You know about the world ending on December 21, 2012, right? Well, I recently read that some people (world-ending expert types) think the REAL date is December 21, 2011. Yep, this year. I started to read about the reasoning behind the discrepancy, and I think there was something about Passover, yada, yada, yada . . . I don't know, because I got bored real quick. But it occured to me that it might be a good idea to put off Christmas until sometime in January. Because, really, I'd hate to spend so much of my final days shopping and preparing for a holiday that may never come.
Sadly, I haven't had much luck in persuading everyone else to hold off. Despite my best attempts, I find myself bombarded with everyone's holiday plans and parties. So I began. Let's just hope that come December 21st, I'm not sorry I did.
At my office, we're having a gift exchange, and the theme is something to do with "cute." I saw this snowman hat at Hobby Lobby and thought it might be the perfect gift for that occasion. I'll have to review the gift description again to make sure, but yep, this might be it. One down, fifty-three gifts to go.
When I got to work this morning, someone had ripped out a day from a Maxine flip calendar and taped it to my desk. Don't you love Maxine? It said, "Five words you'll never hear from me are 'I read your blog today.'" See? That's why I feel fairly safe telling YOU about a gift I got for someone in my office. Most of them think my blog is strictly about quilting and they'd rather poke a hot needle in their eye than read it.
My family has been given strict instructions to get our Christmas decorations down from the garage rafters by tomorrow night. This year I'd like to try to do some pre-decorating. What I have in mind is sorting out the decorations and getting my small trees, wreaths, and anything else along those lines decorated in the garage before bringing everything into the house right after Thanksgiving. I'm hoping this pre-decorating plan will help cut down on some of the time it takes to "really" decorate.
Tonight (Thursday), I hauled Hubby to Hobby Lobby and bought some things I'll need--mostly gift related things like containers and packaging. Tomorrow night I'd like to stop by a couple more stores to get more things--Michaels is one of the stops on my list.
And I'm starting to think about things like baking and candy making. In fact, I'm starting to feel like I need to get out a pen and some blank lined paper and start making lists. That's pretty hard core.
How about you? Have you started yet? Do you have any tips from years past that helped you save time and/or streamlined the preparations? I'd love to hear from you.
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11 comments:
The list's are a work in progress, the shopping has started, and the new decorations and "stuff" are being assembled. Actually, some of the list's already have check marks on them! Yeah! Merry (early!) Christmas!
This year everything is waiting in large plastic containers right by the garage door. Easy access and all together- just need motivation!
PS I do read your blog!
Have you ever made Martha Stewart's peppermint/white chocolate bark? It's a great gift and it is so easy. Yummy!!! Your blog is the way I start my day - thank you!!
OMGosh! you scared me for a minute - really - I thought the snowman hat was one of those blow-up front lawn ornaments (I could not tell the size in the picture and it looked like one of t-h-o-s-e)!
I was nice seeing you yesterday at the shop during my class - Hugs!
last year i bought a hat just like that - it was a big hit with the fourth graders when NoJo wore it to school - that kid will wear ANYTHING on his head (including a turkey hat and a stuffed turkey hat and an Irish pilgrim hat) - when he held his head just right and walked in a dorky way, the mittens smacked him in the face, which made him all the more popular...
I LOVE Maxine! She guards my vaccum cleaner! (a gift i gave my Mother and when she passed I snagged her back) Oh, we all know that they say there is no way of knowing the end! However I believe it will happen on a day when I finally have plans to do one of those GIANT checks on my bucket list! So I think you are safe for this year, nothing big happening at my house! LOL
My shopping has started and I put a pretty good dent in it all. I have plans to start wrapping next Wednesday afternoon when I have a few free hours to myself. Other than that, nothing else. No Christmas cookie baking this year. No spare time at all!
I have not done anything Christmas related! I'm a procrastinator when it comes to such things.
My best holiday shopping tip is an original idea I came up with last year. My mom has altzhiemers (early stages last year) and was living with my sister in WV. I offered to take her for the month of November, and keep her until the Sunday after Thanksgiving so my sister and her daugher could Black Friday shop with out the worry of loosing mom in the crowds. I don't do much BF shopping, and they DO! Mom usually buys most of her gifts at JCPenny on BF, so I offered to handle that too, but had NO idea what to get everyone. I called my sister and got sizes and likes and dislikes (eg. Becky wears a large and likes neutrals-No yellow). I got a sheet of address labels out and wrote a label for everyone with likes and dislikes, and sizes. As mom and I shopped, I put the label on the item for each person, when we placed it in the shopping cart. I told mom, "when the sheet is empty we're done". It worked great. I didn't have to think about which gift was for whom afterwards, and I could easily show mom what we had gotten for each person when she questioned if we had gotten something for "Richard", etc. When Richard opened his present the address label was still on the shirt, lol. I then wrapped the gifts and put them in shopping bags for each household and wrote which family they went to on the bag with sharpie.
I like this so well I think I'll use it again this year for me! I think I'll use the printer this year. Now if I can get the rest of my life organized! Ha!
All I can say is don't make the toffee and fudge ahead and put them in the freezer till Christmas. It doesn't work. I know because I ate it all!!!
I am actually almost done with my gift buying. I am shipping my kids off to my mom's this weekend so I can get my house cleaned really really well before we head to Utah for Thanksgiving. That way we can get down to the nitty gritty of Christmas decorating when we get back. Of course I was thinking of sneaking in some candy making this weekend as well. I make homemade marshmallows and coat them in homemade caramel. Everyone loves them including people who hate marshmallows because these are totally different from those store bought air pillows they say are marshmallows. They are delicious. I hope your pre-decorating goes well!
Kim ~ First I'm going to use your idea of pre-decorating w/ assemby in garage starting tomorrow am!Last yr I remembered to label the tubs with every little thing that is stored in ea one not just a generic "Christmas Decs." I will cont to thoroughly label even tho slowly ea yr I'm trying to replace my sturdy red & green tubs w/ see through tubs. I've also marked on my calendar for Sept,Oct & Nov using a red marker that I do not need to purchase wrapping paper this yr ~ like fabric I cannot resist wrapping paper, especially for Cmas as soon as it displayed earlier each yr. And like I say I'm going to do every year but this is the 1st yr I've followed through ~ in Sept & Oct I made some personalized gifts & did quite a bit of shopping for gifts!
The hat is truly cute & will be such a fun gift!!
Penny in So CA
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