Nobody posts this job. It just shows up every November: the gifts, the elf, the concert with the dress code you find out about the night before, the dinner, the thank-you notes you still owe in February.

Here are the five setups I would hand off first, in order. Every prompt is ready to copy. Swap in your people and your dates.

Before you start: the short list

Claude on your phone, because half of this arrives as a flyer. Claude on your computer, from claude.ai/download, because that is where Cowork and Scheduled Tasks live. Email and calendar connected, in Settings, then Connectors.

For the dinner cart, add the Instacart connector, the Claude extension in Chrome, or both. Section 4 covers which one to use.

New to all of this? Start with Claude from zero. For a slower walk through connectors and scheduled tasks, the school year setups has every click.

1. A gift sheet that researches itself

One spreadsheet. Every person. No more open tabs.

You give Claude the people and what they love. It does the looking, and comes back with a top pick, a backup, a price and a link for each one. The column that matters most in December is the last one: it flags anything that won't get there in time.

Build me one holiday gift spreadsheet. Columns: who, what they love, top pick, price, link, backup, status, and a flag column. Here are the people: [name, age, what they love, budget for each]. Search the web and read the reviews for me. For each person, give me a top pick and a backup with a real link and the current price. Set status to "not ordered" on every row. My date is [the date everything has to be here by]. Flag anything that won't ship by that date. Don't buy anything.

Prices and shipping dates move, so open the link before you buy. Then run this once a week until the sheet is done.

Here's my gift sheet. For every row still marked "not ordered," recheck the price and whether it will still arrive by [date]. Update the flag column, swap in the backup where the top pick won't make it, and tell me what I need to order this week.
Remember: Claude researches, you buy. Keep the sheet updated with what you ordered, because Section 5 uses it again. If you live in Excel, Claude in Excel works here too.

2. 24 nights of Elf on the Shelf

From things already in your house. Under 5 minutes each. Some nights almost nothing.

The elf does not need a craft project. It needs an idea at 9pm from someone who is not you, using what is already in the kitchen. Tell Claude what you have, and be honest about how tired you will be.

Give me 24 nights of Elf on the Shelf setups, December 1 to December 24, using only things already in my house. Here's what we have around: [toilet paper, marshmallows, toy cars, LEGO, whatever you've got]. My kids are [ages]. Each setup takes under 5 minutes. Mark at least one night a week LAZY, meaning under a minute, just move the elf somewhere funny. Nothing that needs buying, nothing that leaves a real mess at bedtime. Give me a table: night, the setup, what I need, minutes.

Now the part that makes it work: the 9pm reminder. In the desktop app, open Cowork, click Scheduled Tasks, then New task. Paste this, set it to every day at 9pm, and turn it off after Christmas Eve.

Here is my elf list, one setup per night: [paste the table]. Check today's date. Between December 1 and December 24, send me tonight's setup and what I need to grab. Keep it to two lines. If tonight is a LAZY night, say so.
Remember: a scheduled task is just a prompt plus a time. Cowork tasks tend to run on your computer, so leave it awake at 9pm. More on that in the schedule guide.

3. Every event, caught automatically

The event is the easy part. The white dresses are what you miss.

Three ways in, same result. Forward the email to yourself with HOLIDAY in the subject. Snap the flyer in the Claude app. Or let it watch the inbox and catch what you never opened.

The ask that matters is the last line of this prompt. A concert is not just a time. It is a concert that means white dresses, and you want to know that on Monday, not in the car.

Every day, check my email for holiday events: school concerts, class parties, work parties, family dinners, anything else this season, plus anything I forwarded to myself with HOLIDAY in the subject. Put every event on my family calendar with the real time and address. Flag any conflict with something already on the calendar. Then tell me what each event needs from me: what to wear, what to bring, what to buy, what to sign, and any RSVP date. Send me a short list of what you added, and ask me about anything ambiguous instead of guessing.

Set that one up the same way: Cowork, Scheduled Tasks, New task, every day at 5pm. For the flyer in the backpack, use this in the phone app, standing in the parking lot.

Here's a flyer. Put the event on my family calendar with the real time and address, flag any conflict, and tell me what I need for it: clothes, food, money, forms, anything.
Hot tip: use Claude Duet to watch your email, put events on your calendar and flag what needs you. It checks in through the day without a scheduled task, and messages you first. It is a waitlist research preview right now. How to get it and how to set it up.

4. The whole dinner, start to cart

Guest list and allergies in. Menu, shopping list and two-day timeline out.

In my house, my husband can't have nuts, Olive won't eat green things and Luna only eats pasta. That is before anyone else's cousin shows up. So I start with the people, not the recipes.

I'm hosting dinner on [date] at [time] for [number] people. Here's who's coming and what they can't or won't eat: [names, allergies, preferences]. Plan a menu I can actually pull off with one oven. Check every dish against every allergy and tell me what you checked. Then give me three things: the menu, a shopping list grouped by store section with real amounts for this many people, and a two-day timeline working backward from when we sit down: what to do two days before, the day before, and hour by hour the day of.

Double check allergies with the actual guest and read the actual labels. Claude can catch the walnut in the recipe. It can't read the back of the box in your pantry.

Then get it into a cart

The Instacart way, in the US. Connect Instacart in Claude's connectors and sign in. Claude builds the cart right in the conversation, it stays synced to your Instacart account, and you open Instacart and check out there.

Take the shopping list from this menu and build my Instacart cart from [store near me]. Leave out what I already have: [salt, olive oil, whatever's in the pantry]. If something is out of stock, tell me and suggest a swap. I'll check out in Instacart myself.

The any-other-store way. Using a grocery site that isn't on Instacart? Install Claude in Chrome on your computer, open the store's site, and ask.

I'm on [store]'s site. Add everything on this shopping list to my cart, matching the amounts as closely as you can. Tell me anything you couldn't find or had to swap. Stop at the cart and do not check out.
Remember: Claude fills the cart, you press buy. Look through it first. Then the checkout is yours, either way.

For the weeknights around the big dinner, there's the family dinner plan.

5. Every thank-you, already written

It drafts them. You send them.

This is why you keep the gift sheet going. Add a tab called Received as the gifts get opened: who gave it, what it was, who it was for. A photo of the pile and a voice note work too, if the tab feels like one more thing. Then every note starts from what somebody actually gave you.

Here's my gift sheet. Use the Received tab: who gave what, and to whom. Draft a thank-you for every gift, two or three sentences, in my voice, naming the actual gift and one specific thing about it. No "thank you for your thoughtful gift." Don't send anything. If I have someone's email, save it as a draft in my email. If it's going on a card, give me the text so I can copy it by hand. Give me a list at the end of who still needs an address.
Remember: drafts only. You read each one, fix what sounds wrong, and press send yourself. A thank-you is the one thing that has to actually come from you.

What to notice across all five:

  • One sheet does double duty. The gift sheet you build in November writes your thank-yous in January.
  • Give every ask a time. The 9pm elf and the daily event check are prompts with a clock on them.
  • Ask what the event needs, not just when it is. The calendar is not the job. The white dresses are.
  • You stay the button-presser. It researches, drafts and fills carts. You buy and you send.
The holidays did not get smaller. I just stopped being the only one working them.

Start with the gift sheet tonight, because it is the one with a shipping deadline. When you're ready for something that watches all of it without being asked, that is Claude Duet.