Lessons Learned Christmas 2015...

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Minta

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Oct 14, 2007
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Unfortunately Christmas was hectic and a bit stressful this year. We moved in our home right before Halloween. The move set me back in my Christmas Shopping. My mother suffered a fracture and was hospitalized Thanksgiving weekend and spent most of Dec in the hospital and rehab center in which I would stop everyday after work and on the weekends to check on her and speak to the doctors/nurses. All of that set us way behind .. we were shopping and wrapping at last minute and we didn't get a chance to do much with the kids.

Goals for this year:
Stocking stuffers: pick up one or 2 items per stocking per month.
Gifts: pick up at least 1 gift a month, more if possible. Goal is to be done buying gifts by first weekend in December.
Keep Christmas club current
Christmas Cards: no changes - we send out about 25/30 cards per year and get about 15 - 20 cards back every year. I will continue to send cards to elderly relatives especially those who live out of state.
Wrapping: start wrapping in Oct
Baking: Stock up on baking supplies in Oct/Nov as the sales for these are better. Bake my breads/cakes in Nov/Early Dec and freeze.
This summer look for all the Christmas CDs and store them in location. Was unable to locate several, they are still packed up in one of dozens and dozens of boxes that are still in the garage/shed.
Pencil in more Christmas related activities with the kids.
Make a head meals: have never done this but I want try that this year, maybe do a trial run with a few recipes during little league season.
Hoping the weather is more seasonable - having windows opened and ceiling fans on Christmas Eve/Day is NOT Christmas Weather. Will be hoping for and dreaming of a White Christmas.
 
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p.a.

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This year I'm changing things up a bit. I've always been the type to start gathering stuff for the next holiday and putting it away. I've always told myself I'm saving money. But in truth I end up spending more.... This year really hit home when I culled my stuff and I was able to help 3 families who didn't have anything for Christmas. It felt great but showed me how much I truly overspend. Then seeing how many presents my dg kids got was shocking! So I mentioned to my dd ( the one with kids) that next year I'm looking into giving them a weekend away to a Great wolf lodge, or something similar. Then they have somewhere to go after the holidays to. They loved the idea. Then I looked at Easter, where I always have my own egg hunt here too,, and decided to give the kids a family pass to the local zoo. My dgd asks me to go to the zoo all the time but we have to tell her the animals are sleeping right now. Lol.
I know I can't do 'present free' lol but I'm going to 'simplify' this year. I haven't even looked at the stores for bargains. :)
I'm also going to cut Christmas Eve appetizers down, I looked at what we served and the first thing everyone ate was chips and dip lol...
 

luludou

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Dec 28, 2007
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Ellen - so sorry for your FIL :( you have been through quite a rough time. 2016 can't help but be better!

Gifts:
- A good thing all stocking stuffers were bought & wrapped before December. Keep that up.
- Need to keep an ongoing list of gift ideas for the family
- Had too many gifts to wrap all at once... need to wrap as I go.

Food:
- Not too many leftovers but way too many sweets... have to think of either cutting back from 5 to 2-3 differnt kinds.. and just one recipe of each.
- Freezer was well-stocked.. in fact I will not be cooking much for the next month, which is fine with me!

Cards:
- will cut down on those I send and never receive an answer except for the people I KNOW deserve one no matter what.

Handmade gifts for friends:
- will add a few extras next years because as usual DH had more people to give them to than the ones I had counted. One friend I never see or hear of and have been sending for 7 years .. will cut down on that one.

Handmade gifts for young ones: will decide if I do for all nieces or nephews and they need to be done early if I do not last minute like this year.

Sleeping arrangements: went pretty well even though it is a tight fit.

Attitude: keep a positive attitude and TELL dh what I want him to do ...not think he can see it for himself.

I love that I had time to relax on the 31s, 1st time that happens.

Once again gift for games were not distributed... have to find games where there are winners for the gifts.

I did not like going to mom's only on the 24th around noon, I wanted to help out and I was too late.

The best thing this year was that with all the decluttering I had done during the year I had space to put away 'regular' stuff and bring out Christmas. Will continue working on that for 2016.

I have also decided that whenever MIL will not be here for the 31st (her bday) I will not be having a supper.. only evening with buffet for dh's family. After all.... I'm the one who always invites anyone... we are never invited by his sisters (except for the youngest when it is the bdays of her kids and she does a good job with that).

All I can think of for now.
 

Holiday_Mom

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Ellen, I'm so sorry to hear about your FIL and Christmas. I missed on HHP.

I love reading and learning from everyone here. Thanks for sharing.

Here's what worked for me:

  • Simplifying my expectations of Christmas
  • Listening to the children talk about likes/dislikes in the summer and fall and making notes for gift ideas
  • Buying stocking stuffers in early October and wrapping them the day of purchase
  • Labeling a plastic grocery bag with names of the children and placing the stocking stuffers in the correctly labeled bag
  • Wrapping gifts as they were bought and labeling the gifts with name tags
  • Storing wrapped gifts with name tags in bags/totes that matched the name on the wrapped gifts
  • Making cookie dough and/or cookies ahead of time and freezing them
  • Making a detailed spreadsheet to help keep track of service, work, and personal gifts to buy
  • Using a preparation timeline for getting ready for entertaining on Christmas Eve
  • Using a menu for party planning and buying those foods on sale when possible

This is the first year in ages that I didn't misplace a gift or stocking stuffers!

Here's what didn't work:
  • Thinking I had an ample supply of wrapping paper, I still ran out of wrapping paper
  • Procrastinated on writing out Christmas cards
  • Didn't buy enough stamps for cards and November/December bills
  • Misplaced bills among the Christmas cards and catalogs. I will add a list of bills to pay in Dec. to my preparation timeline so they are not forgotten or lost next year
  • Unexpectedly had a number of gifts to buy due to Dh's job change in November
 

Lolwlias

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Oct 14, 2007
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{{{{{Ellen}}}}} So sorry for all you've had to deal with recently.

Layaway really worked for me. I've not always utilized this wonderful service, but I think I will from now on!!!!
I bought stamps throughout the year for sending cards, but did not sit down to address cards as I should have. :(
I do need to get better at buying throughout the year. With little ones it isn't always so easy because they change their minds so much--but what can it hurt, really?
December flies by so quickly. On December 1st there is "plenty" of time, but the next thing you know it is Dec 21st & you are standing there dumb-founded wondering what happened!
 

sweetpumkinpye

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Laura, I completely agree. I think that the last 3 months of the year go quicker than the other 9. I am really going to push harder from September on this year.
 

DahliaDoll

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Oct 15, 2007
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The best thing this year was that with all the decluttering I had done during the year I had space to put away 'regular' stuff and bring out Christmas. Will continue working on that for 2016.
Decluttering is always a good thing. I find it helpful to use the Christmas boxes to store items that I want out of the way for the season. When Christmas mugs come out, our other mugs go back in the box, etc. Seems simple enough, but it took me years to figure that out for some reason.
 

Cindylouwho

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I have thoughts to put on here (and still pondering my "Word for 2016"). Also need the world to stop for a bit so I can settle in and read these posts. Will come back and catch up. In the meantime, Santa's Bag app for iPhone this past season: Thumbs up! It was great. Then right after Christmas I went into the app and made "Next Year" a Gift Recipient name -- I've been using that to capture my random thoughts for next year because I can get to it so quickly (and because it locks with a passcode).
 

FrostyShimmer

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Next year I want to focus more on the things we do together and less on the material things we are getting/giving. Even though we cut back this year, I still felt like the kids got way more presents than they needed. They were very happy with the first few they opened, but as things went on they were more like, "I want another! Where's another one for ME!" I shop a lot of clearances, so I don't spend that much, but there were a lot of things for each of them. I think next year I will try to have fewer presents each, even if they are a little more expensive. Also, this year all our relatives gave them toys, and they usually don't give them toys at all (I think because they knew it was a hard year for everyone) so they ended up with at least 20 toys each.

I want to let go more and let the kids do more, even if it isn't perfect. They made a gingerbread house from scratch, and while it was lopsided and kind of odd-looking, they were so proud of it and much more happy than when they'd made the one with me giving them specific instructions. I want to let them help more with decorating too - the house can look perfect when I'm an empty-nester living by myself, wishing they'd come home and mess things up a bit.
 

jampss

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Enjoying reading all the helpful do’s and don’t’s ...

Golly, I just didn’t send out cards and only got two anyway. Sorry to see that tradition go, as cards are so pretty ... but ...

LOL ... I found a gift for DS12 stashed. Gave it to him a day or two late!

Wrapping ... still don’t like doing it! But I did spread it out and that worked not leaving it to the last moment.

I would love to bake and freeze some cakes and cookies ahead.

Start crafts earlier.

Stick to budget!

Pick up stocking stuffer once a month.

I will check out the Santas Bag App ... need to find a good list application for iPhone
 

Miss JoDee

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FS I am an Instructional Assistant in a kindergarten classroom and last week the school social worker came in to talk to the students about feelings. She asked the students what makes them happy. 90% of the the students named an experience. I agree with you that it is the doing together that they remember. A local play or church cantata looking at Christmas lights while drinking hot cocoa, random acts of kindness done in secret etc.

As my children got older we sat and talked with them cutting the number of expected gits to three each. We still did stockings and we threw all out names in a bowl and drew names for a gift exchange.

When the kids were not giving thought to the gifts they were choosing for their name drawn we started putting the names of stores in a bowl and they had to purchase the gift at that store. It was very challenging one year when I had my husband and a candy store found in the mall... This too added to experiencing Christmas.

Our Christmas other than shopping and wrapping was put together in a week. I had everything planned meal, baking, decor etc. Everything got done but all the decor I had planned which I had already cutback from the previous year. I did notice disappointment in DD26 when she came home for a few days from St. Paul MN. Next year I will need to go back to having things done by December 1st.