2022 - HHP - Week 8 - Family Space

[Holiday_Mom]

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: Family Space


Find where the family gathers, and you've reached the center of any home. Where does your household come together to enjoy each day?

Whether it's a great room, a living room, family room or den, this week we'll tackle this central family space. We'll toss the clutter, deep-clean the room, and organize media, books and music to prepare for the holiday events ahead.

Holiday prep this week revolves around Halloween, which will arrive soon. The season is coming ... so try these ideas to move toward an organized Christmas this week:


This Week's Household Checklist

• Declutter, clean and organize the family room or family area. Family room, playroom, living room or den, this week's assignment is to dig in and declutter, deep-clean and organize the space where your family gathers on a daily basis.
• Organize media and entertainment. While you're there, take aim on media and entertainment areas. Reunite video games and DVDs with their missing cases, and create an organized space for them to live when not in use. You'll make it easier to find holiday music, books and movies as the season progresses.

This Week's Holiday Prep Checklist

• Decorate for Halloween. Add a few Halloween-specific items to your autumn decorating to bring a spooky shiver to life. After the 31st, they're easy to remove and replace with a Thanksgiving theme.
• Costume check! Will the household's trick-or-treaters be ready? Complete Halloween costumes in time for the week's parties and events.
• Will you greet Trick-or-Treaters at the door next week? Stock up on Halloween candy now, before it's sold out. (Note: if you're planning to make Thanksgiving Blessings Mix next month, add a bag of chocolate kisses in seasonal colors, and some candy corn to your list. In recent years, many stores have removed these treats after Halloween due to Christmas creep, so stock up now!)
• Tune time: make a music check. How's your stash of holiday music? If the sounds of the season move you, review the family's collection of Christmas music. Note favorites on a holiday favorites planner page.
• Movie review: check the family's holiday movie library. Whether it's A Christmas Story or It's a Wonderful Life, review the family's holiday movies. Is it the year to add new titles to the gift list? Get ready for December popcorn nights!
• Start amaryllis bulbs. Fresh flowers at the holidays are a fragrant--and frugal--gift. If you'll be giving holiday plants, start amaryllis bulbs now; they'll need eight weeks to be ready.
• Mail overseas gift packages. International mailing can take weeks ... or more. If your gift list includes packages to be sent overseas, mailing deadlines loom. Be sure to mail all overseas parcels early, so they'll arrive by the holiday.
• Create a holiday housework plan. Many hands make light work and never more than at the holidays. Negotiate a holiday housework plan, assign jobs and work together to keep family spaces clean. Print a chore checklist to remind family members of assigned jobs. Post it publicly to encourage accountability for designated chores.
• Finish working on Christmas cards. How are Christmas cards and letters coming along? Finish addressing, signing and assembling Christmas cards in the next two weeks.

What are you planning to work on this week?

 

[Holiday_Mom]

It's a full week with extra activities and a few MLB playoff games to watch. My motivation to get this done earlier in the evenings is no baseball until at least one item is checked off the list.

Household Prep

• Declutter, clean and organize the family room.
• Organize media and entertainment.

Holiday Prep

• Work on costume
• Double check on candy.
• Work on Christmas cards.

Still to do

• Declutter laundry area.
• Buy bathroom, laundry and cold/flu supplies.

 

[happy2bme]

Illness hit last week, so I'm a bit behind in my tasks. This week is a bonus week for me, so I will be able to catch up. I need to get things finished up by Wednesday evening as DD arrives on Thursday for a short visit. I can't wait to see her!

 

[Holiday_Mom]

Mel, sorry to hear you were sick last week. Enjoy your visit with your dd. :-D

 

[Cindylouwho]

Happy2beme -- Sorry you got the crud. Hope you are better soon and hopefully you can use the downtime to plan the holidays! . It's been wall-to-wall baseball here as well but that is now settling down in time for Football to ramp up. Less important for me but critical for hubby! . The season is finally starting to change around here. It's been a long summer with no rain. But rain is finally coming and our forests will be SO happy. So now I'm starting to focus more on the indoors and trying to get my new routine figured out. Going well so far this week but I've got a packed weekend so we'll see what shape I'm in then. ​

Family Space Week – Week 8​

House:
Family room declutter, organization and storage -- Got a LOT of deep cleaning done. Doing the annual emptying of the cabinets. So much better now! (One more to go. Do we really need this many water bottles?

Holiday:

• Decorate for Halloween -- No kids to decorate for but I have lots of little pumpkins in the garden so am bringing those in. Will get a little Halloween look going this week. Also need to figure out how we'll spend the evening. Hubby is usually gone but he is around this year so maybe we can start a new tradition? No trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood but I love to go walk the other neighborhoods to watch all the festivities. Hmm.. What shall we do? Anyone have any fun Halloween traditions with their spouse?
• Tune time: make a music check. -- Will check Spotify and perhaps assign a teen to this.
• Movie review: check the family's holiday video library. Need to look this up. Hubby wants to dump the Satellite TV and just do streaming. Not sure how I feel about this. Have to look at my lineup options.
• Create a holiday housework plan. Negotiate and delegate the holiday housekeeping, assign jobs. Print and post the chore list. -- Have been thinking about this. Will need that this year. I'm assigning COOKING for sure! They are all good little cooks after all that practice during the pandemic.
• Divide the Christmas card list into five sections. -- Need to start the letter....

 

[Holiday_Mom]

Where did that week go? I had a nice visit with my dd and then played catch up from the week earlier. Time seems to be going by quicker and quicker.