Category: Featured

If you’ve been following along on our Twelve Weeks of a Simple Christmas missions, you are almost finished with buying, wrapping, and sending gifts; you’ve got a great start on cards or you’re finished; you’ve got the meal planned and many of the non-perishables tucked away; you’ve got the month scheduled so as to enjoy your favorite activities without being overbooked; and you even have some cookie dough in the freezer.

If not, you are right where I am. I don’t always practice what I preach…but I should listen to myself more. Especially about the cookies. (Eat the cookies, Self. Eat them all.) Hmmm…maybe not.

First, let’s address today’s mission. Tomorrow I’ll share an alternative schedule for those who are starting to freak out because it’s December and you still have pumpkins out. ‘Kay? ‘Kay.

This week’s mission for people more organized than I am has to do mostly with laundry. Woo hoo! Since we don’t have a machine in our rig (you remember we are full-time RVers, right?), laundry means laundromats. Some of them are pretty skanky, but when we find a nice one, it’s like a party in the laundry room! We are simple folk.

I digress. What’s new?

This week, make sure everyone’s church clothes are clean and ready to go for Christmas programs, fancy dinners, and church services. This might mean mending, letting down seams, or shopping. It might also mean polishing shoes.

Personally, we’re the thrift store, hand-me-down, only-own-what-you-truly-need type of people that make serious shoppers shake their heads. If you’re like us and can’t or won’t spend money on new outfits every year, add a little merry and bright to an old dress by purchasing or passing down a fancy hair doo-dad. My six girls are all getting a hair clip (because I’m a girl and I get it) and new tights or nylons (because I’m freezing my toes off in Wisconsin this month and so are they).

After every event, spot clean the clothes and hang them back up. Please don’t buy a new dress for yourself or your kids for every single function. Please don’t. Just please don’t. Think of her future husband! I’m glad I got that off my chest.

Next, if you’re having guests, wash your sheets and linens and set some aside so they’re clean for when your guests arrive and you don’t have to hustle and bustle to get that done when what you really want to be doing is eating the secret cookie stash sitting and visiting.

Still not done with the laundry!

Do you participate in the Christmas Eve PJs tradition? This is year 15 for us. I used to make PJs for my kids every year. Then I bought coordinating outfits. Now I get them each something they’ll like, even if it doesn’t match everyone else’s. Sniff sniff.

Wash those PJs so nobody wakes up with a Christmas morning rash! Then wrap them and stash them away. (I only wash them for my littles, not my middles and bigs, because I’m never positive there won’t be a return on the bigger sizes. There never has been, but…well…it’s what I do.)

Still not done with the laundry!

Get caught up on your laundry this week and stay that way. You don’t want to be crashing and burning Christmas week because you stayed up too late folding undies, do you? If you crash and burn, you want it to be from a self-induced chocolate cookie overload, right?

That’s it for the laundry. Whew! I feel so clean and fresh.

Now then, a few more details–keep going on the cookies if you’re into that. If you’re not…who are you? Also, if you haven’t started making those gifts yet, it may well be time to reconsider your gift list. And finally, deck those halls! We talked about decorations back in week X, so this is just a friendly reminder to actually do it and then pack the boxes away so they’re not cluttering up your Christmas. Have I mentioned how clutter makes me feel–can’t…breathe…gasp…gasp…gasp. It makes me tense.

Accountability Time

I’m so far behind that if this were a race I’d have been lapped by next Christmas…but that’s okay. I’m not stressing about it. If you’re behind also, you’ll appreciate tomorrow’s Festive Minute Mission–It’s technically Last Minute Mission, but the phrase “last minute” makes me get all stressy, while “festive minute” makes me get all cheery. Simple mind–simple mind game–it works for me.

This week is the official launch of the Christmas season. If you’ve been following the Twelve Weeks of a Simple Christmas missions, you’re almost ready and can skate through the month with peace! If you are behind (like me), just jump in where you are. No procrastinating, no yelling at your kids, no blaming your hubby–just jump in joyfully and enjoy the season.

This week’s mission is a continuation of what you’ve already begun.

1. Finish your Christmas shopping. If you can get it all taken care of by December 1, have a candy cane! If you can’t, have one anyway. If you’re making gifts, that have to wait until the last minute, double check that you have everything you need (including time).

2. Wrap all remaining gifts. I wrap everything individually, including stocking stuffers–it makes Christmas morning last longer and the kids feels like they’re getting more presents than the bank account actually allows for.

3. Deliver teacher, office, mailman, newsboy, and pastor gifts (unless there are specific times, such as an office or classroom party, when gifts are exchanged.) Ship gifts that need to go to family far away. (Remember, the post office does pick-ups.) Hide the rest. Wink.

It’s all about giving this week.

See all the Simple Christmas missions here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Accountability Time

Let’s not go there. Wink wink. You know that comment at the beginning about not stressing out about being “behind?” That was for me.

Now is the perfect time to take a look at my ebook, From Frazzled to Festive: Finding Joy and Meaning in a Simple Christmas. It will help you with the practical side of Christmas as well as keep things in perspective. As one reader said, “It’s a guide for life–not just Christmas.”

We are on week eight of Twelve Weeks of a Simple Christmas. It’s never too late to jump in!

This week is simple. It’s about cookies and cards.

If you’re sending Christmas cards, here’s what you do:

EITHER

Gather all the Christmas cards leftover from years past–the packages that come with 20 but you only use 17, the freebies in the mail, that one card you had to buy but never sent. Gather them all in one place.

OR

Grab the cards you ordered last week.

THEN

Put them in a pretty basket or an ugly Walmart bag–whatever! Add your address book (unless that’s your cell phone), stamps, and some pens…because you will lose a couple.

NOW

Address a few each day or night. Of course, you can’t mail them until after Thanksgiving–it’s tradition! I always envied whoever was organized enough to have sent the first card that arrived in our mailbox every year. Maybe this year that will be you!

FINALLY

Eat a cookie.

Try to get them all out by December 11—two weeks before Christmas.

If you don’t do cards, you can skip to here. Try to get another batch of cookie dough in the freezer before all the Christmas hullabaloo starts next weekend, or just focus on Thanksgiving baking.

Accountability Time

Wait. What?

How are you doing?

This week’s Twelve Weeks of a Simple Christmas mission revolves entirely around cards. If you don’t do cards, you’re finished. Congratulations!

This is short and sweet…for once.

If you haven’t yet, take your family photo. Consider taking it while everyone is together over Thanksgiving weekend and can peek at digitals to decide on a favorite.

Regarding cards, there should be some incredible online sales over the next couple of days, so keep your eyes open.

That’s that. Say cheese and get moving!

(Since this week’s mission was so quick, what do you say to whipping up a batch of Christmas cookie dough and popping it in the freezer? I say that’s just brilliant. Cookies…brilliant.)

Accountability Time

Let’s talk turkey…or stockings. I am still perfecting my gift list, haven’t bought wrapping paper, and didn’t do anything with my decorations. That said, my decorations were put back very wisely last time, and I only have a tiny bit, since we only have a tiny trailer.

You?

By now the stores are bursting with Christmasy goodness. While this might offend your not-until-after-Thanksgiving sensibilities, it does assist with this week’s mission. Week 6 of Twelve Weeks of a Simple Christmas is all about decorating–that doesn’t mean you have to decorate this week. Heaven knows my husband would keel over dead if I decorated before Thanksgiving weekend. He is barely surviving the Christmas music my kids turn on every time they think he’s out of the trailer or asleep. My man. Grin.

Back to topic–this week’s mission is decorating according to your family’s traditions. If you (like us) are a Thanksgiving weekend decorator, that’s great! If you decorate now, fab! If you decorate on Christmas Eve, that’s fine, too, if it suits your family. Your decorating day(s) should already be on your Christmas calendar.

What you’re really doing this week is getting your decorations ready so the process is simple and fun.

Ideally, you wrote down or took care of any issues after last year’s Christmas, but just in case you didn’t…wink:

A Quick Christmas Decor Checklist:

• Where and when are you cutting your tree? Give a quick call for hours of operation or go out to your back 40 and mark your favorite tree now before it gets coooooolder.
• Is your fake tree good or needing replacement? Replace before decorating day.
• Do your tree lights work? Replace if they’re deader than Jacob Marley.
• How are your outdoor decorations? Do you even want to do outdoor decorations? If you are expanding the collection every year to go for a National Lampoon’s look, add to your stock. (Personally, I’m a red ribbon and cedar bough girl, myself.)
• Do you hang edible decorations on an outdoor tree for all God’s critters? If so, have the supplies on hand (and enough to continue throughout the winter so the critters don’t start depending on the food and then have nothing).
• Are your nativity sets in need of repair?
• Do you string popcorn and cranberries? If so, buy them…and string…and a needle if you don’t have one. Do you hang cookies on the tree? Buy the ingredients. Do you need tinsel? Stock up.
• Do you add an ornament or another collector’s item every year? Get going on this.
• While you’re at it, stock up on cocoa and mallows or apple cider and cinnamon sticks to make your decorating day extra fun.
• Are your surfaces decluttered and clean so you can decorate instead of stash and dash on decorating day? Please gradually declutter as you prepare for Christmas so you can enjoy the holiday instead of stash stuff–ugh, stuff.
• While you wait to decorate for Christmas, get your autumnal or Thanksgiving decorations out, particularly if you are hosting the meal.

When the day comes, decorate! It will be simple and fun since you’re so ultra-prepared.

I know some Christians have an issue with decorating. The Young family’s Christ-Centered Christmas talks about how decorating can be Christ-pleasing.

Accountability Time

Lasts week’s wrapping supplies mission was…well…let’s just say I shopped for wrapping paper, choked on a lung at the price, and didn’t buy it. “Well begun is half done,” says good ol’ Mary Poppins. (By the way, that book is nothing like the movie. Just thought you ought to know.) I don’t really think that’s well begun at all, do you? Boo, me. I did stock up on tape, however. That deserves an extra marshmallow in my cocoa.

For all the Christmas missions so far, click here. For more help in simplifying your holidays, read my book.

How are you doing on your Christmas missions?

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.