Se7en + 1 Are Slowly Getting Into Christmas Gear…

Oh my… it is ten days until Christmas… ten!!! It appears that I cannot get moving in the whole Christmas direction this year… at all. A friend offered to come over and help me gift wrap, I had to smile… gift wrap what? Seriously I have not moved!!! And I thought about it for about a moment, and realised that all that pre-Christmas craziness is just that… and the important things… like spending time together, and remembering the reason for Christmas is just a whole lot more important than fighting our way to keep up with the “Christmas Joneses.” Luckily my kids are getting in to gear, I tell you, years of doing the same thing and growing traditions does eventually pay off.

1. Declutter Somewhat: The first place to start any Christmas preparation in our house is to do a quick declutter… I know it seems crazy – but I need clear surfaces to think straight. It isn’t a big sort, by any means – mostly we need a giant paper crusher to remove all evidence of scraps of paper throughout the domain of a crafty family. I also create a pile of donatables as we go and “lose” any articles that “were going to be fixed” but remain lying on every flat surface of the house. This is a days job, not a ten day job… and I will send the gang out to conquer the garden while I do this. Another bonus is that I will find lots of potential gifts that I have stashed around the house… a packet of unopened markers, a jar of unopened glitter that we haven’t used… lots of bits and pieces that will serve well as potential gifts.

2. See Lots of Friends: ’tis the season for visitors to our seaside town, and that means plenty of folk stopping by to say hello. We love that about this time of year, yet it means keeping our house visitor ready all the time. At the same time it is summer and we want to be relaxing which means keeping up with chores as they occur, rather than trying to have massive clean-up sessions. (This probably deserves it’s own post: Se7en Steps to Keeping your house ready for guests and living in it at the same time).

3. Stay Well Away from the Shops: They are packed with people and things to buy for people that appear to have everything they could possibly want, and one more little gift in their lives just isn’t necessary. We are going to have to get our creative hats on and think about what to gift our friends that will demonstrate how much we think of them and cherish them… without resorting to the same old things. We will browse our Potential Gift Ideas Pinterest Board for the quickest easiest gifts on earth and get going on that… there will be no massive sewing projects, no crazy crafts requiring extensive hours of snipping and gluing and painting. Easy and do-able crafts that you can complete timeously without stressing are really quite adequate to demonstrate your love for a good friend.
   

4. Bake Christmas Cookies: this is a bit of a stretch… because “we” in this situation actually means the gang. I have a big fat book to read and my kids are perfectly capable of producing a massive batch of cookies without my help. I have to say, they love it and it is fun and the house smells fantastic and is a good indicator that Christmas is imminent… And while they are baking they may as well haul out the Christmas box and find all the Christmas treasures inside of it.

5. We will be listening to Christmas Carols and Audiobooks: while the kids make Christmas cards. I took a couple of photographs of the kids all together, in the hopes of one being slightly good enough for a card – none came close!!! And so they will be getting out the markers and arting instead!!! They have been playing with the Christmas Crafty Cards from Usborne for weeks and I think they are chomping at the bit to get arty and crafty.

6. We will be Playing Games: We always do – it is the season of a game a day over here… tradition tried and true!!! Are there any fab new games out there? I’ve been looking out for Spot It, but mostly we will be playing our old faves.

7. Taking Plenty of Naps: Summer is here, and everyone knows that a siesta is the best way to cope with summer heat and tons of busy-ness. No I am not particularly blest with children that take afternoon naps, not at all. I take the naps and they will deal with the fresh mountain of books from the library.


And the Se7en + 1th:

8. Going on an Awesome Outing: Thanks to Hood #1 working and earning complimentary tickets for us. It’s not the Nutcracker, in fact not even a show and absolutely nothing to do with Christmas… but it is an outing and a surprise and everyone is excited about it!!!

And that’s us… I know I have written tons of posts on tackling Christmas and getting things done… but there are times when weeks of planning and preparation can actually be condensed into a stress free ten days or less… considering that we are going to have to toss in a couple of beach days as well.