What are you doing for Christmas this week?

[Deliveroo]

Disclaimer - yes I know it’s early, but this is the Christmas Board.

Over the years I’ve worked out a 12 week plan for myself so I can get it all done a little bit at a time. Last week was for reading back over my notes, starting my lists, putting aside money for gift cards (I don’t buy them until December but I put the cash in a card now), and dropping off a bag of unwanted Halloween bits from last year to the charity shop.

This week I have to have the who’s going where conversation so I can get stuck into menu planning. We typically host or visit one set of parents, and then have another family get together on each side too. I need those dates on the calendar so the teens can fit their much more exciting social lives around them.

What will you do for Christmas this week?

Quite a lot of younger people appear to have embraced putting trees and decorations up from November with some taking it down before the turkey has gone cold. It’s not for me! Mid December is early enough in our household, but they do stay up until 12th night.

We aren’t so young but have always aimed to have the decorations up on the first Sunday of advent and down a few days before we return to work/school/uni in January.
Wreath made and will live in the shed until Sunday when we put everything else up.

I may manage to buy tickets for a choral concert over the weekend, for next weekend…the online system isn’t working so I am working an old fashioned “who do you know” method…

And we also decided the day for our Christmas lunch at work…also next week because there are just too many meetings that people can’t miss closer to the day

It’s unusual for us to be so early. 2 reasons really - we don’t have much free time between now and the big day, so this weekend was it to get it done really (and even then, my husband is away so it will just be me and 5 year old).

We’d moved house and our old artificial tree was very sad looking and needed replacing. We ordered a new one when we saw a good deal, it came quickly and I wanted to put it together to check it had all the bits and would fit where I wanted it to. Once we’d done that, thought I might as well see if the lights fit and well … here we are!

Im actually enjoying doing it in short bursts rather than one day which is always intended to be lovely and festive and ends up being stressful and fraught trying to get everything done.

We moved into a new house in the summer, it was pretty much done - any changes we’re making will be further down the line, and so all the work of decluttering etc happened then. In our old, rather cramped house, that definitely took up a lot more time.

My husband has been off work this week so our trees are all up , one still needs decorating but I will do that over the weekend , we’ve also decorated the lounge , hall , stairs and landing . Myself and my adult daughter have started our NT Christmas visits today doing the houses at Stourbridge and Kingston Lacy .

I’ve just made up all the gift bags for the table… yes, I know.

I was out for a couple of hours this morning, helping to put up decorations in my town. We're having the official launch tomorrow evening. After weeks and weeks of rain, it has finally turned cold and crisp - perfect Christmassy weather. There was a beautiful wintry sunset this evening, as I was driving home from the supermarket.

I picked up a Christmas present earlier. I wasn't even looking. I just spotted it and thought, "Oh, that would be perfect for DD". So that's another present ticked off my list.

I'm hoping to wrap six or seven presents either this evening or tomorrow morning. That will be all my non-Santa presents wrapped. Oh, except for FIL who is hard to buy for. I guess I could buy him yet another jumper........

I'm still waiting for two presents to arrive in the post and one of them is going to Italy. So I need to get that off in the post as soon as it arrives.

If it was left to me, I'd happily put my decorations up on the 10th December or thereabouts. When I was a child, we always got a real Christmas tree and we didn't put our tree and decorations up until quite near Christmas. We were often the last house on our road to put them up. It was frustrating for us kids having to wait so long. But when we did, finally, put them up, it was extra thrilling, because it meant Christmas was verrrry near.

However, I have a young adult DD who gets mega excited about Christmas and wants the decorations up as early as possible. If she wasn't so busy with college and work, they'd have been up already. I reckon they'll be up in the next week or so.

I am in the middle of more mundane things such as sorting, cleaning and general batch cooking. I did a load of batch cooking this morning.

I’m painting Christmas cards. I need to do ten tomorrow I think. I’ll do 12 of these, 12 penguins and some winter mister toe. Not perfect, not the most artistic but I’m hoping the effort will be appreciated.

Really beautiful, lucky recipients.

@FurForksSakewhat a lovely thing to do, I would certainly appreciate a hand painted card from a friend.

Had a lovely few festive days with a friend in Edinburgh. We avoided the market went shopping, late lunch and then The Snow Queen performed by the Scottish Ballet. Home now and about to get up and start the decorations.

We're putting the decorations up today too. In reality I like having them up for the month of December as I prefer to take the tree down on the 31st. I like it fresh and clean for the new year and back to work.

Plus the refillable advent calendar is kept with the rest of the decorations so I need that out of the loft for the 1st and once I'm up there the rest of the decorations may as well come down 🤣.

We are fully into Christmas mode this week as DH and I both have our work Christmas parties during the coming week and we're off to the panto next weekend. I can't wait....it really is my favourite time of year.

I am not young at 55 but my tree and decorations are going up today. They do come down on 27th but I can’t stand new year. Christmas is over on 27th for us. House back to normal but still enjoying leftovers and cheese!

I would have had the tree up weeks ago if I had my way!

Today I am clearing the cupboard under the stairs, to make way for a telephone chair (anyone remember those?). The tree is going where the telephone chair is.

My husband will get the tree stuff down later. Tomorrow evening we are going to put the tree up, do the house decorations… with orange baileys, popcorn etc. The kids want to make a gingerbread house so I will need to go out tomorrow and find that.

I had intended buying sausage meat for some festive sausage rolls when I go back to Belgium. But ran out of time.

This evening, I will unpack my case, repack for tomorrow’s overnight trip, and do laundry. But the overnight is to Prague and we are all hoping to get a couple of hours in the Christmas markets. And if I get my chores done e fast enough today, I will spend an hour sewing presents for DNieces.

Taken my kids to pick out gifts for each other and my husband/ their dad. Absolutely love to see what they give each other and the thought they put into what their sibling would like. One of my favourite things to do really!
All presents from us and Santa are sorted. Now just to buy a mountain of snacks and of course food closer to time,

Tree is going up tomorrow 😄
I’ve no idea what the baubles will be like. I might have to go buy some. Last year it didn’t have much on it as was its first year up and I had a one year old to take care of. I thought I’d bought baubles in the sales a few years ago but failed to find them last year. Being less sleep deprived I might do a better job.

I’ll also wrap presents and buy final presents online.

My dad’s hard to buy for but in a family thread he said he wanted a specific classic car when asked for ideas for him so I just ordered him a little model of it. Hopefully he’ll find it amusing.

The tree is up and decorated by three of the grandchildren. Outsode decorations also put out and lokking very festive.
Some presents ordered online due to feedback from family so they should arrive over the next week or so. One of the GCs just wants cash - so nice and easy.

Half the decorations are up (living room, snug, DC’s bedrooms) but I need to do the hallway and kitchen tomorrow after I fetch the potted tree. Wreath hung on the front door and DH will sort the outside lights tomorrow on his lunch break.

Got the advent calendars out, including the ones for the pets. Yesterday, bought my final present (planned anyhow, until I see something else I like the look of) . Just the cash to sort out now..

Advent calendars out - almost forgot!

Advent calendars not out and we’ve lost the elf. 😭