These ornaments are mostly gone – they got destroyed but were replaced by many loving friends (well, we didn’t put the friends on the tree, they sent us ornaments).
OK, I know, we just jumped into fall and I’m talking about Christmas already. But the REALLY organized gals were talking about Christmas long before the 100 day countdown. I would so love to be one of those Olga Organized people!!! You know, those women who have their sock drawer color coded and their spices alphabetized. I, personally, am happy when the spices don’t fall on my head (yeah, I’m short) when I open the door and IF I can find socks (if they are the same color, whatever the style, that’s an added bonus)!
One year (several years ago) I started following Organized Christmas in October. Now, granted, I started way late, but it was a tremendous help in getting my home cleaned, messes fixed and grocery ready for the holidays. That was the EASIEST Christmas season I ever had.
The next year I was certain starting in September would make things even better — and I forgot all about it until December 21, when I was scrambling with baking and still had packages to send 1000 miles away!
Here we are, numerous years later and I actually DID think about this yesterday! WHOO HOO…I’m ahead of the game (well, of MY game).
Since I’m actually starting in October, I wanted to look at the September list to see what I’m NOT doing to get ready. And it wasn’t too bad.
- PLANNING & PAPERWORK WEEK: well, since I am planning to plan, this IS the planning part! on the paperwork side, this is an ongoing/never-ending battle so thinking I could have taken care of it the 1st week of September would have given me a false sense of security anyway
- CALENDAR & CREATIVITY WEEK: again with the calendar! How much planning can a person actually DO? And since I am creatively challenged and HAVE no crafts area, I’m good to go!
- ME & MINE WEEK: this is the week to clean and pretty-up my bedroom…well, with 135 year old plaster falling off parts of the walls and oilcloth flooring from the 1930s and TONS of books, pretty just AIN’T gonna happen! But I’ll clean under the bed just for good measure!
- CLOSE TO HOME WEEK: this is getting the children’s bedrooms cleaned. HOORAY!! The boys worked on their room this week and it should be good for about 3 days.
- HOUSE ROOM WEEK: prettying up the guest room. GUEST ROOM!?! We barely have room for US! When we have guests, we kick our daughter out of her bed (it as a double bed) or we give up ours — all set.
- WARDROBE WEEK: now this one MADE ME LAUGH!! Anyone who knows me knows I have 1 Sunday dress for summer and 1 for winter. I have a daily ‘work dress’ and another for winter. Then I have 1 skirt and a few tops for ‘going out’. Yep, my wardrobe is all set!!
Well, look at that!!! I’ve done all my organization into the middle of October already!! So I guess I never was that far behind the other year. But something tells me that MY level of organization and Olga’s level are two very different things!
My children getting excited for Christmas!
Still, I’m feeling less stressed and that’s what it’s all about. So come on and follow me in my wacky and challenged journey to getting ready for the holiday season. I’ll be talking about this once a week (but I won’t set a day…that would be waay too organized!)
Since we are doing some planning, now is a GREAT time to purchase my e-book
“Cut It Out! How I Feed My Family of 10 for $500 a Month Without Coupons“.
Blogs I might be linking to:
Menu Planning Monday, On The Menu Monday, Marital Oneness, The Better Mom, Multitudes on Monday, Hear it On Sunday, Sharing His Bounty, What Joy Is Mine, Playdates at the Well, Back to School Monday, Domestically Divine Tuesdays, Time Warp Wife, Funky Planet Frequent Flier Club, Encourage One Another, Living Well Wednesdays, Legacy Leaver Thursday, What’s Up Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Thought Provoking Thursday, Hearts 4 Home, Thankful Thursday, Raising Mighty Arrows Thursdays, First Day of My Life , Thankful Thursdays, Thankful, Thankful Thursday Brown-eyed Bell(e), Big Family Fridays, Faith Filled Fridays, Home Focused Friday, Feasting In Fellowship Friday, Homemaking Link-up Week-end
Hi Kate! Thanks for stopping by my blog today. I had no idea what I’d find when I hopped over here — 90 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS?? Have mercy, I’m going to need to follow you in October so I can get my act together!
Susan, my posts will most like be a How To on what NOT to do!! ;-D
Oh, I’m going to check out that link… I can use any organizational help I can find! Thanks for linking up today! Blessings!
Katharine, you’ll find a PLETHORA of fun and helpful stuff there!
Organized and Christmas in the same sentence. Hmmmm,,, the thought has merit~
LOL!! Thanks for the chuckle, Lani!! And for stopping by.
WOW! Just 90 days, huh? Just this evening the hubby and I were discussing the drastic cut backs we will be making on this years festivities. Generally speaking, we do not “do” other gift giving occasions throughout the year. We don;t give gifts for birthdays other than $1 for each year they are. YEARS ago we had parties for them when we lived where there were many friends and it was more of families getting together. We stopped when we realized how costly that was going to get with 4 kids :0). We don’t get anniversary or grown up birthday gifts either so Christmas we tend to get the kids 4 gifts according to a poem I heard YEARS ago:
Something you want
Something you need
Something to wear
Something to read
Keeps it to 4 gifts and stocking stuffers. We will still use the poem BUT we are shooting for 1/3 of our usual budget!
We have a goal to be debt free in by the end of 2013! Except our low monthly home refinance…we have 13 years left on that :0).
So, I am looking forward to all the wonderful blog friends I have made and the sure to be thrifty holiday ideas!
I hear ya!! We’ve never done gifts for birthdays, anniversaries either. And, until my parents died, we never did Christmas gifts either — we let the grandparents do that. My siblings and I pick names so my children still get a few gifts from one of my siblings ($25 limit) and we have since started setting $$ aside each year to get a few small gifts ($24 total limit) for each child. But we are rethinking some of that this year in the hopes of thinking more about blessing those in need than in getting ourselves.