Anyone want to take part in a 'Lessons Identified' for next year?

[everydayaschoolday]

I'll happily go first:

1. No need for small pressies in advent calendar; kids only wanted the small piece of chocolate!

1. You cut back this year a bit and nobody noticed; cut back a bit more again next year.

1. More than 2 bottles of shloer is required .

1. All the material/clothing items (character bath towels, slippers, dressing gowns etc) from the elves on Christmas Eve worked well as our adapted Christmas Eve hamper.

1. Prep the veg and set the table on Christmas eve next year.

1. Hide the chocolate brioche from DH otherwise it'll be gone before christmas morning breakfast .

1. Fewer, well chosen items were highly appreciated this year. The no tat challenge was a success.

Remember where I hide things! Have been putting the decorations away today and have found 7 presents I bought ahead and hid.

Plan weekends in the run up to Christmas better, remembering to plan for DS2 and my birthdays.

Whatever I cook my in laws will eat all of it. We had 17 for Christmas Eve, 10 adults, 2 older DC and 5 under 5's. I baked 2 large apple cakes, 32 brownies and 32 blondies and there was nothing left over
The ham was supposed to serve 32 and there was only a bit left because I put it away.

Think about a beer and wine fridge.

Buy more sparkling Rose, and more baileys.

Mulled cider is lovely, makes the house smell nice and is cheap to make.

Get Christmas cards out earlier, I say this every year!

Sort advent calendars out early.

Notso I now have a document on my laptop where I list things I have bought in advance, who for and where I am hiding them. Was handy this year when the mid December panic descended.

Having tried M&S faux Baileys I will be getting more next year. The coffee

Argh! - phone playing up - the toffee and pecan flavour one was lovely!

-Insist on having a day in between all the Christmas guests leaving and going away for New Year. Otherwise you come back to not only a fortnight's worth of laundry and a house in total chaos but also 4 extra beds to change

-Try a bit harder with nephews' presents because they will have tried hard for you

-Don't steam clean while drunk

I've put away the decorations in labelled boxes for ease next year and I've put addresses for christmas cards in my Kindle, as i couldn't find my address book again this year.

For next year;

Save more cash, i have vouchers to cover my present shopping, but always forget how much cash you need.

Buy the good ameretto.

Write cards early.

Do a stocking for DH again.

Buy more biscuits for cheese.

Don't go on holiday the week before Christmas, it was nice but it messed up the usual run up, there were a few things we didn't manage to do.

The fairly cheap wreath from Morrison's lasted really well and looked lovely.

Another one from today, while putting the tree up together is a lovely family thing to do, taking it down lead to a meltdown today from the 4 year old, next year do it when dcs are in bed.

Great idea for a thread. I shall add to my watch list and hope it's still here in Dec!
My lessons are:

Wrap the stocking presents as I buy them. It was poo this year when they tipped their stockings out and immediately saw everything they had. Ditto all other presents.

For each xmas week birthday (2 dds born at xmas), keep a box of special birthday stuff like badge, balloons, banners etc so that they feel special and not caught up in xmas.

Don't bother doing a buffet on Christmas day eve - everyone's stuffed.

Don't do personalised crackers. It's extra work and no-one cares.

Don't bother putting anything other than sweets in the advent calendars

Remember to buy for ex MIL

10 presents per child max!

Don't overspend. Set a budget and stick to it (strokes chinny beard)

Oh and get all the xmas food from naice places. Better to have 6 naice mince pies than 50 so so ones (glares at dh)

YY to only sweets/choc in the advent calendar. The kids took no interest in finger puppets/squinkies etc and just left me with 2 x 24 pieces of tat.

Fewer, but better, presents. I like the 10 presents max per child.

No-tat stockings is this years challenge. Hair clips, lip salve, character socks etc all fine, but no random, useless, plastic rubbish.

The absence of selection boxes worked fine. Buy christmas-style sweets again this year and bulk out stocking with them. and yes, 5 was enough as MIL went daft with sweets….

Loving this thread!

Keep track of what has been bought for whom. I have lots of toddlers to buy for and ended up frantically wrapping almost at random after a late August Amazon shop.

Get my mum to host for as long as she's happy to. She enjoys it, I am happy to help on the day, and it means I don't have to clean house from top to bottom on advance of the royal visit.

Do that thing a very organised friend of mine tells me she does: write bulk of Xmas cards (and leave unsealed) at the August bank holiday .

Set reminders/write on calendar things like craft day for DS card making, mincemeat, filling freezer etc. got out my "make Xmas easy" book on dec 24 for nye canapé ideas to find it's planner starts in October!

My Xmas card list is in excel, it started as our wedding invitation list too many years ago. I used to mail merge to print labels until I got bored trying to get the labels to align properly. I now usually write them but it also means I have a handy list for invitations etc.

Don't overbuy for DDs stocking (again!)

Hide the advent calendar chocs better, yet again she raided the stash!

I managed to keep food buying under tighter rein which helped very little thrown out when we left the cottage coming home. I also bought very little alcohol for Christmas (restocked wine in sales beforehand, for use in next few months though), and even though the car was too full to bring G&T or chocolate liqueur, we didn't miss them.

I only bought 1 roll of paper (panic as had a very large present to disguise and thought I wouldn't have enough in the 2 rolls I'd brought), and did finish that before the end of the season. But I still have enough from last jan sales that I don't need more this year. And still have enough charity cards from this and last year leftovers to do next year,as summing dd school do individual designed ones again for immediate family.

I was ok on shopping, but hadn't written a card until Monday 16th, even for overseas! Must do better next year.

I DID reinsure we had family events and time for them in December! but needed more time for me to destress built in. And need to remember that family expects us to be at their beck and call if we are staying anywhere near them, don't expect o have any time just for our nuclear family!!

I got a second "decorations" storage box this year, which has meant I can get rid of the 2 shoeboxes of tissue paper packages, and all my baubles and decorations are stored safely but where I can see them at a glance, laying out the 4 trays. It might also remind me that I have ENOUGH for the tree (or indeed! several!).

It wasn't the most relaxing Christmas yet, but it was a lot less tress flu than some we've had.

Based on many year's experience, cook what you feel confident making. Christmas day is not the time to make a new and unfamiliar recipe. Always have a trial run a few weeks before to see whether everyone likes it or not.

Plan meals as best you can in advance, so that you know what you need to buy and helps prevent overspending/panic buying. Make as much in advance as possible and freeze, this saves a lot of time and effort. I have a book that I write it all down in, with a shopping list so that I can buy non perishables ahead of time and that reduces the big shop.

Abandon foods that are 'traditional' if no-one likes them and they won't get eaten. We haven't had Christmas cake or pudding for years now.

I used to do fill your own crackers, but they can be difficult to find small enough gifts for year after year, so don't do that now. DH and I do have a reuseable advent calendar, but nice chocolate is so much easier to fill with.

Save all the little offcuts of wrapping paper to wrap stocking gifts. Make use of gift bags for difficult items, and for DH who is hopeless and easily annoyed by wrapping gifts. For gifts between ourselves, gift bags can be reused which saves an awful lot of waste. Always start the present buying early.

What I am going to do this year is go through the Christmas decorations and decide what to keep and what to sell/charity shop. I don't put up all the things I have so I may as well save myself the work, and the house looks uncluttered with less.

Another one for me. Label any and all leftovers, if they have a specific purpose. Do not assume that your 18 year old son has enough sense to realise that the bowlful of leftover goose in the fridge is not just there for anyone to stuff into their lunchtime sandwich, but may actually be part of a planned meal for later on in the week!

I am going to start doing that Mellow

A good Christmas card tip is to only write a message and from Notso etc in the card and only who it's to on the envelope when you are ready to give/send the card.
This means you never seal the envelope and promptly forget who the card is for. It also means if you have a visitor you have a ready written card that just needs a quick name on the envelope while you put the kettle on.

Loads of great tips here.
Just wanted to say - to pp who 'lose' presents: Flylady has a useful control journal thingie which I use it's the only Flylady thing I consistently follow: a checklist with present recipients; a column for presents - which present - bought? Wrapped? Stored where? How much?

If you post things you could have a column re. posting.
Makes me feel positively organised, and avoids that last-minute panic about matching 'piles' - you can easily count how many presents/stocking fillers each of the DCs has, without physically dragging everything out of its hiding place, plus you can keep tabs of costs and make sure present spending is spread equally between them and say 'enough is enough!'

• I do not need overpriced tubs of Twiglets and Cheeselets. As much as I love both, they become very boring after a while and both were chucked away half full. And now I never want to see a Twigley again. Ever!

• don't buy chocolate. We had tons bought for us. So combined with the stuff we bought ourselves, we had cupboards of the stuff after Christmas and I'm sick of it!

• don't buy candy canes. They look pretty but they don't get eaten.

• buy more prosecco. And don't offer it to guests. Because they will drink it all and I will get just one glass.

• don't bake and freeze in advance. By the time I got the out on Christmas week, we had so much snacky stuff that some of my baked efforts had stale leftovers which had to be chucked. Next Christmas I'm going to start in December and bake and eat as I go.

• start buying presents earlier. I started in October but still had people to buy for come December and we were really strapped for cash, so my original present ideas had to scrapped in favour of cheap and cheerful. They were gratefully and happily received but this year I want to be able to get them what I really want, not a cheap last minute panic buy.

That's a shame about your baking, Spaulding. I would have bought less snacky stuff in favour of it. Your plan to eat it from the beginning of December is a good idea.

I often think that buffets are more wasteful than proper meals when you have guests, they pick at a bit of everything, and there's usually lots of bits left. With a meal, you just make it the size you want for the required number of people. I'm sure lots of folk have party food fatigue by now.

Chocolate usually has a long shelf life. Separate out solid chocolate items like bars, flakes, buttons and use them at a later date in puddings, or to decorate cakes. Other items you can ration out over quite a long time

The DSs got way, way too much. I said that Christmas 2012 so I whittled it down. Now I've said it again and I am going to whittle it down further. So, from us they will get:

1. Puzzle. Bought DS1 a human body one in the sales.
2. A small toy. Bought DS2 a switch n go dino in the sales.
3. A big toy.
4. Book/s.
5. DVD
6. New PJs
7. An outfit
8. Underwear

Their stockings will contain about £5 worth off normal stuff, and then £5 worth of tat. Maybe less. We're on a mission to save for Disney so I want to ensure a good balance between treats and fun, and sensible presents.

Foodwise, we did quite well. Overdid it on the cheeses, but then we were quite restrained on the chocolates and biscuits.

Buy more pigs in blankets. I made delicious, home made stuffing, stuffed goose, apple sauce, gravy, bread sauce, roast potatoes and veg, but the bit the boys liked almost the best was the pigs in blankets I bought from Tesco. Why did I bother?

LOL.
I didn't even attempt to feed goose to 2 of my 3 kids - just gave them pigs in blankets. And next year I will also do more of those.

Don't use fancy artisan sausages for the pigs in blankets, for the first time ever no one liked them. Tesco for me as well next year!

Goose got a thumbs down from my DCs as well and I think I would have preferred turkey too, definitely back to turkey next year.

1. Don't panic about enough ice in freezer for drinks/not enough room in tiny fridge for drinks as well as food. Bottles of all sorts of drinks (and jars that would normally live in the fridge too) get and stay very well chilled when left just outside the back door - and easier to find than in the fridge!! One plus to the cold weather... in fact there are still some bottles out there now!

1. Speak to in-laws re no more crappy presents to bulk up - unnecessarily! Whole of DH's family works on principle of more to unwrap = best. They buy you something nice which is appreciated, and a tonne of tat as 'it's nice to get more than one present'. Yes, but one present from each person = lots of presents already without you buying another ten bits of tat! Hard to keep on smiling whilst unwrapping your umpteenth pair of socks/lipgloss in 'cute shapes'/cheap wooly gloves/hats/scarves from the pound shop. Worked out this year that MIL alone must have spent (wasted) about £40 in pound shop on stuff that no one wants, needs, or likes, and therefore has already been donated or binned.

1. Re above, don't feel guilty about handing over one nice present to each person and receiving a car-load of tat in return.

1. Don't ever buy presents on someone's behalf again. Did this with DB and SIL as he was away (army) over Christmas. DB asked me to buy X for SIL, I double-checked before buying it so thought I was covered, but when SIL opened it, she exclaimed that she'd already bought that same thing for herself last week in the pre-Christmas sale... and of course it was non-returnable. Good deeds = bitten in arse.

1. Get DH to agree in writing (blood if need be) re in-law presents/budgets. And take his wallet off him on whatever day we see in-laws to prevent him topping up presents with cash.

1. Stop trying to find something DM will love. She likes getting nice face creams and scarves - everything else gets gently handed back later with 'it's lovely but I don't really need it, you keep it' or 'now you shouldn't have spent so much on me so you just return it and keep the money'.

1. Do more with friends rather than enforcing (or being enforced!) constant barrage of quality family time. A few days spread over the season is nice; more than that was painfully boring for everyone.

1. Cook only what DH & I like for Christmas Dinner. Trying to please too many people (fussy eaters, children, SIL) meant trying to cook/keep hot too many dishes at once and resulted in tonnes of leftovers as most didn't get eaten anyway. Freezer is still full to bursting. If they are hungry, they'll eat what they're given

The boys did enjoy the goose - especially the one who used up half the bloody leftovers in a sandwich so there wasn't enough left for the delicious meal I had planned - but they raved most about the pigs in blankets.

Don't spend a month or more buying stuff, do Xmas-lite. Go on holiday the week before for 2 weeks. That is seriously my plan.

Apart from that - don't buy sweets or chocolates as they get so much from other people that it is meaningless.

3 kids, 3 different patterns of wrapping paper so no need for tags.

Give them everything apart from their main presents, let them be happy about all of that, then 'ta-dah!' the others.

Buy gift cards with shopping so that there is a stash of £10 ones for Top Shop etc. Never underestimate how much they love gift cards. Put some in new purses/wallets as this, apparently, one of the best gifts in the world.

Buy elderly parents something big for their house or garden as they preferred that much more than all the stuff that they put in the cupboards and keep 'for best.'

Buy things throughout the year and keep a note. I have a document on my desktop I can add to near immediately.

Keep this years cards along with new cards and cards in an easy to get to place. No need to worry about missing anybody or turning out a cupboard to get at them. Write cards in Novemeber, address and stamp them then dump in a post box early December.

I shall be giving dosh next year as practically everything I bought in advance on Amazon dropped like a stone in price the instant the clock struck midnight on Christmas Eve . My kids are teens and twenties so this will work.

Prepare and blanch carrots and parsnips in advance and cook from frozen on the day. Prepare sprouts a couple of days before. Leaves just potatoes for Christmas Eve.

Wrap the majority of tut presents at least a couple of weeks beforehand. I left it till Christmas Eve once. Never again.