What will you do differently next year?

[NotEnoughTime]

As thread title.

For me personally I will NOT be wrapping presents on Christmas Eve/early hours of Christmas morning I say this every year

Tree will be put up BEFORE Christmas Eve day 🌲

@Lndnmummy sounds wonderful, really. 💖

Get carried away buying cheese on Christmas Eve!

There is a mountain of cheese.

Do everything earlier, far earlier.

DH and I were taken down with a virus for most of this week which had a knock on impact. It meant none of the things we usually do the week before - cleaning, wrapping, last minute shopping - were done.

So all of that stuff was crammed into the 23rd and 24th - meaning lots of Xmas Eve stuff like veg prepping and table setting had to be pushed back and wasnt done until today. This is the last year I want to be peeling veg at 9am Xmas morning!

I’ll be more organised. It came together nicely but there are friends I wish I’d send cards to and gifts Id have bought. I might (as I say every year) buy some new devs in the sales. We’ll see….

Christmas Day was pretty much perfect with just the two girls (17&23) and DH. However I've booked a meal out today and wish I hadn't because I'm still stuffed and just feel gluttonous now.

I'm confused. You got your child a toy with a surprise element, she discovered the surprise and that's a bad thing and it's been taken away from her?

I hear this! This was my first Christmas off in 10 years because of maternity leave, and I can tell you I won't be working it next year either! I hope you get a chance to enjoy it next year!!

Not catch a cold. 🤧 I've been really ill, currently 5 days into it and I still have terrible sinuses and temperature, shivers. Plenty of painkillers and alcohol have helped me feel a little Christmassy but I've had to miss visiting elderly relatives that I always catch up with this time of year which sucks.

Not hosting next year. Thank goodness! I honestly don't know why I'm not sleeping, I was utterly exhausted when we eventually turned in last night/ this morning.

Also, hopefully I can convince the rest of the wider family to participate in a secret Santa (one person / one gift / decent limit) kind of thing. The excess is honestly overwhelming. Time for a change.

To not have covid and I'm planning to take dd away next Christmas

When making Aperol spritz I will NOT just glug it into a glass like it's a mixer... I will measure out a tot.

I'll be putting my foot down about a few things next year...
This year I was up until 2am on Christmas Eve even though I finished wrapping and building DS gifts weeks ago. DH had not built DSDs yet and it was a two person job and a massive pain in the arse it turns out. So that was our lovely chilled out Christmas Eve that I planned down the toilet.
As predicted, DH then spent hours on Christmas Day faffing about with the dinner, when as predicted he was the only one who was going to eat it really. I was all for getting M&S party food in that could just be shoved in the oven and spending the time with the kids but I'm not in charge of food in this house 🤷‍♀️
I'll also be taking charge of when presents come out. The kids got everything from everyone today and the house just ended up a stressful shit tip, DS wanted everything out immediately, could not move for packaging and wrapping paper... DS then got so stressed out that he put himself to bed about 6pm!
Next year when DH tries to say that it's more fun to pile the living room high with everything, I'll remind him how horrible it was today with DS being so overstimulated (he's 3!) and we will be holding back presents from people who aren't there until Boxing Day at least.

Ours went pretty well all things considered. I won't be making red cabbage again if we host the inlaws (an essential for my side but noone except me ate it!), and I'll probably get some part baked baguettes for the nieces and nephews so it doesn't matter if they just want to pick at stuff.

I will definitely do the organised mum method again, absolutely saved my sanity, right down to ensuring we had a stock of batteries and the teeny screwdriver.

Having a week of no socialising in the week before Xmas. This year after two fairly quiet years in a row I went for it socially. The weekend before Xmas I had 4 nights out. I feel horrible shivers, temp, cough, sore throat, dizzy, fatigue, nausea. I feel awful because it's impacted on everyone's Xmas.

(Brilliant username.)

I'm another one who doesn't see the problem with this. They're supposed to explore the toy and discover the babies. I wouldn't have tried to stop them either.

To be fair to PP, I don't think the idea is that you yank the thing open and pull out the babies.

It sounds like you should be able to reset it though so hopefully all is not lost.

www.smythstoys.com/uk/en-gb/toys/fashion-and-dolls/little-live-pets/little-live-pets-mama-surprise/p/210504

teeny tiny detail for me is i made bread sauce for my SIL and i made it wrong so i didn’t feel like it was as good, i want her to be comfortable as it’s not christmas with her family so i felt bad.

the other thing is, i won’t be going anywhere 2 weeks before christmas, the stress of being ill a few days before isn’t worth it!!

I'm going to simplify the meal by cooking most of if the night before and reheating.
Also going to make it clear to adult ds that it's not OK to come to visit for 2 hrs at lunch time just because it suits your timings as your dinner is not until 4.

I won't bother making breads, too much effort for too little impact as no one really wanted to eat them. Less sweet stuff. I will make much more cheesy Christmas stars though, they were the best thing. More savoury snacks in general to counteract all the sugar.

Arrange to go out somewhere on Christmas Eve. Saw people sitting outside the nice pub by the harbour just as it was getting dark and it looked so lovely and chilled, just as I was rushing back home to start wrapping pigs in blankets etc! Perhaps if I plan some activities on the couple of days before Christmas I will be forced to be more organised!

I will stay at home.

On the little live pets issue - you need to google as don'tknowwhatisbesthas done .

Quite an eye opener .

What I don't understand is why the design didn't involve one of those compartments that involve the teeny tiny screw to secure it .

The toy wouldn't be my choice but I can understand @MummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking feelings.Though don't get the expectation that other adults would prevent the discovery .

I won't par boil the parsnips.

I used to do this till I downloaded an app that I have everyone’s names in and pop the gifts name and cost in against each person as I buy it. Helps me track much better

I’ve now got Christmas dinner prep sorted after 4 years in a row of hosting. I make bread sauce, cranberry, stuffing , red cabbage the week before( work in school so I break up early) and freeze it. They’re all easy to make and it makes me feel Christmassy to make them along to some Christmas music when there’s no stress . DH peeled spuds on Christmas Eve, DDs peeled and chopped veg, I made a tiramisu. I also set the table on Christmas Eve before we went out for dinner and got the frozen elements out of the freezer. So Christmas Day was just putting the turkey in, wrapping it up when cooked to rest, then with space in the oven I put in the carrots and parsnips to roast, the stuffing , steamed the sprouts then fried them with bacon and cream, reheated the red cabbage, bread sauce etc.