Christmas Happenings

I didn't plan for this week to be so sparse in the blogging department. I have a whole list of subjects to blog on and just haven't taken a few minutes to get them ready to post.

I focused this week on getting a lot of stuff finished for Christmas. I tend to leave things until the last minute, knowing what I need to do but with a list only in my head. My husband and I sat down at the beginning of the week and I wrote the main things down that needed to be accomplished on the corresponding day. That has worked!

What's been done:
--Christmas letter has been written. I can't quite justify just sending a card with postage as high as it is and we didn't have a picture to share this year. Plus, I always enjoy reading what others have been up to throughout the year, whether it is a form letter or a personal one.

--Christmas cards have been mailed with the Christmas letters. :-) Well, most of them. I still have a couple of new addresses to locate and a few people I forgot in the first round.

--Gifts have been bought. I'm making a few more but all shopping has been done for our extended families. We keep our gifts pretty simple and I was extra careful to stay in budget this year. I had a specific list and shopping was easy-peasy! I actually got almost everything at Target in about 1 hour of shopping! A first for me as I am not a speedy shopper!!! Of course, I had a few of the gifts already and I'm still making a few, but still....

--Gifts have been wrapped. The ones that are finished anyways! I let my perfectionist tendencies go by the wayside and kept this extra simple as well. I'm focusing on using up the same wrapping paper that I've had for the 4th Christmas now. I cut gift tags out of the wrapping paper for matching tags. No stamps, no stickers, no gluing on card stock-just simple wrapping paper tags cut into a tag shape with a hole for tying on. I used a plain tag from my craft box for a pattern and traced it on the wrapping paper. Took about 20 minutes for 30 tags. I tied all the gifts with raffia in Christmas colors that I had gotten on 90% off Christmas sales last year. I wrapped and tied and wrote the to's and from's last evening in about one hour-another record for me!

--Christmas donations have been made. I kept putting this off but it was done within 15 minutes by doing it online.


Still to do:
--Get Christmas tree. We want a small table top tree this year. Preferably a real one. We're going to the tree farm to look for a little tree this afternoon. Every year, we're looking for a little different style of tree to accommodate our needs . This keeps life exciting and is actually good, because we always forget what kind of tree we've gotten from year to year anyways.

--Bring in decorations and take fall decorations down. Yes, the pumpkin, fake leaf garland and bunch of Indian corn are still up. Please don't fine me!

--Christmas baking. I'm mixing all dough up today and we're baking tomorrow afternoon. This is simple too. I've pared down to 4 kinds instead of my previous simplified five.

--Christmas decorating. We're doing that tomorrow morning. It doesn't take us long but we enjoy doing it together.

--Clean house from top to bottom. I'm doing that today. I love to decorate in a clean house, with everything freshly vacuumed and dusted, windows sparkling and cobwebs out of the corners. Oh and fresh smelling trashcans...hopefully by tonight!!!

--Send packages. We'll be with Andy's family in Georgia for Christmas and also visiting my sister on the way. We have two boxes to send out-one to New York and one to Oregon. Talk about extremes! I'm aiming to get them out by Monday, since they are pretty much packed already!

What kind of progress are you making on your to-do list? Even with simplifying, this is one of the busiest(yet fun!) times of the year!