More Holiday Plans and Cleaning Ideas

I had planned to post some pictures of the rest of my holiday decorating but haven't uploaded anything yet :-)  Darryl and I are enjoying our va(stay)cation without the kidlets so I'm not really pushing to do a whole lot.  My living room is almost completely decorated with the exception of wrapping the large pictures.  Right now my table is covered with scarpbooking stuff (since the kids are gone) so I have no room to wrap :-)  I'll do that Tuesday or Wednesday.  

Instead, I found this neat blog that has some more very interesting ideas for deep cleaning your house AND preparing for Christmas throughout the year.  I thought I would share this with you before the new year comes - I'm thinking of integrating these ideas into my Deep Cleaning plans I already have.

Rocking Granola has some interesting ideas!

She gives a couple of ideas that caught my attention.  1) A weekly room deep cleaning - this is similar to what I already have in place but I like that "to do" lists she has listed for each room 2) Holiday Plan for each week - what to buy, lists to make, freezer meals to make etc.  3) Plan a Rudolph Day each month (such as the 25th of each month) to work specifically on things for Christmas.  I had never thought of this - it could be things like making gifts, planning baking, making master grocery lists - anything.  It might also be fun to have a holiday search and find for the kids.  Maybe have 12 little holiday decorations of some sort and on the 25th of each month, hide one of them.  Who ever finds it first over the course of the next months, gets a special treat.  Maybe a piece to a puzzle or something even that we can "build" throughout the year . .. just thinking out loud right now!

The site that "Rockin' Granola" recommends using is Organized Christmas.  I had not seen this site before but I already like it.  Who doesn't want an organized Christmas?  I'm hopeful that they will have a 2011 plan so I can incorporate this into my Holiday Journal as well. 

My holiday plan has gone very well this year - I never felt overwhelmed with decorating; I was able to clean things out, and actually enjoy the process.  There are a few things I need to work on for next year.  One big one is how to store things from the time I decorated for fall until Christmas.  All of my regular decor and fall decor is currently all mixed up so it will make for a little more work when I take down the Christmas stuff.  I already know that I need a few extra bins to put regular decor in so the fall decor bins will be empty when it is time to pack that stuff away!  Also, I need to plan baking and holiday means much earlier and make lists of supplies I can buy earlier so I don't end up with a family eating spaghetti several times a week so I can get the stuff I need for all the "fun stuff" LOL  I also need to put "write the Christmas letter" and "get the Christmas picture" earlier - that is on this next weeks list and I usually like to have it done by Thanksgiving so they can go in the mail!  Lessons learned, right?

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season!!!