Getting ready for the holiday season

I LOVE Christmas! It’s my most favourite holiday of the year!

Each year I promise myself that I will be more prepared than the previous year and I think I’ve finally done it! I’m not totally organised but I have done more than what I had done this time last year.

This is what I have done so far to get ready for the holiday season:

• I created my Christmas Notebook using the forms available at Organized Home. I keep a master gift list, stocking stuffer list, Christmas card list, ideas for Christmas crafts and anything else related to the holiday.
• I have been buying some gifts for extended family and friends throughout the year, mostly of eBay and keeping them in my Christmas tubs. I leave buying gifts for my kids last because they usually change their minds a few times about what they want.
• I start doing our Christmas cards around this time of year. I work out how many we have to do and divide that by the number of weeks I have and do that many each week so I’m not sitting for hours at a time trying to get all the cards done.
• I look for fun crafts and activities that the kids can do, including making our own advent calendar.
• I made the place cards for our Christmas breakfast table.
• I’ll also be getting out the plastic tubs that contain our decorations so I can see what I need to buy this year and what I need to replace. Ideally this should be done just before putting everything away after Christmas but I didn’t do it last year.

What, if anything, have you done already to get ready for the holiday season?