Christmas Countdown Begins!

Woohoo! Sunday kicked off the Christmas Countdown over at Organized Christmas and I for one am glad it's here. I came to a point where I didn't know what to do next. This week were getting organized and most of the suggestions for this week I'm proud to say were done weeks/months ago.

Every day were supposed to spend at least 15 minutes getting organized. I have spent most of the year doing this. (LOL) I turned my computer station into Holiday Central. There I have my notebook planner, computer, wrapping supplies, and other essential items needed. Above my computer station I posted a copy my my holiday calendar as a reminder of what I will be doing over the next two months. I have scheduled in parties, shopping trips, family activities, cooking, cleaning, decorating, etc.

Other things we are doing this week:

• Put together a gift list...mine's has been done since January.
• Create a Christmas card list. This year I will have lots of cards to send out due to members at MHH joining in the Christmas Card Exchange. I think we're near 40 members. This is going to be so much fun and I already reserved a place for everyone's card.
• Plan/schedule pre-holiday home improvement projects. The only improvements I need are to have the ceiling in my living room painted and new blinds for the bedroom windows. I will speak to management at my apartment next week to get these scheduled.
• Start planning now if you will be traveling over the holidays (If not done already). I never travel out of town during the holidays. I love to be home during this time and lucky for me most of my family lives nearby (anywhere from 5 to 35-40 minutes away). My brother being the farthest as he and his family just moved into their brand new house in Pennsylvania (Just over Maryland State line) in August.
  
• Make arrangements for overnight guests. As I've said everyone lives nearby so I don't have overnight guests. Oh, just remembered I do have one cousin who spends the night with me. She and her son always spend the night at my house Christmas Eve and then on Christmas Day she spends the day with her father's side of the family. I need to call her today.
• Make appointment for photo sessions. I sent out photo cards of me to family last year. This year I'm going to print photo cards of my nieces and nephews, have each one sign the cards and send them to family members. I just thought of this idea (LOL).
• And finally, schedule carpet cleaning. It's suggested that you make appointments now as cleaning company's schedules get very busy this time of the year. I do this myself along with cleaning my living and dining room chairs.

Later this week I will do the family holiday values and home spruce-up exercises. The spruce-up should be short and sweet as I've just finished giving my apartment a thorough deep cleaning. Once Thanksgiving is over I just take down the fall decor - making way to start putting up Christmas decor. I love doing the family values exercise. That wasn't always the case. The first time I did the exercise, it seemed very hard to do. It took me days of thinking about earlier Christmases and what was great about them and what was not so great about them because I had nothing documented to fall back on for inspiration. That's why I'm so glad I found CEO Organized Christmas. Now each year I can look over exercises from the last 4 or 5 years and see how my holidays are a little more organized and most importantly how I am able to actually enjoy them and not feel overwhelmed or stressed. Now I know what recipes were a success or failure, if my family enjoyed themselves at the annual Christmas Eve family dinner...if they liked their gifts, did I stick to my budget, etc.

I'll post the results to the exercises later this week.