It is hard to believe that Christmas is only a month away and this is the first Christmas planning post I have written on the blog for 2019. Pretty much every year before this I have published a 10 week guide to Christmas planning.
I wrote those series of posts, not only to help readers get organised for Christmas but it was a brilliant way to keep me on track and accountable.
This year things have been a little different. I have been working some contract work and over the last month I have also picked up a couple of freelancing jobs which were excellent opportunities. This combined with a child finishing year 12, children about to turn 21 and 16 and have celebrations, I haven’t been able to prioritise this and create my 10 week series.
But last weekend it reached the point where I started to have an internal freak out about my lack of planning. I find being unplanned stressful and I know that when I feel like this it is worth spending a short amount of time to fix the problem.
Creating a basic, pared back plan
So I sat down at the computer, brought up this master planning list of Christmas planning activities and pared it back to the absolute essentials for me to get things started and organised. Some years I can dedicate more time than others to Christmas festivities, so I needed to be realistic about what time I had available this year.
I wanted the list to include as many preparation and planning tasks as I could for the next two weeks, knowing that I finish up my contract work in a couple of weeks and will have more time to go in store shopping and do cooking etc at home.
I have included my pared back Christmas planning list below, in case you are currently feeling a little overwhelmed by lack of planning at this moment.
| Task | Resource | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Choose a theme for Christmas | Christmas theme options |
| 2 | Update or create Christmas budget | Christmas budget template |
| 3 | Create a Christmas present ideas list your familiy, extended family, friends, teachers, neighbours | Christmas ideas spreadsheet |
| 4 | Schedule all Christmas festivities on/in your calendar | How to use Google Calendar for the family |
| 5 | If hosting Christmas create a Christmas menu plan | Christmas menu plan ideas |
| 6 | Create a work plan for the month out to Christmas | Christmas lunch prep you can do ahead |
| 7 | Conduct Christmas supplies audit, then think about what else you can use for wrapping, tags etc | Create a Christmas wrapping caddy Upcylced Christmas tags |
And in case you are interested here are some of the decisions and actions I have made over the last few days:
| Task | Resource | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Choose a theme for Christmas | Decided on kraft and teal colour theme with dots. |
| 2 | Update or create Christmas budget | Budget is the same as last year. |
| 3 | Create a Christmas present ideas list your familiy, extended family, friends, teachers, neighbours | My younger sister had already started our family spreadsheet and I already had quite a few ideas of my own which I added to the various lists. I actually then went on to make online purchases for all my nieces and nephews! We also continued on with the tradition of the kids buying each other books for Christmas and we purchased those online too. |
| 4 | Schedule all Christmas festivities on/in your calendar | I already had my dates in my Google Calendar, but I also wrote them all on the wall calendar for the kids to see. |
| 5 | If hosting Christmas create a Christmas menu plan | We are not hosting this year, but we will have a Christmas catch up with family before we leave for our Christmas away, so I have started organising this. I have also started thinking about Christmas lunch as well when we are away and what I can do to help. |
| 6 | Create a work plan for the month out to Christmas | I have started this, so had tasks outlined for this week and next week. On the weekend, I will scope this out further. |
| 7 | Conduct Christmas supplies audit, then think about what else you can use for wrapping, tags etc | We have run down our Christmas wrapping supplies over the last couple of years, so with my theme chosen I have purchased what I will use this year. |
Just making progress, albeit small has made me feel so much better. I know what I need to do for the next week to keep things ticking along and so I don’t end up with a huge workload in the last week before Christmas.
If you haven’t made a start yet with your Christmas planning, I can highly recommend going through this process – you will feel relieved once you have!