Week 5–All About Decorating

This is my favorite week!!   (Unless otherwise noted, images found on Pinterest)

So how did the first 4 weeks go everyone?!?  They went pretty good for me, but I haven’t got my gifts wrapped yet…that seems to be the hardest thing for me but I have lots of evenings coming up to do that.  I am done my baking and my shopping though, and just have to finish up making my chocolates and a couple of home-made gifts.

Does everyone have their Christmas cards done yet?  I have my envelopes already (except for a few addresses) and I am getting the cards done on the weekend…should be mailed out next week!

Now it is onto my favorite part, decorating!  I try to hold back until Dec.1 to do most of mine but I have been working on a few things while I wait.  I wanted to change things up completely this year but we are going to be moving in the new year so I will wait until we are in the new house to change everything.  This year I am going to do a few new things and repurpose a few of my current decorations, I probably won’t decorate quite as much as I usually do since we are currently selling our house…but who knows what will happen once I get started!  (And I will be doing it all Nov.30 as my kids are at the baby-sitters and out of my way!  I just leave the tree to do with them.)

Some things that I try to do every year with decorating are -

• Have something Christmasy in every room
• I hang up tons of stuff up on the walls and doors.  I use to use those door hangers (and still do for some things) but this year I am using command hooks and ribbons.  Looks classier and doesn’t mark up the doors.  I also use Command Strips for things on the walls, you can hang up decorations without holes in the walls and without seeing how the items are hung up.  (Command Brand does not pay me for these opinions but if someone knows how to get me in touch with them I would sure love to be paid!)
• Put up your advent calendar (more on this tomorrow)
• Have greenery and flowers and tons of sparkly stuff.

So I don’t have tips for anyone, as decorating is a very personal, just have fun!!

(Here are some inspirational pictures I found on Pinterest)

Notice all the pictures have lots of greenery and red!  Both my favorites for when decorating.  These are all houses I hope to work upto in the coming years.

Have a fun week of decorating!

Week 3–All About Food

Well, how did your gift planning and shopping go?!?  Mine went pretty good, I have a couple of little gifts left to get and a few things to make but otherwise I am all set.  I still have to do all the wrapping but I am taking a break from that to begin my Christmas baking.  I am not going to be doing as much as I would normally do as we have our house for sale…although if I bake a ton then I am sure the house will sell just so I have to move all those baked goods!  LOL

So this week I start to get my baking organized and I try to get a good chunk of it done.  With proper planning you can have all of your cookies, squares, candies and chocolates done within a week or 2 AND you could have a lot of the food prep done for any parties that you might host!  I have always done my cookies and other baking up with no problem but always struggle with the dinner parties part…I either don’t host them or have had potluck dinners so that I don’t have to prepare too much food.  I have wanted to host a full party for sometime now so I have been researching ways to do this and NOT be stuck in the kitchen.  (I’ll have some idea’s below and may post a sample dinner later this week…maybe I’ll have to host a party…)

Baking -

• Start by finding all your favorite Christmas cookies recipes and decide which (if not ALL) of them you will be making and put them in a pile.
• Pull out all the other special yummy recipes you have (bars, squares, chocolates and candies) and pick the ones you want and put them into a pile.
• Now start looking through your pantry at all your baking stuff and start making a list of things that you need to do your baking – the obvious things like butter (which I start buying in October whenever I see it on sale…it freezes really well), eggs, sugars, flour, but don’t forgot all those specials items you need which make Christmas baking soooo good.
• Now the obvious – go shopping!  I make this a special trip that I take just to get baking supplies so that I don’t forgot anything while I am also trying to do my weekly shopping trip.  (Plus, who doesn’t like to have another excuse to leave the kids with your husband so that you can take your time shopping and possibly enjoying a coffee…maybe that is just me!?!  LOL)
• Plan how you are going to do your baking.  I usually like to mix the dough for cookies and other things that need to sit in the fridge for a bit so that I can make other items while I wait on those.
• Then get crackin’!  I do my baking fairly systematically but I also usually have my oldest helping me so it can generally be fun and messy.  Basically I make each item, have them cool for a couple of hours and then place them in the container.  I leave the lid off the container for another couple of hours and then the lid goes on and it goes into the freezer (which is why the freezer needs cleaned out). 

As for storage, use freezer friendly containers or bags and if you are short on freezer room you could also put the items into a cooler on a deck or outside (in cold weather areas like Alberta where I live).  I suggest using a cooler so that it has a good lid that will stay closed in the wind and keep snow off, as well as keep animals away.  You could also store in a garage (as long as it’s not heated or has heated floors) as will be as cold – probably colder – than your fridge as well.

Hosting a Party -

• I gave a free printable in the Week 1 post for party planning that contained a meal plan, shopping list and guest list.
• Plan your menu but keep in mind how much time you want to spend in the kitchen
• Have only 1 or 2 items that will need prepared or cooked that day
• Plan other items to be prepared ahead of time and either froze or stored in the fridge to be heated up the day of the party.  (Make sure that you don’t store things in the fridge longer than a few days…last thing you want to do is accidently give your guests food poisoning!)
• Buy some of the items, you can get some very yummy appetizers from the stores.  If you don’t want to get those generic items from the grocery store then look for a specialty store in your area, or a person you know that might make some items to sell to you.
• Plan for your guests, how many are coming and whether you have enough seats and table settings for them.  Then beg, steal or borrow them from people you know…well, maybe just borrow as it is Christmas and you don’t want to be thrown in jail for stealing!  LOL
• Now (potentially) the fun part – decorating and table settings.  I have small boys so my decor is very simple, as is any table setting as they are also climber.  But one day I hope to throw a nice party with pretty decor and a beautiful table all set up.  There are tons of beautiful pictures in the blog world and on Pinterest (one of my other addictions…besides fancy coffees).
• Invite your guests…don’t forget that part!    Either phone them all, send out emails or you could do formal invitations, they can be fun to make if you have the time…but try to make sure to use recycled material.

Some other things that you can do to make your life easier for December is try to pre-plan and prepare some of your meals.  You have a party to go to, or event to attend that isn’t serving food, then pop one of those prepared meals out of the freezer and into your oven/slow cooker/microwave and you are all set.  Also, keep on top of the cleaning schedule!  If you follow each daily cleaning item then it should only take you an hour or two a day to keep your house in pristine condition…ready for any last minute visitors!

So that is All about the Food.  I will share my whipped shortbread, brown sugar shortbread and my sugar cookie recipes along with some quick and easy tips to make preparing and baking them much easier.  I will also share a couple of chocolate fun things that I make, super easy and very yummy!

So how is the other organizing going?  Have you got your Christmas card list all done up and ready to go for mailing soon?  What about clean up?  If you have been following the Chore list that I shared you should have your fridge, freezer and deep freeze done and be working on your pantry…just in time to be making a Baking shopping list and storing all those wonderful goodies!

Keep at it, in 3 short weeks you will be ready for Christmas and you will have a stress-free and enjoyable December!

Week 2–All About Gifts & Giving Week

PRESENTS!!

 

(Actually, I think that Will Ferrell is yelling Santa but you get the gist – that is one of my favorite Christmas movies…hehe)

This week is all about starting gift shopping and organizing for all the gifts you want to make…and lets not forget gift wrapping!  This is, quite honestly, not my favorite part of Christmas.  I love making things for people for presents (even if I am not sure if people like getting home-made stuff) and getting things for the kids as they truly appreciate what you get them…well, the little kids do anyway.  I tend to find in this day and age that people just go out and buy what they want or need and there is nothing left to give them at Christmas.  I would much rather just get together, have drinks and play games.  But, here is the gifts week anyway!

There are things that you can do to make Christmas more fun and affordable, there is drawing names, Secret Santa, setting price limits, Chinese gift exchange and making gifts.  These can all be fun and easy to do, and are much lighter on the pocket…all of which lower the hassle of expensive gifts and budgeting, which creates much less stress over the holidays…now doesn’t that sound like a way better way to spend the holidays!

Another reason that I start to organize things this early is that I either have to plan a trip to a major city (which takes organizing with my husband to make sure I can go without 2 young kids) and I buy a lot online, so you have to get things ordered with plenty of time to be delivered.

So here are the things that I consider and get ready during Gifts Week -

• look over the lists that you made last week (you can find the lists in this post) and look online for the best prices, then figure out if it is store you can go to or if you have to get it online.  (The list I gave lets you track if you purchased it online and if you have received it yet.)
• Once you figured out where you can get everything, check all the sale and delivery dates.  You want to make sure you can get that awesome price AND that you can get it before the holidays.  Especially check the delivery dates to ensure that you will get the gift when you require it.
• Check the postal delivery dates as well so ensure that any gifts you want to send out will make it in time.  (I think that Canada Post says to get packages in the mail by Dec.6 to ensure delivery before Christmas.)
• Shop for the items you need for your home-made gifts.  (I try to get that done as soon as possible as those gifts take the longest)
• Make a gift wrap station where you can easily wrap the gifts as you get them…this will save your Christmas eve…trust me!  (I have to work on this as last year I spent 4 hours wrapping gifts as I am very slow at it!)
• Include at your wrapping station an envelope that you can put all your receipts in it and have them in a handy stop.

This year I am trying to make all my gift wrappings eco-friendly.  I’ll have a couple of posts this week to show some options for that.

Happy Shopping everyone!!

Week 1 – All About Getting Organized

There were a few issues with this post not working yesterday but it should all be fixed now...so check it out!



So today is technically Halloween but I always start my Christmas organizing on the Monday closest to the start of November (if that makes sense).  So there are 2 posts for today since I did a Halloween post as well…could you tell that I am not huge into Halloween but I am going to try harder as my boys are getting older and are starting to understand it.

So this week is all about getting yourself organized and ready to hit the gifts, baking, cooking and decorating hard so you can get it done before December really gets going and all the fun starts.  I have a few printables that you use, I tried to make them files that you can work with but I am new at this so I hope that they work…
So here is the list of things to do this week -

• Update your calendar with all your Christmas parties, kid events, and normal everyday stuff
• Start by making lists, some examples are ;
• Gift List (don’t forget your baby-sitter(s), co-workers, hostess gifts), a home-made gift list, and stocking stuffers list (if your family does that).  The gift list also helps record if you bought on-line or not and if you have received it.
• Christmas Card list, use my excel file (or make one the same) and I will have a tutorial on how to mail merge onto labels which makes sending lots of cards SSSOOOO easy!  (Don’t forget to have at least 10 extra cards for those families you forgot!)
• Holiday cleaning list, get your house, pantries and freezers ready for all the extra guests and food.
• Party planning list (includes menu plan, grocery list, and guest list)
• Plan your Christmas Card - Whether you are going to use a layout available from a photo shop, or make your own card, you have to pick out or take the pictures that you want for them.
• Check that you and your family all have the wardrobe that you want for pictures and parties.  Are there some things in your wardrobe that you can fix up for the season to save money?  There are so many ideas out there in blogland so start looking now!
• Check your gift wrapping supplies and stock back up.  (Stay tuned for some great eco-friendly gift wrapping options during All About Gifts week)

So I guess I basically spend my first week making a ton of lists, talking with my husband and family about gifts and making more lists!  But if you keep those lists in an easy to get at place (like your purse or a command center in your home) you will find that you are able to shop more efficiently and get things done much more quickly.
(Now get those card mailing lists done up and ready for a mailing merge tutorial tomorrow!  If you don’t already know how to do this you will wonder why you never figured it out sooner!!!)