Fox 5 Atlanta: The invisible holiday load, and how families can lighten it

Live on Fox 5 Atlanta, November 10, 2026.

Sage Haus founder and CEO Kelly Hubbell joined Fox 5 Atlanta live to talk about the invisible holiday load: the noticing, planning and follow-through behind every task. The season takes the normal week and amplifies it with hosting, events, gifts and travel, and most of that thinking lands on one person.

Kelly shared where her own story started. When she inventoried everything it took to run her household, it came to 23 hours a week on top of her full-time job, and much of it was work nobody sees: teacher gifts, volunteer sign-ups, next season's sports rosters. Systems for delegation, plus a part-time house manager, are what gave her room to enjoy the holidays again.

On why more apps and more help haven't made the season easier, she pointed to ownership. Families piece together meal delivery, dog walkers, cleaners and sitters, but when ownership is spread that thin, someone still holds it all together. An app can keep the list. It can't notice an online order came in the wrong size, box it up and send it back.

Her takeaway for this week: do a holiday brain dump, sort every item into keep, share or drop, and give yourself permission to drop what you don't have the bandwidth for. The bigger barrier, she said, is the permission gap, the feeling that asking for help means failing, and normalizing that ask is the mission behind Sage Haus.