Planning ahead for Christmas

[rhubarbhandsoap]

I love this Christmas board!

Fellow Christmas lovers - this is my first year of super-early organisation and I am loving it!

Please share, other than gift buying, what else do you do / buy / plan / organise ahead, and when do you do it?

I meal plan for December as a whole rather than week by week which is my usual method.

I have loved planning Christmas, ever since we were married several decades ago. I always meal plan, hadn't ever thought of doing a whole month, I think that's a great idea. What I have done for years is avoid our usual Sunday roasts throughout December,, to help us appreciate the 'roast of the year' more. As we eat out a lot in December with friendship/hobby:work groups, I do focus on simpler, lighter foods for family meals.

I love cooking and collect recipes from the weekend magazines or links to online recipes I've stumbled across, often on MN. I keep a look out for recipes which would be good for the festive season - from simple but different family meals to ideas for NYE or other entertaining. I used to buy all the Christmas magazines but increasingly found them repetitive and a waste of money. I now prefer to buy Christmas books, often from charity shops, and love spending a few evenings looking through them on a cold November/December evening to help with my planning.

I try to buy cards, wrap and ribbon in the sales and put in the loft when I put the decorations away. Saves money but more importantly saves time and the cards are there if I am bored in Novemeber and want to start writing them. Ditto paper if I decide to 'wrap as I buy'

I keep various Christmas checklists to refer to each year, they are tweaked and updated each year but lots of the things are common to every Christmas, so it doesn't make sense to start from scratch each year.

Eg non- food items (eg table cloth, serviettes, candles, crackers, cards, wrapping paper, ribbon, sellophane, sellotape,gift bags etc).

Christmas Dinner components

Snacks - nuts, crisps, dips, crumpets, mince pies, Stollen, Christmas cake etc)

Household/kitchen staples to be sure I have plenty of for the duration (toilet roll, kitchen roll, dishwasher tablets, laundry detergent, tea, coffee, milk, cereal, store cupboard items such as beans, tinned tomatoes etc)

I don't actively buy presents til later in the year but I do listen out for ideas throughout the year and make a note on my phone. Eg DH really enjoyed a specific wine at a restaurant at the weekend, made a note of it (as he's a nightmare to buy for so any little thing I know he'd like gets added to the list.

We are a family who love our Christmas stockings, even for adults. It gets harder each year to think of different things that will be useful or enjoyed so I look out for ideas all year round and keep a note on my phone , even if I don't buy til later in the year. (For anyone else who does adult stockings, I started a thread here )

This all makes me sound like a bit of a saddo. I honestly have a very busy, varied and fulfilling life. I just love Christmas and am an avid planner!

What’s a North Pole Dinner?

I’ve got a couple if bits and bobs, but not a lot so far. Don’t have many presents to buy for now - kids now young adults, elderly parents etc, so present buying is easy. Shame really, quite enjoy buying them. The hardest thing is trying to be imaginative without wasting money.

I do have an air fryer actually. Never thought of doing the roasties like that! I might have a practice and see how they come out. Such a good idea! Thank you
i actually agree, yorkshires and the potatoes are the most important part. I only found out last year that some people don’t put yorkshires on their Christmas dinner 😱

Thank you so much for starting this thread! I've think I've found my people 🎄☕️

I usually like to start christmas shopping around August/September, mostly for inspiration but also usually pick up stocking fillers in B&M/ Home bargains early as they have little sweets or small toys that are bargains.

I LOVE the idea of meal planning / prepping food for December as when it gets busy we end up resorting to the same meals (cheesy pasta for the kids) and preparing ahead could make the world of difference!

I make lists about everything possible - presents, food to buy (mainly snacks!), decorations to put up, tidying to do. And then aim to tick off a few of these each week.

Money wise we're going to have to be extra careful this year as we have tons of family birthdays in December/January (mine, DH, DS, DB, DS, DM, MIL ^and also a surprise baby due in January). So extra careful budgeting as I always go a bit over budget with the kids and need to be careful this time as I'll need to think of maternity pay!

I don't tell husband but I always make an excel spreadsheet on my phone of all the kids presents and stocking fillers, with rows for 'need to buy £', 'bought £' and 'saved £' because I'm clearly a nerd and love to know how much money I've saved as well as spent 😂 my sister now does the same!

Also I watched my first Christmas film this week! I love them, the cheesier the better.

I got my xmas fabric out. Last year i made lots of drawstring bags for Santa's gifts only and put around the tree. It was wonderful not to have to wrap and I saved so much time! I'm going to make more but using fabric from the kids childhood that we can reuse every year. Ds loves the hulk so we got hulk fabric for example.
I treated myself to a gorgeous fabric with gold motifs which I will sew and use for santa gifts.

Also I'm taking everything out of the boxes and putting straight into the bags and the batteries to go with too! ASPIE Dh can't handle the wrapping paper and boxes. He had a hissy fit last year which I won't be repeating so this should be perfect way to solve the problem.

How exciting - thanks for starting the thread

We are a blended family with 6 kids between us. We like to set a date now for Xmas. We don't ever try and do it on Xmas day as we tried in the past and we can't get all the kids and partners together.

So we are in the process of doing that now. I normally get my siblings and kids over on the same day so we will likely have 20 for that Xmas lunch.

Dp is in charge of the cooking, I do the shopping and the table stuff. We really look forward to it and love seeing everyone together.

I'm sure most of you have better ideas for table decoration than me so I shall be shamelessly stealing from you all!

Another one here for lists! I start to think about and plan Christmas (properly) from about now and making lists of days out and things I want to book. Tickets get sold out so quickly!
I start planning how to decorate this year's Christmas cake, DD and I make this together each year. I have a list of present ideas on my phone and then on a quiet evening I sit and write them out in a notebook. For the last few years I have ordered most of them online but I do like a wander around the shops to pick bits up, especially stocking fillers.
I also have lots of family Birthdays in Dec/ Jan so have to be organised for those too.
Love Pinterest for inspiration.

Agree on the fabric bags. I bought and made a large selection a few years ago and now I can "wrap" everything in an hour or so (I only wrap some of the stocking presents in tissue, and one main present from Santa who uses brown paper and fabric ribbon - also reused). I use tie on tags and reuse them too (and Santa uses special ones).

Loving this! I woke up early enough that there was a hint of autumn in the air which reminded me how much I love the changing of the seasons and the run up to Christmas. I always tell myself that I'll plan and sort early so that I can relax and enjoy December but it never happens!

DPs parents want us to spend Christmas with them so I'll need to have everything wrapped and packed in advance. At home I always wrap presents on the night of 23rd December with carols playing in the background, a mug of hot chocolate and a mince pie. Deliberately planned lastminute 'tradition.'

Looking at the posts above is an encouragement to think about nice things to do before Christmas and in the gap between Christmas and New year. Coming home after Christmas feels more 'flat' than the days after Christmas if we've been at home. Any ideas welcome!

Could u plan a special meal for the day after you get home so you have something to look forward too? Or leave a couple of presents at home to unwrap? Or book tickets for something like a light display

Lots of places don’glow’ Or ‘light’events. Could you get tickets for these?

I love following The Organised Christmas by the Organised Mum. It's starts the first Monday of September and is a countdown of weekly twists from now until beginning of December where the idea is that that's you done to do what you like in December.

However! The first year I got really overwhelmed especially if I wasn't able to tick off everything so I made a point of following it more loosely the following year and that helped. I've downloaded the app and you can delete tasks that don't apply to you etc. Or you could use it as a template for your own checklist etc.

For example one of them is writing your cards in November, I like that for being sorted as it can be time consuming but it didn't feel right writing them without a Christmas tree!

Another thing I discovered and enjoyed last year was Beth Kemptons Christmas Podcast. She's done it previous years too but was a lovely half hour podcast episode about winter, Christmas and some get ahead tips. So lovely and cosy.

That's a good idea @Cuwins . When we're at home a special Christmas breakfast in pyjamas is a bit of a tradition (sounds a bit like the North Pole breakfast above and means that we skip lunch and have the main meal late afternoon.) I could probably pop things in the freezer before we leave and pick up fresh items etc for the first morning home. Good excuse to have a lazy start to the day!
If they're at home we often invite our neighbours for a NYE/NYD meal so that's something to look forward to after Christmas.

@OMGitsnotgood it doesn’t make you sound sad at all, I loved reading your post!! And your Christmas stocking thread is fab!!

@redtrain123 a North Pole Breakfast I think started as the elf arriving on 1st December and bringing a load of treats (a bit like the four food groups in the film Elf!) and decorating the table. We didn’t really fancy a massive sugary breakfast (especially before school) and 1st December is not always easy to do with two of our kids being older.

So we decided to do North Pole Dinner, on a random (convenient) date in December, and decorate, have lots of treats and a chocolate fondue. We melt a chocolate Santa into it which is possibly a bit weird but tradition now 😂.

@HelpMeDrRanj I love going around Home Bargains and B+M for the little stocking filler treats! Got to love a Christmas film!!

@Kittybluecat that’s such a lovely idea sewing the bags out of meaningful fabric, they will be gorgeous keepsakes for years!

@8008Bee 20 of you for lunch sounds so lovely!! I’ve got to get my family to nail down some dates!!

@Cherryblossom6754 I do exactly the same moving phone notes to paper lists! I’m so glad to hear other people start around now with planning, I think it’s my favourite thing to think about 😂🙌

@notlisteningwithmother I do exactly the same thing, I was going through my Christmas planners and for the last few years everyone one has started with intentions, and each year it says ‘this year I will be done early and relax more’ - I think I was just leaving it too late (even though starting earlier than anyone I know IRL!). This year is surely the year it happens, I have hope 🙏😂

@PumpkinSpicedTea thank you so much for this suggestion!! I’ve got all the printables ready, going to adjust them slightly and combine it with the cleaning plan to get the decluttering etc done over the next 10 weeks too - thanks for the podcast rec too!!

🎄🌟🦌🎄🌟🦌🎄🌟🦌

My little update…. I’ve got a new Christmas planner, and organised all my lists and plans from the last few years (with a Christmas film on of course!).

Father Christmas visit is booked, and eldest DD was home for the weekend and might not be back again until much nearer Christmas so I got the DCs to do their lists (had got the kits in the Jan sales this year) with a hot chocolate which is a tradition. DD2 thought it was madness but ended up with the longest list so the wheels are in motion!

Today I’ve pulled out all the presents I’ve already bought, sorted and organised them and made sure everything is written down, and I now have an official Christmas cupboard.

This is all usually getting done in November so thanks all so much for the inspiration, encouragement and solidarity!!

🥰🙌🦌🌟🎄

@rhubarbhandsoap I love the Chocolate Santa Fondue of Doom™️ 😂

😂😂😂

@rhubarbhandsoap actually just remembered Beth Kempton does a Calm Christmas Planner as well. It's got reflections of what you'd like out of Christmas this year etc, budget etc. It's really good for a cosy quiet time to think of all things Christmas.

Should have said it's a printout as well or save it on your computer to fill in. It's not a book planned.

The main thing I'm going to do this year is as suggested above , put three or four wholesome dinners in the freezer as it's just turns into chaos with the grandchildren around!!
Might start thinking about a menu for Christmas week 😀

@PumpkinSpicedTea thank you so much! I’ve made my plan using TOMM as the inspiration and combined it with her cleaning routine too - funnily enough I just this minute gave you a shoutout on the Christmas cleaning thread! 🙏🥰🎄

Oh wow I have found my people!

@LuckyNumber6 what's a north pole breakfast?? 🤔

Yay welcome @Suchardchoccy!

Sorry I meant to come back here with my limoncello "recipe".

Firstly - beware the organising plans! They are great! Point to things you might forget. Full of great things to do ahead of time.

But DO NOT expect to get it all done - they are quite full on and expect you to be home with not a lot to do all week. Treat them as a list of small jobs that are useful to do when you have a few spare minutes, or a cheat sheet to follow if you get a couple of hours to tackle a particular room in a focussed way - but a list to put down when you run out of time. Some rooms won't suit your family circumstances, some weeks are very busy for you and you can't tackle that week's list, etc.

I have been doing it nearly 20 years now and I have never got every job done. But it's good to look at and find a quick job to do when I have spare time and to get a few more deep clean or less frequently done jobs done. And to get at least some Christmas prep done. And I always know 1 particular week is too busy for me so I skip a room that I don't care about and do the more important room on a quieter week for me.

Anyway: Limoncello.
Take 15 lemons, peel off the skin (use a normal veg peeler). You want the yellow skin and the oils in it - but not the bitter white pith.
Put the peels into a large wide mouth jar (I add the juice of the lemons as well). Cover with 1 75cl bottle of vodka (any old cheap vodka will do). Give a good shake and put in a dark cupboard, giving a good shake once a week.
The official recipe doesn't include the lemon juice and also calls for 75cl of water mixed with sugar (cannot remember the amount sorry) to be added in 4 weeks, keep weekly shaking another 4 weeks.

My version is chuck in the lemon juice and a good dollop of sugar at the start and just shake weekly for 8 weeks. Check the taste after 4 weeks to see if you need more sugar.
Strain the liquid to remove the peels and bottle up. Do a taste test before bottling in case you need to adjust the sugar, or water, content.

Serve ice cold.