Planning early for Christmas - help!

[quesadillas]

Hi,

I have a toddler and am due twins in the early Autumn. Life is going to be very hectic at the end of the year! However, I'm still determined that my little boy will have the most special Christmas I can give him, and that I do all the stuff like cards, good gifts etc. Any tips on an all year round plan? Unfortunately I didn't plan so far in advance that I already have the Christmas cards. Any tips on where sells them earliest? And wrapping paper, tags etc? I've spotted the bargains thread, so I'll keep an eye on that. Any other ideas? I want to get personalised stockings, but we won't know what names until late summer at the earliest, so that'll have to wait.

At the moment thinking about Christmas is keeping my mind off the cary thoughts I'm having about twins!

Congratulations on the pg

I think the Card Factory had cards, wrap etc in their stores in July last year.

HTH.

Try ebay for your cards. You could get them written now!

I start putting money away, every week, straight after Christmas. That way I have the spare cash to buy bargains as I see them throughout the year.

Tbh I would just say ' happy Christmas' to people you meet, and scrap sending everyone cards and gifts from now onwards.
Buy toddler gifts online in December, and paper then.

In the kindest way, its MARCH

Eh Art its April

Ah I suppose it is, only just though

Studio24 usually has Christmas stuff like cards and wrapping paper all year round

As I've said on the other threads, I have a little notebook and write down everything -

Who I need to buy for
What I've bought
Ideas for gifts, as I think of of them

My children have an Xmas eve hamper which is PJs, new toothbrush and a chocolate Santa. I normally buy the pjs and toothbrushes when they are on offer at some point throughout the year.

Food - we normally go to family for Xmas dinner, so I don't have to worry about that. I do buy nice goodies from September onwards to put away (check use by dates).

Wrapping paper/cards - from card factory.

Stockings - I bought some from amazon in autumn. The quality isn't brilliant, but were nice enough.

I just read a tip that's not neccesarily focussed on your little boy, but could reduce Christmas stress in General, it said to buy two gifts for people on their birthday - one for the birthday and one to put away until Christmas to spread the cost throughout the year - I quite liked that one!

One thing I do is theme the Christmas Eve bath. I put a couple of drops of red food colouring in the bath water with bubble bath. I then drop in some little baubles, strings of Christmas beads (cut into shorter lengths!) and Christmas figures (we had little people santa and reindeers knocking around) and it's lovely!

A nice cosy bath that lasts ages and keeps him entertained while you could settle the babies before his bedtime :)

John Lewis put lots of their left over Christmas stock online last summer, I got paper for 50p a roll.

Start thinking about what you want to get people now and either when you see it or as shops have their summer sales etc pick it up. Also any birthdays that are between Autumn and Christmas so you don't forget those.

It depends what you cook at Christmas, but lots of things freeze and could be made in early autumn, or things like mincemeat (if you make your own) keep well and could be made now if you have the storage space.

Even if you didn't get everything done if you have lists then it's amazing what you can order online in a night feed..... food and all.

Plan in advance and half the job is done!