10. Favorite Things
“I sent out an email asking everyone to come up with their favorite thing from the past year and try to explain it. And because we were virtual, it didn’t have to be a tangible, physical thing and it could be any price range.”
On this short episode of Messy Middlescence, Tina and Tara share the idea of a "Favorite Things Party" and how they use it with their family and friends.
Where did the idea for the Favorite Things come from?
How the Conti Family has changed the original idea to something that they do virtually and annually.
What Tina and Tara like about the Favorite Things concept
They share some of their favorite things from 2023 and previous years.
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[00:22] Christina Donovan: Are you between the ages of 40 and 60?
Do you feel the need for change in your life, but are not sure why or when or how? Do you feel a pressure of running out of time? Do you spend most of your time doing things that are not important to you anymore? These are all symptoms or characteristics of middlescence. And this is our podcast, messy Middlescence.
[00:50] Tara Bansal: Hello and thank you for listening. On today's episode of Messy Middlessence, Tina and I talk about favorite things, and this came from a friend and.
[01:05] Tara Bansal: A party that she started and how.
[01:08] Tara Bansal: We'Ve changed it for my family and how much we enjoy that. I love getting recommendations from other people. There's so much information overload these days, and so hearing recommendations from people I know and trust is something I value. And so that's what this episode is. Hopefully it offers some ideas for you to take and try and make it into whatever is best for you.
[01:41] Tara Bansal: Hope you have a great day. Welcome. This is Tara Bansal, and I'm here with my, also, Christina Donovan. I never know what to say, tina, but today on messy middle lessons, we are going to talk about our favorite things. So this started. A very good friend of mine.
Think back in 2019, or maybe 2018, started doing a favorite things party and the way the party works. She does it around Christmas or Hanukah, and you're supposed to find your favorite thing from the past year, and it's something that you can give as a gift, and you have to give it that same thing to everyone who comes to the party. And the group that we do is now pretty big. It's like 16 people. So you have to come up with a price range that you're comfortable buying that many items for. So most people, I would say, try in the $5 range, and it's really fun. So everybody sits around in a circle and they hand out their favorite thing and talk about it, like why it was their favorite thing from the past year. And so you leave the party with this bag full of goodies. A lot of times it's like someone's favorite chocolate or a bomb that they have discovered and love. One was like this glass nail file that I still use to this day. I know one of mine, which was a little more expensive, but, Tina, you gave it to me for my birthday, was, I think it's called, like the invisible belt. And I gave that as my favorite thing to everyone because you can adjust it. It lays flat, it looks nice of mine. And I just thought this was such a fun, unique party. And then we started changing it or I modified it to do it with our family. And our family lives all across the country. And I sent out an email asking everyone to come up with their favorite thing from the past year and tried to explain it. And because we were virtual, it didn't have to be a tangible, physical thing and it could be any price range. So you were not limited in trying to keep it a reasonable price that you could give to everyone. Tina, we've now done it several years, but I'd love to hear some of your comments. Well.
[05:11] Christina Donovan: The primary thing is the party you go to and what we do with our family are really different because the things that our family tends to pick are like books, recipes, songs. I don't know, how would you describe them? Sort of less tangible, very less physical. They're not usually a physical item and not always. I think Tom's one year was like a pizza oven. But anyway, yeah, sometimes they're tangible, but I guess it's just really interesting because Tara does it across our whole family. So we have children as young as four, five, six a couple of years ago to our parents who are in their eighty s now. And yeah, it's just a really wide spectrum of people. And it's so interesting and fun to see what people pick. Some people pick, our parents tend to pick an experience, like a trip or a wedding or an event that they attended. So, yeah, there's just so many different options and it's always so fun to hear what people pick.
[06:39] Tara Bansal: Yeah, and the one negative is, and part of it's the number of people that when we do the zoom, so everybody sends their favorite thing to me and I compile it into a document and then we go through. The document is it can take almost too long to go through, but we want to hear from everybody for why they chose it and where just the backstory behind it and sometimes what it is.
[07:11] Christina Donovan: There have been songs or books from some of our younger nieces and nephews that, I mean, I have no idea. I've never heard of them.
[07:24] Tara Bansal: I mean, I've definitely gotten quite a few recipes that I still do. Like, I know Jim did the.
[07:34] Christina Donovan: Yeah.
[07:34] Tara Bansal: That I think almost everybody loves and makes, at least in our close knit group, mean for me. And we're all, I guess, going back to like comparing the party to our family thing. I just, at this point, I want to hear the recommendations. I guess I want more information than actually physical things. It is fun to get the physical things at the party, but I'd be just as happy as if somebody showed me what it was and explained it, and then I could decide if it was something I wanted to go out or buy because, yeah, I want book recommendations. I want new music recommendations. I want recipe recommendations, podcasts. I think the year of 2020, I did the podcast. Like, I did Brene Brown's podcast.
[08:44] Christina Donovan: I know. I've done the daily podcast, I believe.
[08:50] Tara Bansal: And like, the book you did last year, braiding Sweetgrass, that was definitely one of my favorite books. Top five books of this year.
[09:02] Christina Donovan: But it's also the process of picking a favorite thing. I mean, granted, you have multiple favorite things. I think some of it is. The process is fun to kind of think, what did I read this year or what podcast did I? Yeah. I mean, the process of picking it is fun. I know for our family, we usually at dinner will talk about some of the things that people are considering, and it is fun to kind of listen and go through that process. One of the best things, too, that Tara does, and I can't imagine how much time it takes. But at the end of the favorite things, we have a document, like, literally a document that lists everybody's favorite thing with either a link to whether it's a book or website, a song, or an actual item. Yeah. So, I mean, there is a keepsake, I guess, attached to it. And then you have it for the future if you want to go back and look at something, whether it's a recipe or a book or. I don't know. I think that is one of the best parts of it as well.
[10:14] Tara Bansal: Yeah. And I do love it now as a tradition, I think, trying to think. The first year we did it, it was either 19 or 20. Do you remember teen?
[10:25] Christina Donovan: Yeah, I would guess it was 19 because I think we did it one year before COVID Okay.
[10:32] Tara Bansal: Yeah, that must be right then.
[10:35] Christina Donovan: I remember doing it during, and it's funny because Covid kind of made the whole Zoom concept so common, but I think that the first time we did it was before COVID and it was kind of nice to just see everyone in January because our extended family does not spend the holidays together, and we.
[10:59] Tara Bansal: Don'T get together that often. I mean, I think that's part of right now we're trying to schedule it, and it's challenging because we're multiple time zones. Everybody has activities and different things. A more recent thing is we now do two. One more for the nieces and nephews and one more for the. I call them adults, even though a lot of the nieces and nephews are now adults. But the older generation of the seven Conti siblings and their significant others. And you can go to both, but just I think the cousins have more fun talking amongst themselves. And during COVID the cousins used to have a regular kind of zoom zoom. And I know my boys looked forward to that. And to me, it's almost sad that that's gone away just because it's too hard to schedule with everybody doing activities and not being home to help make that happen. But it is something that I enjoy, and the document doesn't take that long because everybody just sends it to me, so it's just cut and paste. But I do like being able to have everybody's things from the year and be able to go back to it.
[12:31] Christina Donovan: Did your friend who came up with who does the favorite things party, did she come up with it herself or was it.
[12:43] Tara Bansal: A friend of hers did it down in Atlanta and I don't think she modified it. I think she basically, she said, yeah, this was what we did, my group of friends did down in Atlanta. And so I think she copied it.
[12:57] Christina Donovan: I had never heard of anything like that before. You talked about it.
[13:04] Tara Bansal: Yeah, me neither. She has a lot of really creative, great ideas, so it wouldn't surprise me if she did, but she said she got it from someone else. Like, I think if I were to modify it, I would have you buy one thing because then, and do either like a chinese auction or a lottery, but you still stand up and show what the tangible is and why you got it. Because like I said, I'm more about the information than actually getting the item. The item. But that's just me. Yeah, but it is fun. We get a decent amount of, like I said, chocolate. And one year I did do a recipe and gave. Some people have done recipes and given key ingredients for that. So that I did the ranch style beans for the tortilla soup and gave.
[14:10] Christina Donovan: A can of beans and gave a.
[14:12] Tara Bansal: Can of beans to everyone. It is funny with the price point, you have to be a little creative to come up with something, and once you've done it, the first year is really hard, but after that, you kind of keep it in mind throughout the year of what you would like to give.
[14:35] Christina Donovan: And I'm sure seeing what other people do gives other ideas, too, even if you're not going to copy that exact item. Like the idea that. Yeah, like, oh, I could do a recipe and just include an ingredient or something like that. I'm sure the more you go, the more kind of you see a wide range of things.
[14:59] Tara Bansal: Yeah. I couldn't even remember what I gave. I was trying to think of what I gave at the party this year, but it's one of those, like, I think Amy was the first our sister that I saw had it. It's like the credit card holder that you put on the back of your phone. And it wasn't a lot of money, but for me, it's been so good because basically I don't carry a purse as much. I just have my license, my one credit card, and my health care card, and that's all I have in my phone, and it makes it a little easier. But that's an example. That wasn't a lot of money, but I do feel like it's given me joy.
[15:47] Christina Donovan: Favorite things?
[15:48] Tara Bansal: Yeah. Do you know what your favorite thing is for this year?
[15:55] Christina Donovan: I haven't decided yet. I'm still kind of thinking about it. In previous years, it's usually been pretty easy. Like, I'd immediately have. I would say two or three things that it was more a matter of, like, which of these am I going to pick? But this year, yeah, I'm struggling a little bit more. I'm still kind of pondering. I don't have a number of things that are jumping out at me, I guess. Do you have your favorite thing yet, Terry, for the year?
[16:33] Tara Bansal: I think mine's going to be a book, and choosing the book at the end of the year, so there may be a recency bias. But Nathan read the Ark of a scythe series, and it's funny because at one of my book clubs, we went around and asked people for just, like, favorite books of all time. And one friend said, walk two moons by Sharon Creech. And, oh, I just loved that book. And the other recommendation was this Ark of a scythe. I may not be saying that. Right. Series. And I just loved both of those. So I think I would choose the series because it is so interesting and I feel like there's so much to talk about. And, yeah, I'm recommending it to everyone. So I think that's what I'm going to do and say, yeah, I did.
[17:46] Christina Donovan: A book last year, so that's why I'm kind of not saying I don't want to do a book, but, yeah, I think I'm going to try and do something different from a book this year.
[17:57] Tara Bansal: Has your family talked about it? Have you their peoples?
[18:04] Christina Donovan: We have not discussed it, although.
[18:09] Tara Bansal: We.
[18:09] Christina Donovan: Haven'T really all been together since the holidays. And for New Year's, we had some non family here. So, yeah, I don't guess I'm sure. We'll do it this week coming up, at least when Jim is still home.
[18:25] Tara Bansal: Yeah. And we're trying to schedule it, as I said, I think for Martin Luther King weekend for our.
[18:32] Christina Donovan: But yeah, a lot of people in my family need a deadline.
[18:38] Tara Bansal: Our whole family, that is one. As we have learned with time, people need a deadline. And it is funny, just even like, I know when we plan trips to get feedback from people, we have to give a deadline. Like please respond by. I don't know if that's just our family or the society in general.
[19:05] Christina Donovan: Yeah. So we hope maybe this motivates you and your family to start a similar tradition. Like, I get it doesn't have to involve money and purchasing things. It can just be ideas of things that they enjoyed. One favorite thing from the past year and helps think about your previous year and, I don't know, spread some interesting things among your family.
[19:36] Tara Bansal: Yeah. Because we've had fun with it. And I do think you can expand it if you don't have a big immediate family to any group that. Right.
[19:47] Christina Donovan: Like a learning club or a walking. Yeah. People you walk with or.
[19:52] Tara Bansal: Yeah.
[19:53] Christina Donovan: It doesn't have to be family. And I think, mean, you saw how Tara kind of took the idea and applied it to our family. I think that you can change it up and modify it to fit your needs and your social group.
[20:16] Tara Bansal: Yeah. I mean, I think one year I said almost a form people could fill out, like their favorite book, their favorite song, their favorite event, and that didn't go over too well. But I guess I'm saying that for different people, they may. And I do think to think back over the year and think of, I do like the highlights from the year of things you did and enjoyed to help remember, because a year can feel like a long time and a lot can happen. Like when I think of just in the past year to help remind people and share it.
[21:03] Christina Donovan: Yeah. Sharing is the key part.
[21:05] Tara Bansal: Yeah.
[21:05] Christina Donovan: And having that connection and then the recommendations. Because if it was somebody's favorite thing.
[21:13] Tara Bansal: It's got to be pretty good. Yeah, I agree. All right, that's it for today. We look forward to hearing from you and hope you have a great week.
[21:26] Tara Bansal: For show notes and other information about our podcast, please go to our website, messymiddlescence.com. If you enjoyed listening, please share with others and come back for more.
[21:39] Tara Bansal: Bye
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Favorite Things Mentioned in This Episode
No Show Invisible SkinniBelt for Women
Arc of a Scythe Trilogy by Neal Shusterman
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
One Pan Orzo with Spinach and Feta Recipe by Melissa Clark