2022 - HHP - Week 17 - Celebration

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Holiday_Mom

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Sep 12, 2009
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Week 1 - Planning and Paperwork
Week 2 - Calendar and Creativity
Week 3 - Me & Mine
Week 4 - Close to Home
Week 5 - House Room
Week 6 - Wardrobe
Week 7 - Bed & Bath
Week 8 - Family Space
Week 9 - Public Space
Week 10 - Cooking Space
Week 11 - Food Storage
Week 12 - Dining Space
Week 13 - Entryway
Week 14 - Storage
Week 15 - Final Clean
Week 16 - Nearly There
Week 17 - Celebration
Week 18 - New Year’s

This Week's Focus: Celebration
Christmas is here! Time to enjoy the fruits of your labors: a clean home and an organized holiday season.

Make the most of it--and the year's other 51 weeks--by sticking to the minimum maintenance needed to keep the household humming.

This Week's Household Checklist
  • Stick to minimum maintenance. With the house deep-cleaned and organized over the past 16 weeks, it'll need only minimum maintenance this week.
  • Enjoy the fruits of your labor You've done well these last weeks. Enjoy the season with friends and family--in your clean and organized home!

This Week's Holiday Prep Checklist
  • Give cameras and camcorders a last-minute charge. This week, plug them in nightly, like cellphones, so you won't miss a moment.
  • Put together any "assembly required" toys. Nothing sours the holiday mood more than peering at papers and wielding a wrench the night before Christmas. Start early to keep the sparkle in the season.
  • Check and organize stocking stuffers. Place each family member's gifts in a separate grocery sack so Santa can get a good night's rest on the 24th. Hang sacks on clothes hangers in the back of a closet to keep stuffers from prying eyes.
  • Journal holiday memories. Continue to jot down the high points of the season on a holiday memories journal. Even a short record will be treasured in a year ... or ten.
  • Keep tabs on Christmas collections. If you collect, you know the story: which Radko ornaments or Christmas Village decorations do you have, and which do you need? Do a quick inventory of Christmas collectibles, adding any new acquisitions to the list.
  • Prepare for Christmas dinner. Set the table, arranging centerpiece, place-settings and serving dishes ahead of time. Sticky notes make it easy to know what goes where.
  • Plan Christmas morning breakfast. The holiday will flow more smoothly with a menu plan, even for breakfast! What will you serve for Christmas breakfast? Consider a breakfast casserole or other alternative to an elaborate meal. Round it out with juice and pre-made sweet rolls for a festive--but easy--meal.
What are you doing this week?
 

Holiday_Mom

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With having a full week before Christmas to prepare, I feel like this is a luxury week.

Household Checklist
  • Keep up with house maintenance.
Holiday Prep Checklist
  • Finish up organizing stocking stuffers.
  • Finish wrapping gifts.
  • Make adjustments to Christmas Timeline and print off.
  • Do daily tasks on Christmas Timeline.
  • Review Christmas Eve, Christmas morning and Christmas Dinner menu.
  • Make a menu plan for the week after Christmas.
  • Buy ingredients for menus.
  • Journal holiday memories.
  • Charge batteries for cameras.
  • Set up child-size tables/chairs/place settings for Christmas dinner.
  • Arrange greenery in vases.
  • Bake rest of cookies and bread.
 
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happy2bme

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Oct 18, 2007
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My Happy Place
Gift shopping, wrapping and baking are done! I'm down to the last few tasks of my Christmas prep.

Household Checklist:

Stick to minimum maintenance plan - done

Holiday Prep Checklist:
Grocery shop for last minute items - done
Prep Christmas Eve dinner - done
Prep Christmas dinner - done
Celebrate!
 
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Holiday_Mom

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Gift shopping, wrapping and baking are done! I'm down to the last few tasks of my Christmas prep.
That's fantastic! I'm getting there.

I've been following the weather and I'm making adjustments each day. Looks like we will miss the snow. We'll be getting rain, winds and then plummeting temperatures Thursday and Friday instead. I think I'll work on buying groceries first and then work on finishing up the wrapping and baking on Thursday and Friday.

It's our first time hosting Christmas Day dinner. We'll have 17 people. I want to keep it nice but simple so I can spend time hanging out with the family on Christmas like we've done. I've only a few more Christmases with our youngest before she heads off to college so these days are super important to me. Dh is making the main dish but is preparing it ahead of time. I'll have rolls, a tossed salad, a fruit salad and roasted vegetable salad. These salads can be prepped ahead of time and then can be put together at the last minute. My brother and my parents are bringing dessert. Dh and I bought all the drinks for the holiday season in October and November. We are set there.
 

Holiday_Mom

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I ran out today to pick up as much groceries as I could with the idea that tomorrow I'd make another trip but in a different town for things I couldn't find. There were a few items that weren't in stock so that plan was a good one. I also ran to Walmart and picked up everything but one item. I'll either run to Home Depot in the morning or I'll just skip it for the year. I'll ask dh for his opinion. I also got my co-worker's gift delivered.

The family is keeping up with maintaining the house and working off the timeline. Oh, and I was so thrilled the other day when my early preparations for my future self paid off. We were going to have a sit down Christmas dinner so I hadn't given any thought to paper plates and plastic ware. With more people now, it will be buffet Chinet and plastic untensils. Fortunately, I had plenty of both already in my paper goods box. Some utensils were already wrapped in a napkin and tied with a ribbon. That just took so much stress off of me.
 

Cindylouwho

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I'm pretty much done. Like every year I am thankful for all the prep I did earlier even though I was not feeling it. Just the joy of baking cookies to go and a couple bows to put on. The snow put such a monkey wrench in this week's plans that our priorities changed to doing the best we could. We scrambled for groceries and are now nesting in front of the tree. Considering this house looked like a bomb went off last week (we were painting the living room and the tree wasn't up), I can't believe how smoothly this is going. But it is just us -- we do not have 17 people showing up. If that was the case I'd be less calm. You GO, Mary! :) We are still monkeying with our tree. Changed it up this year and it has become a fun little project that we mess with every time we walk by. So many years of travel ornaments are making it kind of a crazy tree but it is OUR crazy tree so we like it.

With supply chain and tight timelines due to the snow we've all agreed that anything not under the tree would be made up for the following week. Overall I think we are good.

DD has college papers to write after being given kind extensions from her profs after being very sick for several weeks earlier in the semester. She's now madly typing in front of the fire and should be done soon. DS and I will run a few cookie experiments with the cookie dough bases I made at Thanksgiving. (Making 2 bases to make about 12 different cookies rather than dealing with 12 different recipes -- I'm kinda excited about it). By the time we our plan figured out DD should be done and ready to join in.

Just put our Hummingbird feeders out. And a few peanuts for the birds. Pretty nippy out there!
 

Holiday_Mom

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So many years of travel ornaments are making it kind of a crazy tree but it is OUR crazy tree so we like it.
We have travel ornaments too! I make very simple wooden ornaments using a vintage image of the location we visited.

Things are nearing completion. We have Christmas Eve food prep and Christmas Day food prep to do this morning. This afternoon will be getting ourselves ready and a final clean of the house. We start our festivites at 4:30 pm today.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!
 

Holiday_Mom

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Overall, I was happy with the way Christmas happened. :) We hosted Christmas Dinner for 17 for the first time. In the past, we hosted Christmas Eve dinner for 18.

What worked:
  • Dividing the Christmas cookies into four freezer bags and labeling them for the four Christmas gatherings was a time saver.
  • Gifts organization was one of the best yet. Yet, I still misplaced dh's gifts. He did get them by the end of Christmas Day. :)
  • Dinner prep on the 23rd and 24th was essential to making Christmas Day dinner a success. We used the same menu for prior Christmas Eve dinners minus the appetizers. None were served on Christmas Day.
  • My crew were incredible helpers and food preppers. Christmas dinner would not have happened without them.

What didn't work:
  • I got sick Thanksgiving weekend and was out for one week. The second week was a slow but steady increase of good health and energy. I slowly caught up with the wrapping and the card writing.
  • Due to continual flooding issues in our basement, Christmas boxes keep getting moved all over the place and not returned to the right area. Ornaments, decorations, etc. were missing for the first three weeks of Advent.
  • Less cookies were made but we can even make less next year. I made "Christmas" cookies and added in chocolate mint cookie as well as a cranberry oatmeal cookie. Both are good but will drop those two since they aren't necessarily "Christmas" cookies.
  • We tripled the recipes and had plenty of food leftover. There was no space in the refrigerator for the food. Thankfully, the garage was like a walk in fridge since we were dealing with temperatures in the 20's F.
  • If I host Christmas again, I'd ask each family to pick a side dishes that can be kept warm in a crock pot or a dessert to bring. I think that would eliminate extra stress on my end.
 
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