Christmas Prep, a Reality check!

     I had a friend of mine, who was following my blog posts about getting ready for Christmas, informed me my posts were making her feel guilty. I asked her why and she told me, because I was so on top of everything as far as getting ready for Christmas goes. And I laughed at her. I realize I've been attempting to guide you through everything to make everything less stressful for you in your Christmas preparations, but if you think I've done EVERYTHING I've listed thus far, you are dead wrong.


     So Okay, I've stayed on top of things like shopping, decorating, and wrapping, stuff I would call, The fun stuff. HOWEVER there are SEVERAL things that have fallen through the cracks for me, that I have to get back on top of. IE, cleaning the damn appliances. Remember when I told you it's my least favorite thing to do? I put it off. This is my personal assignment for tomorrow when I'm off. Baking.

    The confession has been made to my mother in-law, and I said I may make 1-2 batches of cookies, and my chex mix this year. I usually do like 5-6, but I simply can't be bothered.

    The closets aren't cleaned, and the cards aren't ready. By no means do I have it all together! So anyone beating themselves up, stop, I'm lagging a bit too.

     What is interesting about this point in the planning is we start to prioritize. Remember in the beginning of all of this we had that magical list of the perfect Christmas? If you've been able to keep it all together, and are getting exactly what you wanted on that list, good for you. If not and you're seeing things more clearly now, welcome to Christmas reality.

     Do you know some of my fondest memories of Christmas is when something went wrong? Like the year the roasting pan didn't fit in the oven and we had to cut up the turkey to cook it. Or the year I overflowed the sink. Christmas is about being together with people you love, Christmas is not perfect.

     So, as we sit here, the day before December, it's a time to stop beating yourself up, prioritize your list, and get ready for the highest gear we've been in, but enjoy every second of it!

Freezer meals

     Today we're talking about meal prep. Not meal prep for Christmas, that's still a little ways off. No today we're talking about keeping things as simple for you as possible. If you're at work all day, then headed to the Christmas concert, you don't have time to make a real meal, and will likely be super stressed and rushing and....you get it. Now is the time to think of meal prep. This is something I do regularly anyway, but this time of year, it's about keeping it simple and cutting corners.

     You can do this a couple of ways. What I do is take one afternoon and make stuff for a week. I end up freezing half of it and then I'm good to go.

     Soup is a good go to right now because it freezes well, is generally easy to make and made in big batch to cover several meals.

     Double or triple recipes when you make them, freeze em and you've got a few more go to meals.

     Super simple, buy a heat and eat meal in BULK, and package it up.

     These will come in handy on those days where you just can't bring yourself to cook

Frozen Foods

     Happy Black Friday! So I will warn, I did write this one WELL in Advance. Why?? It's Black Friday, and I work in Retail. When this gets posted, I'll already be working. None the less I wanted to make sure I put a post on here, however brief it might be. So back in September, we made our Grocery list, and we broke it down into 3 parts. Non-perishable, Frozen, and Fresh. I also instructed you, to get started on those non-perishables. Hopefully your collection looks something like this.

      We should be getting close to the end for those, keep your eyes peeled for your handful of non-perishables, but now is the time to start watching for those Frozen deals. Yup, we've made it, time to start our freezer foods. 

My Go-to Potluck Recipe

     I work in retail, and have Black Friday coming up. One really cool thing my workplace does for Black Friday is we have a Potluck. Last year, I was the one who brought the coffee travelers BUT this year my typical go-to potluck contribution has been requested. Not the first time I have had this requested of me, so I thought I'd share the recipe. It's super easy. The pic above is for 2 batches, because this is for the potluck on Friday. So below I have posted the recipe, enjoy!

     Ingredients:

     

     1 Cup Sour Cream

     1 Cup Mayo

     1 Pouch Cream of Leek Soup

     1 Pack Frozen Spinach (or half of the pack you see above)

     1 Loaf of Sour Dough Bread (optional)

     Thaw Spinach

     Mix together all the ingredients except the Sour Dough and let sit in Fridge for several hours

     Cut Sour Dough into a bowl, and tear up bread for dipping. Empty Dip into "bowl" and serve

Gifts and Wrapping

   

Black Friday is this week. This marks the official kick off to the Holiday shopping season. If  you haven't started shopping yet, now is the time. A LOT of stores start  their sales on the American Thanksgiving here in Canada.

     If you started your shopping back in September when we were first talking about starting your gift lists, and your shopping, you should be close to done. I personally have fur babies left to do an hubs, and I'm done. Time to start REALLY ticking people off that list. If you missed my last post, check it out, it has some tips to keep you sane as you venture out into the potential insanity of the stores. So part of the prep here is, wrap up as much of your gift shopping as you can. If it's something you have to get done little by little, make sure you get on the gifts that need to be mailed NOW.

     And speaking of wrapping, it's also time to consider how you want to handle this part. Are you going to do one big evening of wrapping? OR are you going to wrap as you pick up gifts? Hubs and I have done kind of all of the above. We're almost done shopping, but we went out and got most of our gifts this week, and did our wrapping the same day. If it's a fun thing for you, you turn on the tunes, grab a glass (or bottle) of wine and make a night of it, plan when you want to do that. If it's more of a chore, do it as soon as you get your gifts home to get it out of the way.

Cover The Stuff you Forgot, and How to Handle the Christmas Crowds

   

I sit here and sip my coffee, I'm completely thrown off because I usually work Monday's and I'm actually off today so this is super weird to me. But it has the wheels in my head spinning on what to accomplish today, while I have my husband with me because he is off today too. So What I am assigning to myself is exactly what I will assign to you as well.


     We've been doing a lot of list making in our planning process, and some stuff may have fallen through the cracks, or you may have put them off. For example, I haven't done my linen inventory and I know I need to because a lot of our towels became Alice's towels this fall. I also have a few things that I've let go longer than I would have liked, like I need specific boxes for some of the gifts this year, and I still haven't picked up our light timer. When I went grocery shopping the other day I did get all my slow cooker hot chocolate stuff. So remember that really early on list I said to make and check, and then remake? Now would be the time to remake that list, see what needs to be covered and see what you can cover now.

     For me, after this week, I need to psyche myself out to go shopping. This Friday is Black Friday, so Christmas Shopping is getting kicked into high gear for EVERYONE after that. I love the crowds when I'm working because I love always being at a steady pace, but when I'm shopping I enjoy quiet. If you're like me and you need to mentally prepare after this week, here is what I do.

     1. I never go when I have no time, it's a day off thing so I'm not rushed, and I remind myself I can take my time
     2. Take a deep breath, figure out where you want to go in what order and just tackle that plan
     3. Make sure you're comfortable. I'm in sneakers for this, and very likely yoga pants. I'm also avoiding wearing my jacket because there is a lot more body heat.
     4. Make it fun. I'll grab like a gingerbread latte while I'm in one of these crowds because while I wait, I can calmly enjoy my holiday drink
     5. This one is personal to me, but I feel like I'm not alone in this. I hear people say they hate Christmas, and I'm not sure that's true. They have let Christmas stress them out, and they hate stress. I've somehow held onto my childlike excitement for Christmas, and never want to be stressed about it ever because that would just contribute to the problem I always see. So I remind myself to not be like that.

If You are Reading this....

Super old pic, but has the triumphant look I wanted...HI KATE! 

     If you are reading this post, I did it! I wrote this post on Tuesday, kind of to motivate myself. In my post I did on Tuesday, I shared that I had some personal stuff going on. I'm still not ready to share those (because as I type this it's ACTUALLY like and hour later), but one of the things I can share with you about it is, I have to lose weight. Doctors orders.


     I would love to tell you, that when I got said orders, I came right home, got on a strict diet and a really tough workout plan, I would like to tell you that, but I would be lying. No, when I got the news I ended up eating an entire bag of poutine chips. AH progress. No, unfortunately, my motivations have been much more shallow. I looked at a group picture that they took at work on Halloween and didn't like what I saw. Then I saw another picture from work, and a picture from last year's Christmas party, and then they announced this year's Christmas party, and I want to look GOOD, It's incredibly shallow I know, but this is unfortunately what has motivated me.

     Since I'm confessing here, I don't know about you, but I have pinned the CRAP out of a ton of stuff that was supposed to help me "lose weight fast"...but let me be frank, the would have made me "lose weight fast" if I lost it simply by clicking a mouse. Good intentions, but no follow through.

     BUT if you are reading this, I did what I wanted to do! Last Friday night, I weighed myself and said I wanted to be down 5 lbs by next week. If you are reading this, I did it! I may set the same goal once again for next Friday, and shed a little more light on what I'm up to, but for now, simply know I'm amped, and I reached my goal!:D