I think as you get older, and especially when you have a family of your own, you have to put a bit more thought into Christmas and start the planning well in advance. Now we aren’t these people that start buying stuff for Christmas in January – far from it! But we do have certain things that we do that help us prepare for the festive period.
In this Post.....
Plan out where we’ll be and when
This might sound obvious, but because Mark and I both work we are bound to get different times off over Christmas. So it’s important to know what we both have, and that we book the holiday well in advance if we need it.
We also look at where we’ll be on Christmas eve, Christmas day, boxing day and new years eve. As Mark has such a big family, we have to plan how we’ll see everyone over the festive period. I’ve got another post coming up soon, all about our plans over the festive period. So keep your eyes peeled!
Write lists throughout the year
Although we don’t buy for people early on in the year, one habit I have is to keep a list on my phone of things I think Mark and Grayson would like or things that they mention. This is so when it comes to Christmas I have plenty of ideas for the 2 of them, especially Mark who is a December baby so birthday and Christmas are very close.
Buy food and drink earlier
Obviously when I say this, I mean stuff that can stay in your cupboards and not go off! We’ve bought Grayson some fruit shoots as a Christmas treat as we saw them on offer in Tesco the other week. We also buy crisps and dips and things that can be left in the cupboards until we hit Christmas.
Practice Christmas dinner
This is a Mark specific point, Mark is our resident Christmas cook. He is a fantastic cook, and the difference is he actually enjoys doing Christmas dinner. He only really tends to do this if he knows he’s cooking for other people, but he’ll practice cooking the meat and if he can cook anything and freeze it for Christmas he’ll do this as well which makes Christmas day much easier.
Sort through clothes and toys
Around November time, we go through Grayson’s clothes and toys and give anything he doesn’t use/need/want or fit into anymore to other children we know or to charity. Grayson is extremely lucky that he does have so many toys and books and clothes, but he doesn’t need them all especially with Christmas coming up so we get rid of everything we can! Depending on what Mark and I both ask for, we’ll sort through our own clothes and belongings.
These are the main ways we try to prepare for Christmas and so far they really work in helping us to be more organised for the festive period. What do you do to prepare for Christmas?