Holiday Journal - Part 3

Hopefully, your home is being decorated and you have made notes about traditions and menus so that your holiday planning can run smoothly this year!  Now it is time to think about buying gifts and traveling.  I will admit that this portion of my journal is slim right now so please check out the Flylady website to see her actual Holiday Contorl Journal (about half way down the home page now is a green box that has all the holiday stuff in it!)  They also provide Holiday Missions to help you prepare for the holidays too!

Section 1 - Gift giving.  Have you ever over bought?  Or worse, under bought gifts!!  It's bad enough when you start wrapping gifts only to discover that you bought one too many shirts or an extra candle but if you are wrapping things only to discover that you forgot to buy for someone, it is worse - especially on Christmas Eve!  To help solve that problem, take time to make a list of everyone you have to buy for, how much you plan to spend, ideas, and than a column to mark when it has been purchased, what it is, and how much it is.  You can also include a zippered pouch for reciepts too.  I'm still working on this; for all of my list making, I tend to make idea lists but not lists for purchasing/pricing.  I need to in order to make better plans the following year!

Section 2 - Traveling.  Flylady has some info in her journal on traveling.  Questions from purchasing tickets and renting a car to packing.  If you travel a lot on the holidays, this would be graet for you.  We travel to my parents generally so it is a normal trip, I don't take the time to fill out all of this paperwork.  If we had to travel cross country, it would be differant!!

This past week, my holiday plans were to decorate the kitchen and work on my holiday menus.  The Menu for all of our special days are about done.  This next week I'll be working on getting the recipes together and making a master grocery list so I can spread the love over several weeks :-)  And below are pictures from my kitchen!

I happened to have these Christmas Napkins and decied to make a valance for the kitchen. 

Another lightbulb moment - I used ornaments to create a window treatment in this window.  The letters are D, J, J, and N (Darryl, Jackie, Josh and Nate!!)

Just a few things on top of the fridge!!

I love the garland - simple and fun :-)

And, of course, kitchen towels.