all of the pagan traditions that tie into these holidays. If we get real literal with this we can get real uppity and negative about things. But like forget about that. It’s just an American tradition. It’s a holiday. It’s nothing different than in Bavaria having Oktoberfest or Cinco de Mayo or the Day of the Dead or just fun places. What do they have in Rio? The big carnival? It’s just what we celebrate. So let’s have some fun with it.

Jason’s Challenge: Lights, Scents, and Worker Barbecues

Jason’s thoughts are why not challenge you. He’s going to give you a challenge. Why not throw up some lights? Why not throw up a pumpkin spice or pumpkin candle in the trailer? It doesn’t have to be pumpkin. Bath & Body Works has lots of scents that are fall. Why not get a bowl of candy like COVID-19 sanitized, individually wrapped? Why not get some pumpkins? Why not throw some leaves up on the wall? Why not bring a pumpkin pie one day? Like why not? It would be super fun. Or be like “Hey, next conference meeting that we have on the project site, we got pumpkin pies and treats and fun stuff like that. This is our Halloween candy team meeting in the conference room.”

Katie was going to say any time you add that little touch of whimsy it just lightens you. You don’t have to be so serious which is the thing. You guys work in a really stressful industry. So maybe just lighten it up a little. A little levity goes a long way. The other thing is right now Jason will challenge you to this. Why not right now even if your project is intense? The U.S. Military like he said before found out that if you give soldiers a 10 minute break every hour they can march 50% longer.

So if you’re in the heat of the battle, why not go ahead and do a worker barbecue fall Halloween love fest? Or like Pie Friday or something like that and give everybody a break and be like “It’s fall y’all, let’s go ahead and celebrate.” Get it done. It’s a lot of fun and decorate your home. Have some fun memories for the kids. And if you don’t have kids, why not? There was this old man on their street that used to run around the neighborhood. He didn’t have any animals in his own house so he got dog treats for everybody else.

On Halloween if you don’t have kids and you’re not taking them trick or treating, why not do a little trick or treating candy stand for somebody? Go to the nearest park or something. Make it fun. Create that environment on your neighborhood street.

At church, the previous church leaders didn’t like trunk or treat because it was all about candy or this or that or whatever. It’s like no man. This year they’re going to have a chili cook off. They’re going to have a hayride. They’re going to have trunk or treating. They’re going to have a little haunted house inside the church building. It’s going to be a jam and they’re going to have a lot of fun with it because the holidays should be a time to relax a little bit. Have fun with family. Do little things that are off script and anchor it with the music and the scents and the food and all the wonderful things. It’s just really a lot of fun. Katie, any advice or challenge to anybody?

What just made Katie think of is Friendsgiving, which they’ve never done. It’s not like Thanksgiving dinner but you do with your friends. There are so many communities out there. If you feel like you’re alone, find a community. Whether it’s some people from work that you’re friends with or church or whatever. Don’t be alone. Don’t use this time to be like “Well I’m sad.”

It just makes Katie sad to think that there’s somebody that maybe feels like there’s no reason to celebrate it because they’re alone. It would make you happy if you decorated a little and you’re worth the effort basically. Jason agrees. The other thing is he loves that Walmart starts in August. He loves that people start selling this stuff. He loves that holidays are commercialized. He loves that on Peanuts every year when Charlie Brown is like the commercialization of holidays and Christmas. Jason loves that.

He loves the grumpy people criticizing him on Facebook right about now. He loves the discussion, the thoughts, the music, the posts, the costumes. Heck one time at the research laboratory they did a Christmas post where they all dressed up in costumes and they had a lot of fun with it. Like why not? This is culture. This is fun. Jason just challenges you to have some fun with it.

He’s going to ask you a question: on a scale of 1 to 10, how prepared are you for Halloween? On a scale of 1 to 10, how well are you doing with the holidays? Then his next question is what are you going to do tomorrow to amp it up?

Katie says honestly if you’re taking your kids trick or treating, you just strongly consider at least some face paint or something so that you’re not just the dad in the back or the mom in the back that’s like “I guess I got to do this thing.” Get in on the fun a little bit. Decorate or get a costume. Have somebody paint your face. Be part of it. Be a part of the Elevate mission to elevate holidays because it helps people and families.

If you’re a podcast listener, here’s Jason’s minimum expectation: that you have some kind of scent somewhere, that you have candy or a pumpkin somewhere, that you have orange, purple or green lights somewhere in your trailer, and that you do a barbecue or something for the workers that’s fall-ish. And then they’re going to do another podcast as they near Christmas because that’s a whole other thing.

The other thing is they’re taking requests. If anybody wants to do for Thanksgiving what the Nightmare Before Christmas did for Halloween, they really need Thanksgiving music, themes, characters, movies, food. Well actually they already have the food. The only thing Thanksgiving really has is food. So they need somebody to commercialize that holiday as well. If anybody has any suggestions or ideas or has a playlist, Jason will share that playlist on the podcast, on their website, on their YouTube channels, and on LinkedIn because they need to elevate the holidays.

Why is this relevant? Because life is about living remarkable. And when if there is a heaven and when we get to heaven we’re going to be celebrating holidays people. We’re going to be having family gatherings. We’re going to be doing decorations. We’re going to be having barbecues with workers. These are the types of things that we would do in heaven. So let’s not do them later. Let’s live heaven on earth and do them now and have some fun. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: Why should construction projects decorate for Halloween?

It’s a reason to bring the team and the foreman and the workers together. It’s a reason to have some fun. It’s a reason to have a worker barbecue slash Halloween fall kind of a party. Any time you add that little touch of whimsy it just lightens you. You don’t have to be so serious. You work in a really stressful industry so maybe just lighten it up a little. A little levity goes a long way. The U.S. Military found out that if you give soldiers a 10 minute break every hour they can march 50% longer. In the heat of the battle, do a worker barbecue fall Halloween love fest or Pie Friday.

Q: What did Jason put in the research laboratory trailer for Halloween?

Starting in September: pumpkin spice scents, pumpkin spice candles (probably not legal in a trailer but he kept it plugged into the wall anyway), orange and purple lights at the top of the conference room lining all the way around, pumpkin spice wall flowers, leaf decorations, little pumpkins around the office, Halloween decorations, food, pumpkin pies. They shared these things with the workers. It was a full out blast. They had candy bowls and all kinds of stuff. It just felt like a good happy place. It made the month of October amazing.

Q: What are the Schroeder family Halloween traditions?

Decorate front yard and house (mostly a lot). Watch Nightmare Before Christmas (gives them music, theme, traditions, food like snake and spider stew). Watch Halloween movies they only watch at Halloween time: Silly Symphonies with Skeleton Dance, Mickey Mouse with grim reaper, Spooky Stories with Monsters vs. Aliens and Shrek. Put kids in back of truck and drive around looking at spooky Halloween decorations like at Christmas time. Play Nightmare Before Christmas playlist. Pumpkin carving (11 pumpkins minimum for 11 kids). Trip to Spirit Halloween or Walmart to find costumes, pick out candy, find decorations. Sometimes themed costumes for whole family like pirates or Star Wars.

Q: What’s Jason’s minimum expectation for podcast listeners?

Have some kind of scent somewhere. Have candy or a pumpkin somewhere. Have orange, purple or green lights somewhere in your trailer. Do a barbecue or something for the workers that’s fall-ish. If you’re taking your kids trick or treating, strongly consider at least some face paint or something so you’re not just the dad or mom in the back like “I guess I got to do this thing.” Get in on the fun. Decorate, get a costume, have somebody paint your face. Be part of the Elevate mission to elevate holidays because it helps people and families.

Q: Why does Jason love commercialized holidays?

He loves that Walmart starts in August. He loves that people start selling this stuff. He loves that holidays are commercialized. He loves the discussion, the thoughts, the music, the posts, the costumes. This is culture, this is fun. If we’re being prudish about holidays and what we celebrate, then let’s get all uppity about Christmas being on December 25th which came from paganism. It’s just an American tradition, a holiday, nothing different than Bavaria having Oktoberfest or Cinco de Mayo or Day of the Dead. Let’s have fun with it.

On we go.