What will you do differently for 2020

[PinkJam]

What will you do differently next Christmas?

I am going to be better organised and wrap as I go rather than wrapping everything in one go.

I have already decided to buy less, the kids love it just as much with fewer presents. I cut back a bit this year but am going to reduce again next year.

Instead of buying lots of smaller presents for family, I’m just going to buy one present for each person.

Food wise repeat the same as very little waste. I need to do my cards a little earlier and I’m to have all my deliveries arrive by 1st December as went a little over this year.

I am going to try and get more of the house looking Christmassy. We only usually decorate the living room but I want to try and add some more decorations to my Christmas collection so I can put them on window sills etc.

I'm going to start reusing Amazon gift wrap bags for some presents, I keep them all anyway, and hopefully as time goes on we'll use less and less wrapping paper. We already reuse gift tags each year.

so much different for next year. Im fed up of being a bloody exhausted martyr!
Artificail tree (small one so I dont have to re-arrange the whole god damn house!)
less decorations generally
Less food
Stockings done by November
Gifts done and wrapped by December

Less food and drink. We've enough leftovers to last until March.Luckily not all are perishable.

Try and make my kids wake up later - I’m so miserable by the time mid morning comes .

I’m hoping I won’t be ill next year! It would have been nice have something interesting booked between Christmas and new year. It as I’ve not been feeling great, it’s worked our fine this year.

Buy slightly less cheese - same amount of different types but less of each. DH went a bit overboard on the quantities.

Try to persuade DH to not serve gammon with Christmas dinner. It’s just not necessary when having turkey. Over all he has paired it back this year and there wasn’t really any waste from the dinner (he has a tendency to cook too much and try to make it all too master chefy!).

I did nearly all present buying online and wrapped as I went this year which has helped loads.

Start decorating the house earlier - last week of November as there are three trees to do and we invariably have stuff on every weekend.

Did a couple of experience gifts that have gone down well with friends DCs as less plastic crap so will try to do this again.

Not buy any chocolates for the house as we have a mountain of it now

To split the big Christmas shop again - I went for the booze in my lunch hour which saved the trolly for food when I did the big shop.

Cover the tree In lametta again - looked gorgeous.

Get some green tinsel to “thicken” up the main tree and an extra set of warm white lights.

Hope we can find this thread in 10 months time when our thoughts turn to Christmas 2020

I won’t be buying a Tesco CHERRY Genoa cake.
I love cherry Genoa cake and the Tesco one looked nice, decorated with lots of nuts and cherries - yum.
However, when I cut into it there wasn’t a cherry in sight and when I read the ingredients it had 12% cherries (obviously just the top decoration) and 37% raisins (or currants, can’t remember which).
I was soooo disappointed that I just ate the nuts and cherries off the top and binned the rest.
I will remember this Tesco.

More cheese, less desserts, more care over stocking presents (always leave til last minute and end up buying tat) and invest in better crackers!

Also considering switching to warm white Christmas tree lights. I’ve always been a coloured girl at heart (not LED though, can’t bear the blue!) but have seen so many lovely trees this year with white lights I could be converted.

Birch my dh is a warm white lights convert after years of telling him! They look beautiful & much more gentle on your eyes.

We stuck to just coloured baubles on the tree, no other decorations & it looked fab!

We strung the other 'interesting' tree decs along the mantlepiece & a shelf. Will definately do that next year as well.

@PhantomErik I’m definitely being swayed! Any tips on where to pick up some nice warm white lights? Are LED ok?

Spent Christmas Eve morning doing the last bits of cleaning, laying the table and preparing for the big day - at 2pm we went out for a Christmas Eve meal in the pub and stayed till about 7. Didn't over do it - but enjoyed the chat, felt everyones excitement and now our DCs are teens they enjoyed it too. It stopped me rushing around and gave me something to look forward to that I didn't have to prepare! Will definitely be doing that again.

I will remember this Tesco

I won't be buying anymore gifts from the elf for ds. He has hardly touched them so he can bring them back next year instead. I will be buying less chocolate as I have a mound of it that will last till Easter. I will remember to book a Christmas food delivery slot.

I made my own wrapping paper with brown paper and christmas stamps and learned that what looks like loads of stamps when the paper is rolled out on the table looks extremely sparse when wrapped round a present. Somehow, invariably, all the designs got covered over with flaps and stuff, and there'd just be a big expanse of brown on the front of the present with half a robin.

@Sniv - The trick is to stamp the paper after you've wrapped the present - everything strategically placed and no decorations folded!

Buy more "The Snowman" loo roll from Aldi.

I bought 2 of the 4 packs (I walked there and couldn't carry much) , went back with DH to buy the entire stock a few more packs but there was none
Tried three Aldi stores but none .

Ended up with M&S silver star bumpaper which is nice enough but it's not the same

Fewer gifts for my little one as by the time she got something off family it was insane. Just got to stick to that when it comes to it!

I’m also going to attempt to talk to family a few months before about ideas for presents for DC. I don’t like to say anything because I worry it seems a bit “grabby” but no one asked for ideas this year and I felt uncomfortable mentioning but it meant that some things were duplicated and others were very similar. Which seems a bit of a waste.

We cut back on gifts for our children this year and will definitely be doing the same again next year. I felt a bit sad on Christmas Eve when I saw the tiny pile, but they got what they wanted and were more than happy with what they had.

We are also going to make a point of trying to identify a ‘big’ toy to ask grandparents for. Traditionally they have bought lots of small, cheap toys, that never get any love. We asked for a Scalextric set between our two this year, and that proved to be a huge hit.

Next year .i think we need to make more effort to invite people over. We didn’t this year and it all felt a bit flat.

Finally, DH is not going to spend the run-up to Christmas on business travel. It says the pleasure out of the season, and mean we all hit Christmas feeling pretty tired and run-down.

Experiences and activities over physical presents- 8 yo dd loved the trip to Harry Potter studio tours and small theme park annual pass. Dd2 loved it too, even though I felt guilty that she wouldn't get as much out of it as dd1. Also, a trip to our local zoo went down a treat, barginous too as they had a teachers get in free event so dh and I didn't pay. Next year, I want to go away for NYE.

Open the turkey on Christmas eve morning and check it smells OK. Mine was gone off and ended up in the bin. Thank God we had the ham...

Don't bother making cake - I did two and when I opened one it was quite dry .

We didn't buy a Christmas pudding . Previously I only made/bought one if we had a housefull.
If it's just us 4 , the pudding sat , judgily in the pantry till Match.

No-one eats any pudding , so no trifle this year . Didn't miss it .

I was ill , so did most of my shopping online . I did miss the going out to the shops . It just felt like it was all happening and I wasn;t part of it

I’ve decided after a couple of years going out for dinner that I’m going to stay at home. It’s expensive at £70 ph and while it was really good quality previous years it just wasn’t up to scratch this year.