Twelve Weeks of a Simple Christmas: Week 5 Mission

This mission might feel a bit too early, but Week 12 You will appreciate that Week 5 You did this. Two weeks ago on Twelve Weeks of a Simple Christmas you focused on planning your gift list. You may have even started (or finished) shopping. This week we’re going to prepare to wrap or even begin wrapping those gifts as well as get non-family gifts “all wrapped up” (cheesy pun totally intended as always).

First, my drama:

We always wrap presents on Christmas Eve after the kids go to bed. It’s our old married couple tradition. It. takes. forever! If it weren’t for dippin’ into Santa’s cookies, I seriously think I would die! My husband wouldn’t die, because he falls alseep on the couch a third of the way into it.

I have long wanted to change this torturous tradition, but my husband says, “It’s tradition! Snore.” It’s also a tradition for me to be exhausted on Christmas morning and unable to fully enjoy the moment, because I’m running on four hours of sleep and I ain’t a college girl anymore. So a couple years back, I adjusted the tradition. My husband still wraps my presents on Christmas Eve and falls asleep on the couch, and I still dip into Santa’s cookies (sorry, good fella), but my share (and most of his third) of the wrapping gets done ahead of time. Otherwise…it takes forever and I almost die and Santa doesn’t get his cookies.

So…this week’s mission.

Here’s how to streamline the wrapping process so it doesn’t take forever or take over your home:

1. Gather all your wrapping supplies from previous years.
2. Add anything you still need to your shopping list–tape, ribbon, gift tags, tiny candy canes, whatevs–and pick them up next time you’re in the store.
3. Set up a wrapping station–find an unused table or counter, the top of the dryer, a guest bed, an ironing board, whatever you have. You can even stick everything in a low box and slide it under your bed to pull out when you have something to wrap.
4. When a present comes in, write down what it is and wrap it. Then hide it. Hide it good.
5. If you’re baking gifts this year, like cookies for The Simple Homemaker, get your packages ready. Check out some fun upcycle packaging ideas like these (but keep it simple) or these. Upcycle–I always think of a unicycle rider flipped upside down.

Obviously, this is an ongoing project as gifts come into the home. To get you started, here is this week’s two-part mission:

1. Complete steps one and two–totally set up your wrapping station or box. If you wrap the box, that makes it more fun.

2. Try to finalize and purchase non-family gifts this week–pastor, teachers, office gifts, mailman postal employees, white elephant gifts, party gifts, school exchanges, neighbor gifts, etc.

Might I recommend a few Stephen Bautista CDs? (That’s my hubby and his music is amazing–not being biased here, since I’m his worst critic.) They make excellent gifts and terrific outreach tools. If you get one for everyone on your non-family list, and they arrive next week, and you wrap them all right away, BAM, you’re finished, and that is totally awesome.

Accountability Time

I’m still working on my gift list, and I’m still trying to extract details from other people about where they’ll be for the holidays. Waiting, waiting, waiting…

The budget hasn’t reproduced like rabbits, so I’m proceeding with extreme caution in that area. My husband told the kids that they could have a puppy for Christmas if they didn’t get any other gifts from us apart from stockings. That would make my life easier…and then harder.

I need to read my book again for gift ideas.