3 Ways to Make Life Easier this Christmas
To all the moms out there, some years Christmas is the sweetest season of them all and other years, well, let’s just say Christmas can feel like a lot of extra tasks piled on top of an already full schedule. From Christmas shopping, decorating, and wrapping; to cookie baking, packaging, and delivering; on top of school parties, recitals, and programs. Oh yes, and hiding your Elf in unique and creative poses (super fun until day 17); whipping up pancakes, cocoa, and moose munch; planning table décor and dinner menus; scrubbing down bathrooms before guests arrive…the list is long.
As moms, we set the temperature for our homes. Our tone of voice and attitude can either add to the Merriment of the season or diminish it. So finding ways to simplify and streamline the holiday season, well, it matters. Today, I’m sharing 3 Ways to Make Life Easier this Christmas in hopes that maybe one of these will lighten your load as well.
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1 | Wrap as You Buy
I’m not sure what took me so long to start, but this is the first year that I have been wrapping gifts as I buy them instead of saving them all for the end! What I love about this strategy is that I am a terrible gift hider. My kids will pretty much always find something that I’ve hidden, simply because I try to store all the gifts in one location so I don’t lose track of where things are. As the month proceeds, I get sloppy and hide things under blankets or tucked in my closet unwrapped and little boys will always find them. They have laser eyes for all things Christmas. So this year, I am wrapping as I buy. I can still hide the wrapped packages so they don’t see them, but at least if they do stumble on something, they won’t know what it is!
A few tips to make this work:
- Keep a detailed list of what you bought on your phone or somewhere your kids won’t check so that you don’t forget what you wrapped up in those packages (ask me how I know. ;)) Include prices by each item with a running total of how much you are spending on each child so you don’t over (or under) buy.
- Add a post-it note to any gifts that need to be opened in a certain order (for instance, if your kids are getting a new gaming system, you might want them to open the system before the new game or the controller.) So make a note on the gift to open those items last.
- Turn off all shipping notifications from Target, Amazon, Walmart, or wherever you shop, on your devices (iPad, iPhone, etc…). Leaving notifications on is a perfect way to spoil the surprise (yep, learned the hard way).
2 | Outsource Dinner
This year, I am choosing to simplify the meal planning, shopping, and cooking for the month of December. I know, Merry Christmas to me!
We decided to give Hello Fresh a try this month and our first meal kit arrives tomorrow…I’m a tad excited. Not only because I don’t have to meal plan or shop for all the dinner things this week (!), but also because I plan on teaching my kids how to cook using these meal kits. I retract that, I am going to let Hello Fresh teach my children how to cook. There are step-by-step instructions with pictures, so I’m going to be like “Here you go children!” and pass over meal duty. And by children, I mean my 11- and 14-year-old. Don’t worry, I’m not handing my 8-year-old a knife unsupervised, though I’ll probably pick a meal this month to make with him too because he LOVES to cook and bake (even more than my older two).
Even if you just sign up for the month of December, it’s a great way to take one potential stressor off your plate during the busiest month of the year.
I chose 4 meals for 4 people and then I’ll add veggies or whatnot to fill out the meal, but I know families of 4 who have been just fine with 3 meals for 2 people and then adding veggies or a big salad to stretch the meal plan, so there are lots of cost-effective ways to make these plans work. The other days we’ll do easy, healthy staples like taco salad, salmon and sweet potatoes, etc…
I love that you get to select your meals, so you can choose from a wide variety of tasty options to find meals your family will love and can skip any that you know they wouldn’t eat. This week we are trying the Bahn Mi-Style Meatball Bowls.
One of my girlfriends uses Hello Fresh regularly and when I asked how it affects her families’ monthly budget, she told me it really doesn’t. You don’t have any jars of Hoisin sauce that never get used or kale you forgot was in the produce drawer and there’s no need for big bottles of fancy ingredients you won’t use up, so you cut way down on waste.
Give it a try and take something off your plate this December!
3 | Calendarize Your Advent Activities
It’s easy to start stressing as the holiday season approaches when you don’t know what you are doing or when, or what you need that you might not have. That’s a lot of unknowns. Don’t keep your ideas floating around in your head or even just on a list. Our best intentions are lost without a little forethought and planning, but it can be easy to make your Christmas priorities happen by simply adding them to the calendar!
Grab your calendar and take inventory of the month. It’s time to make decisions, just know you can always rearrange things as needed! Look at your list and consider where each activity fits best into the month. For instance, we have a basketball tournament one weekend in December, so that Saturday night is going to be a great night for a relaxed evening in watching The Grinch and enjoying an easy Christmas Charcuterie dinner, but probably not the night to hit up the Christmas Lighting 40 minutes away.
What advent book are you reading each night?
Write your start date down on the day you think it works best…”Start Day 1 of Advent book.”
Does your city have a living nativity you want to go see? When and where? Do you need to reserve tickets?
Mark it down.
When will everyone be in the mood to decorate gingerbread houses? Will that be a cousin activity that you wait for Christmas Break or the perfect kick-off to December? Pencil it in.
When will you give the kids their Christmas jammies?
Make a note.
Nothing is locked in, but at least you have a framework for the month. You can always bump an activity back a night or cancel it altogether, but it’s way easier to create a tentative plan to work from than to have no plan at all. Looking ahead will also give you time to order tickets, ask friends, gather supplies, and make a note of what to be ready for.
I hope these ideas help you simplify the Christmas season so that you can soak up all the festivity right along with your family.
If you haven’t read Preparing for the Advent Season, I’ll be sharing part 2 later this week, as well as a Christmas Bucket List Printable with some of our favorite Christmas activities and traditions, so check back!
Or if you are needing some ideas for ways to celebrate the season with girlfriends, read here!