The Elf Blog

Christmas Countdown - 7 Months!

Christmas is seven months from today! I'm already excited! Remember: the purpose of the Christmas countdown is to help you prepare. If you follow the countdown, when Christmas Eve rolls around, you'll be relaxed and ready to celebrate.

Here are the things you should begin working on over the next few months:

• Keep updating your Christmas card list. (If you don't have one, make one.) Summer is a big time for moves and marriages, so it's helpful to keep the addresses current.

• If you plan to make gifts, now is a very good time to start. You can do a little at a time and still finish. It’s a great thing to do on a rainy day at the beach.

• If you are vacationing (or traveling for business) this summer, be on the lookout for charming and unusual gifts for those you love. I've bought some of my favorite gifts at little boutiques I've visited on my travels.

• Have a conversation with family about where you will celebrate the holidays. As soon as that is decided, make any travel arrangements needed. The earlier you book a plane flight, the better price you’ll get and the more choices you’ll have.

• Make a budget for the holidays. I tend to look at Halloween through New Year's. It should include all aspects of your celebration: gifts, travel, food, entertainment, decorations, cards and postage, etc. If you have not already started saving to cover these costs, start now. You should never go into debt to celebrate the holidays. Having a budget and saving throughout the year will allow you to keep control of your spending while prioritizing the things that mean the most to you.

Christmas Countdown -- 8 months

Christmas is 8 months from today! Here are some things you can do now to help you be better prepared in December.

Rememeber, our goal is that you have a low-stress December so that you are able to enjoy the holidays. Ideally, by Christmas Eve, you spend the day playing in the snow before coming inside to watch a Christmas movie while drinking hot cocoa and eating Christmas cookies.

•As you travel, think about picking up small unique gifts from local shops. I've bought some of my best presents at little boutiques I stopped by on my way to a meeting.

•If you like to make gifts, now is a great time to start thinking about what you'll make and to gather supplies. You can even begin your crafting.

•Spring is a time for graduations and weddings and moves. Make sure you update your Christmas card list.

•A rainy spring day is a great time to plow through your holiday recipe file, highlighting the keepers and discarding the ones you don't like. Youi can even spend some time looking for healthier versions of family favorites!

What else can you do now to prepare?

Craft Control

In the world of crafting, there’s a concept called STABLE – stash beyond life expectancy. Essentially, it means you’ve stockpiled more craft supplies than you could ever possibly use. This is a bad thing.

So, in the next month or so, gathering together all of your craft supplies and do an inventory. You may be surprised at what you find. If your stash exceeds your life expectancy (and no fair assuming you’lllive to be 163) If you have an excess of crafting supplies here are some hints for managing it:

• STOP BUYING SUPPLIES. NOW! No buying supplies until your current inventory is under control. The only exception is a limited amount of something necessary to complete a project. And don’t buy that until you reach the stopping point.

• Gather all the partially completed projects and make yourself a completion schedule.

• Organize your supplies so you know where everything is. When possible, judiciously substitute what you have for what you need. For example, you need a baby gift and you have material for a cross-stitched bib. Don’t go out and buy what you need to sew a bear.

• If there’s stuff you know you’ll never use, donate it. Places that might want it include schools, special education centers, assisted living facilities, and scouting troops.

A Long Weekend

For many people, this will be a three-day weekend. So let’s use it well.

When you get home tonight, there’s time for a Friday Tidy so the house will be in good order, no matter what you choose to do. Here are some suggestions:

• Invite some friends over to watch the playoffs on Saturday or Sunday. Refreshments don’t need to be fancy: pizza, salad, chips, veggoes and dip, brownies, and beverages.

• Spend one day cleaning one room thoroughly or running your errands and then just enjoy the other two.

• Build a fire, make some cocoa and cookies and catch up on your reading, letter writing, or movie watching.

• Start a new winter craft project.

• Plan your garden.

• Do the mending or the hand laundry that stacks up.

• Get together with friends.

• Begin gathering documentation to do your taxes.

• Bundle up and get outside for a walk, a run, or some skiing or sledding.

What will the Elf be doing?

Friday Tidy. Grocery shopping, finishing an editing project, writing, and putting the Christmas decorations back in the attic.

A Big Weekend

This is the last full weekend before Christmas so, for most people, it's the last large block of non-work time to prepare. Unfortunately, that means that stores (department, grocery,big-box, boutique, etc.) will be packed this weekend. Unless you can get to a store at an off hour (like grocery shopping at 6 a.m.), I recommend avoiding stores this weekend.

If you haven't finished your shopping yet, many online retailers are offering free shipping or shipping upgrades through midnight tonight. Give yourself a break and finish your shopping online.

Even better, use this weekend to make Christmas preparations at home:

• Finish your decorating. Wrap everything you have purchased.
• If you still have gifts to ship, pack them for shipment (but avoid the post office lines on Saturday!)
• Prepare cookie doughs that can be refrgerated or frozen as logs. Then you just slice and bake your homemade Christmas cookies.
• Finish your cards (if you haven't already!)
• Do a quick tidying and decluttering of the house so you are ready for guests.

And if you are finished? Sit back and enjoy the season.

As for me, I'll be hosting the Elf Extravaganza. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by!

Crafting Decision Time

Christmas Eve is ten days away. It’s time to make decisions about any crafts you have planned.

Do you really have time to complete the projects without pulling 10 all-nighters?

Do you have sufficient blocks of time set apart for crafting?

Do these blocks allow things to dry, set, etc.?

Do you have all the supplies at hand or are you counting on being able to find what you need?

Based on your answers to these questions, it’s time to fish or cut bait.

Christmas Countdown - (Less Than) 3 Weeks

It figures, I go away for a week and the blog gets a ton of visitors!

But better late than never.

Here’s your Christmas Countdown list for this week:

• Any gifts that need to be shipped have to go this week. If they are going outside the US, you're already pushing it.

• Finish up your cards and get them in the mail.

• Continue shopping. To avoid rush shipping charges or unexpected back orders, complete all online shopping.

• You might want to begin wrapping the presents you've bought.

• If you are hosting a party, confirm attendance and shop, cook, and bake.

• Decorations should be up this week (unless you keep to the German tradition of putting up the tree on Christmas Eve). You don’t have to do everything all at once. In fact, it can be very pleasant to do a little bit each day and slowly watch the house come alive with the spirit of Christmas.

• Decide what you will wear for your Christmas party, for Christmas Day, and for New Year's Eve. Drop off any necessary dry cleaning. Make necessary purchases. Even plan your accessories. It's not a bad idea to put the accessories in plastic bags and attach it to the clothing hanger with a clothespin (this hint is especially helpful if you have small children).

• Make final decisions on Christmas baking and on your major holiday meals so that you can begin purchasing the non-perishable ingredients.

Christmas Countdown - 6 Weeks

Six weeks from today is Christmas! (Deep breaths. It will be ok!)

From this point on, our preparations will intensify (with a bit of a break next week for Thanksgiving preparations and celebration.)

So here’s your task list for this week:

· If you are making gifts or decorations, keep working. Ideally, you will be finished by the end of November.

· On your master calendar for the season, schedule your major preparation tasks: parties, decorating, baking, wrapping, etc. Also, take the opportunity now to block out a few days to just relax at home with your loved ones, drinking cocoa and watching movies.

· Plan what you will do to decorate. If you need to purchase anything, you should do it now.

· If you haven’t already done so, start working on your cards. By the end of this month, you’ll want your cards to be purchased (duh) and addressed.

· Begin shopping. Any gift that needs to be shipped should be purchased by the end of the week. You do not want to pay shipping fees greater in value than the gift.

· Finalize any plans for entertaining during the holiday season – through New Year’s. If you are hosting, decide what the event will be, when it will be, who you will invite, and what you’ll need to prepare. If you want to go somewhere on New Year’s Eve, make reservations now.

· Decide what varieties of cookies you will bake. Make sure you have the proper pans, utensils, and ingredients, as well as an appropriate stock of parchment paper and storage containers.

· Check your stock of stamps, shipping materials, address labels, and wrapping supplies. Purchase anything you need. You do not want to be standing in line at the Post Office and have to go to the back of the line because your package doesn’t have the right tape.

I know this seems like a lot, bit much of it is just thinking through planning or taking little steps to accomplish tasks. Believe me, when you are not going insane the week of December 17^th, you’ll thank me.

Why Holiday Planning Scares Us: Part 3

Today I’ll look at the final major reason that I think folks are intimidated by celebrating the holidays.

Over the last few years, the number of “lifestyle” magazines, books, and television shows has grown exponentially. There are entire channels dedicated to home improvement, cooking, and lifestyle. Craft books are a growth genre in the publishing world.

While these are excellent resources (I learn a lot from them myself), they do create unrealistic expectations.

People feel like they’ve failed because they don’t have a perfectly set table with the perfect meal in the perfect house with the perfect family. Why bother putting thought into a gift if you don’t have time to handcraft your wrapping paper and gift tags? Why bother hosting a party if you don’t have matching serving trays for the hors d’ouevres? Why bake Christmas cookies if you don’t hand paint the frosting in perfectly rendered forms?

As much as I love watching these shows, I’ll be honest: There are less real than Kim Kardashian’s wedding! These shows (and the books and magazines) have large staffs, including specialists in each area (décor, cooking, various crafts, etc.). No one person is an expert in all these areas.

They also have far larger budgets than real people are ever likely to have. Who among us can afford to purchase a dozen turkeys so that only the prettiest is photographed for the magaizine cover? (And who would tolerate that waste even if we could afford it?)

Holding ourselves to unrealistic standards is the surest recipe for disappointment and it fuels the desire to avoid holiday preparations.

So here are your marching orders: Celebrate with the people you love. Do your best with what you have (both skills and goods). Remember, the point is to enjoy spending time with people – not to get ratings or newsstand sales. In truth, the mistakes and disasters will be the stories the family recounts for generations. Just celebrate – and let the chips (or the decorations) fall where they may.

Christmas Countdown - 7 Weeks

Christmas Eve is seven weeks from today! That means it's time to increase the intensity of our preparations:

• Start addressing and writing your Christmas cards. If you do a few each day, it will be a far easier and more pleasant task.
• Make a list of all the people you need to purchase gifts for and note the gifts you have already bought.
• Begin placing online orders for gifts in case there's a back order situation.
• If you need to ship gifts, buy them as soon as possible.  You'll want to leave plenty of time for shipping.  Why pay premium prices for overnight shipping because you didn't plan ahead?
• If you plan to craft any gifts, you need to allot significant time for the crafting.  You don't want to be hot gluing at 2 am on Christmas Eve.
• Take stock of your wrapping, lights, and other decorations so you'll know what you need to purchase.