Christmas Sanity Basket

               We’re ten days away, can you believe it?! So 10 days from right now, you could be all done with the gifts, and getting your Christmas dinner ready.

                To help your Christmas morning going smoothly, you might want to make a list of supplies you might need. Things like scissors, garbage bags, batteries, etc. Things you might need to get into the gifts, and make them work. Now as you go through this you might think of thing that a personal to you, perfect, unfortunately these supply lists are NOT one size fits all. I’m sharing a link I found years ago for a “sanity basket”. It is a list of supplies that you may or may not have thought of. Batteries are usually a well remembered item, but here is one I ALWAYS mention, a manual can opener. You may be scratching your head for this one, but here is the score. The WORST packaging on the face of the planet to open is clamshell packaging. You generally injure yourself trying to open this crap. The can opener, will be the answer to your prayers.

                So get the supplies together now, to make a smoother morning on the 10^th.

K, Luv Ya, Bye

Nancy, Cale and Alice 

Checking it Twice

             This might seem like a random one at this point, but it’s time to have a look at that master grocery list again. So we started knocking stuff off this grocery list 2 months ago, with non-perishables. Then we brought in the freezer items, and we’ve been chipping away at them for a month. It’s not QUIET time to look at the fresh part of the list yet (they wouldn’t be fresh when we got to Christmas).

                What I want you to do is have a list of those two lists and see what you can knock off so you don’t have to worry about them on your next big trip. Fortunately my list has gotten very small, and I can easily knock an item or two off the list as I spot them. This is just going to make your last shopping trip before Christmas far less stressful, because you only need to worry about those few items. That’s kind of what this entire blog series has been about, making things easier for Christmas so you can enjoy it more.

K, Luv Ya, Bye!

Nancy, Cale and Alice

Christmas Movie Night

                 After our not so fun last post, happy to say this one is not about productivity, but about enjoying the season. 2 weeks from today is Christmas! We do so much preparing for this season, sometimes we don’t take the time to actually slow down and enjoy, and that’s what this post is about.

                Take a look at your schedule this week, and make for a movie night. We pick a couple Christmas movies, maybe grab some snacks and egg nog, and watch movies where the only light in the room is the tree. Just slow down and have an enjoyable, relaxing night. 

Deep Cleaning

                December luckily doesn’t actually have a lot of not fun assignments, but this is probably the least fun. This is the super, deep clean. Start at one end of the house and go through, dusting, cleaning windows and mirrors freshening up mattresses. You know the drill as far as cleaning your house goes. Time to do a MAJOR clean.

                This post doesn’t take long because this is a big chore, and as much as we like to put it off, this is something we need to dive into and get over with. 

Wrapping

             This one is a special one for me. For some this will be a chore. We’re talking about wrapping gifts. Here is the history of it for me. When I was a kid, I was raised by my single father. So when it came time for me to go Christmas shopping for my dad, my uncle took me out. It was always a fun night. We’d have supper, go and get his gift, pop into a few other stores, and then go back to his place for wrapping. My uncle would turn on the Christmas music and we would wrap all the gifts, and I just loved it.

                He always put on Anne Murry (who is his favorite), and Boney M (which grew to become my favorite). So now as an adult, my Christmas wrapping is an evening I love. I pop on Boney M (my mother in-law knew I loved their Christmas album and got it for me), get down on the floor and just belt out the songs). I end up texting my uncle a LOT too. I guess it’s the memories it brings that makes me LOVE wrapping my gifts. For some people this becomes a mad scramble, but I get it done now, and enjoy the wrapping and the look of the gifts under the tree.

K, Luv Ya, Bye!

Nancy, Cale and Alice 

Christmas Cards

              About a month ago, we started to gather addresses for things like cards and gifts. Now is when we actually use them.  I like to get my Christmas cards done and mailed as early as possible. It’s just nice for people to get them done early.

                In our house, we just kind of make two lists of names, and each take on half of the cards each. We take an evening, and turn on a Christmas movie to enjoy while we fill out our cards. We do something little a special for the evening.

                So that’s one earlier post flashback, here is another, those gifts we got started on early. If you’re not done already, hopefully you ARE done those gifts that need to be mailed. Last Christmas we didn’t realize how long a gift can actually take to send to the other side of the country. I know it makes sense, but when this time of year rolls around and you get a large to do list, time can get away from you. We got lucky and the gift got there in time.

                Here is another flashback, the budget. Now is when you need to take into account that money you budgeted and get things like boxes, paper, cards, envelopes, and of course postage.

                This assignment tends to be a big one on our lists we hold off on for far too long, and weighs on you. We don’t have a lot of days left, get it done now, and that’s a big task, handled.  

Time to bake

               We’re in THE month! This is December, and look at all that has been done. There are still things that need to be done, but how much is completed compared to previous years?

                90% of the posts in the last bit are fun ones, and for me, this one falls into that category. Today is about Baking. Thanks to a previous post, we already planned our baking, this included getting ingredients and stuff together as well ( the ones we could buy in advance anyway). Now is when we get on baking.

                One thing I always do too is have tins set that I freeze. Most cookies freeze pretty well, so I freeze some so we have some through the entire month. It’s baking time, enjoy.