Guess what time of year it is? It is time to talk about the
Holiday Journal. You may remember that I posted about this last year and, if you click the link you can read all of those posts!
This year, I thought I would walk through it again, not so in depth, but with my changes. One of the things I noticed last year was that because I was so organized, I decorated too early and, since it only took a few hours (if that) to do each room, I could really do multiple rooms in a week. Last year, I tried to follow the Flylady zones and decorated one area a week while also doing some deep cleaning. This year, I'm saving the decorating until closer to, and after Thanksgiving. Another change I didn't anticipate happening is that we have to change our Christmas Tree tradition - we have always gotten our tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving but, due to my husbands job, he will have to work Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving week. We are getting our tree the first Saturday in December instead which also means I have an "extra" week to decorate.
As a reminder, the very first thing to do to have a stress free holiday is to decide how many weeks you need to get ready . My goal is to have everything done for the holiday by the time we hit that "Tree Weekend" in December. That way, we can focus on traditions, family, and fun!
Personally, I will be starting my plan on November 7th with . .. planning Nate's birthday party. I know that seems odd but his birthday is December 22nd. We will have his party on the 17th - I need to have that party planned and things ordered so it doesn't get lost in the Christmas planning. This is a big change from last year - I put this off and ended up almost forgetting to get invitations! I would like to have everything done from the grocery list to the gifts purchased and wrapped.
I actually wrote this years plan as soon as Christmas was done last year while everything was fresh in my mind. My list included ideas I wanted to do this year in decorations and traditions so I wouldn't forget! That's my next piece of advice - dont' try to make a ton of changes right now. Instead, use this year to go through your decor and only put up what you love. If you have tons of stuff, either clean it out and give it away or sort things by color/theme and rotate your theme every other year. No one can enjoy anything if it is too cluttered! Then, make lists of ideas for next year and give yourself time to create those ideas without adding to the stress of this year!
In future weeks, I'll share some photos of how we decorate for Christmas :-) Yes, I love this time of year (in case you were wondering). I love the lights, colors, music - everything.
Enjoy and . . .lets celebrate Christmas stress free!
