Christmas Planning – 6 weeks to go!

Have you started planning for Christmas?  No?  Never fear – help is at hand! πŸ™‚  The Flylady has a whole section on her website…planning lists, non-clutter gift ideas, recipes.  I’ve been using the Flylady’s Christmas organiser for years (you can download it for free here) and keep adding to it/revising it every year.  I also like to keep myself accountable by posting my weekly progress here on the blog πŸ™‚

One of my goals for last week was to go through our boxes of Christmas decorations and weed out what we no longer use or love.  It took me a bit longer than 15 minutes but I have to say it was fun!

I managed to fill a whole bag with decorations we no longer use (or like)

and gave it to the After School Club.

I’ve put all the Christmas serviettes together and can see that, um, we really don’t need to buy any more of those this year… ;D

Nor do we need to spend any money this year on red candles!

The shelf with all the Christmas linens (mostly inherited from DH’s family) is pretty neat and tidy.  And I discovered lots of little tins that we can use if we’re giving homemade biscuits or chocolates as presents.  Yay, more money saved! ;D

On the food front, I’m still buying a few extra goodies every weekο»Ώ.  And I fried 2 kilos of minced beef and put it into 4 freezer bags, all ready for the crockpot (chili con carne, spaghetti bolognese, taco filling or Cold Weather Hotpot).

Goals for next week?  I really need to make a big push to get the last of the gifts sorted.  I know what we want to give – we just need to make it, order it online or physically go and buy it from a shop.  Simple, right? ;D

And I’d like to start on the Christmas cards.  We usually send about 40 of them.  DH and I made a lot of international friends in the days when we both worked at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, so most of our cards go to friends abroad and family.  I’ll write about 5 of them every night while DD9 sticks on the stamps and labels (her favourite job).  Which means I should really pop off and order my stamps online now…

Happy Christmas planning!

Have a marvelous Monday! πŸ™‚