Cruising towards Christmas and the New Year - it's the December Flylady thread.

[CotswoldStrife]

Ho, ho, ho - welcome to the December Flylady thread. We'll be following the Flylady method and enforcing order on our houses. Feel free to join in. The monthly focus for December is pampering

I'll be posting links to the daily missions, daily focus and the zone cleaning - don't worry about the detailed zone cleaning if you haven't already decluttered, Flylady recommends decluttering first.

You can probably already tell my personal level of dedication to the internet, not the house as I've looked up the Christmas smileys specially. No washing up was done in the making of this post.

I'll post the first December links tonight!

The daily summary for Sunday, Christmas Day (also available on the Flylady website at flight plan which should update automatically each day.

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Merry Christmas fledglings, celebrate in any way you see fit!

Baby-step no 25 - read Flylady’s personal testimonial

No zone work or missions at the weekends – woo hoo, enjoy!

The daily focus for Sunday is: renew your spirit

The monthly habit for December is pampering!

Happy Christmas Fledglings!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!

Happy Christmas!?I didn't sleep,then I had excited zoolets bounce on me at 430!!go be long day but hopefully they have early night

Merry Christmas everyone! No early mornings here, DD has never woken up early unlike her parents at the same age. She woke up just after 7.00am, came into our bed and stayed there until almost 8.00am .

We've had a really lovely day so far. My thoughts and prayers are with our own absent friends and for those who are also missing friends and family at this time of year. It can be a time of mixed emotions.

Dp n I just has words and then I wobbled and burst into tears
Lil zoo offer me a cuddle,them I felt awful.he's now in bed sulking.I'd been determined we would have a hood day n he's just in a mood n gunning for an arguement

Ah Zoo, let him sulk for a bit. It must be a terribly stressful time for you. How are you feeling now?

High points!
lovely trip with ds2 to church, and saw friends there
Children all enjoyed opening presents and no arguments
very relaxed lunch/brunch of bacon egg scallops, chorizo and cherry tomato and cups of tea and toast
dd on her skateboard, she is a professional!

Low point,
dh and I slept incredibly badly, he had some sort of reaction to the cheesecake and I had a cough which kept me awake
dd opened her stocking at 12.30 grr, she was only pretending to be asleep when I put it on her bed at 12.15...
she also decided to take against some of Father Christmas's offerings and was bitterly disappointed to find reels of cotton instead of makeup (despite numerous other pampering items)
ds2 had a meltdown over the siblings failing to watch the Queen's Speech with him and staying in their rooms to go on their iphones in late afternoon.. and kept insisting we turn off the Wifi, v tyrannical and hysterical about it, I felt suddenly very fed up with him and not my normal attachment parenting stylee at all (this is when I took dd out to see cousins..gosh I love driving on Christmas day it is so quiet, like being in the country, when you are in London...

And walkign round London on Christmas Day in the gloaming is enchanting, staring in at the scenes in people's living rooms, like watching 28,000 drama episodes through the living rooms of others, people with dogs, people with older relatives, toys, washing baskets, dining tables not cleared, spotless houses, unspotless houses.. all life is there and wreaths on all the doors in the posher areas

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone is ok and for those having a tough time.

Zoo, have you seen there is a Christmas row thread on here (I know we're not allowed to have threads about threads so won't say too much!) but I found it worth a read! Nearly posted (didn't) as had a row with DH and DF over where to park the car today . So that was the low point. Also I stupidly bought (luckily only from Facebook for a few pounds) DD2 a toy electric guitar and it is hideous, super loud with no volume switch! afresh she is 3 so yes, prime age to tell people their presents . Also DD2 bit DD1 .

High points: overall nice day (although still time for a row later), saw DB today who we don't often see. Lovely presents with not too much clutter .

To do:-
Bedtime
Aim to avoid a row
General Xmas tidy up
Text lots of people!
Decide what on earth to do tomorrow to occupy everyone.

Merry Christmas and thanks again for such a welcoming, lovely thread .

Also, knitting, I love people watching - that sounds great wandering round!

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's been a great day here (feeling proud). The dishwasher has been on constantly, the food was only half an hour late (!) and the kitchen is tidy. The only think I've forgotten is to buy more washing up liquid so there are a few bits to do tomorrow. Amazingly my difficult mil got on very well with my difficult mum, making both of them easier to deal with. They've all gone to bed now and I'm flopped on the sofa with bake off.

zoo, it must have been a tough day.

I was surprisingly almost on time myself with the food today, I think the much smaller turkey helped as it's the first time we haven't been eating when the Queen has been speaking (sometimes its the pud, sometimes its the turkey ...)
and we still haven't had the pud yet as we are not ready for it yet - there is always tomorrow (along with the ham in coke).

Glad that most have had a good day, those that had flashpoints will hopefully have a good day tomorrow. Kitchen is not bad here, but (f)utility and front room/lounge are grim. Tomorrow will be the big tidy. Stop laughing, it may happen

Will stop eating stollen and get the links ready. There may be gin-induced errors so do let me know if they don't look right

The daily summary for Monday (also available on the Flylady website at flight plan which should update automatically each day.

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Boxing Day - go easy if you are still stuffed with turkey (or other food of choice)

Baby-step no 26 - jump in where you are

We are in Zone 5 this week: the living room

Spend 15 mins decluttering in Zone 5.

When you have finished decluttering, the detailed cleaning list (if you are at that stage) for Zone 5 is here

Mission for Monday sofa diving – clean and vacuum the sofa and chairs

The daily focus for Monday is: weekly home blessing hour

The monthly habit for December is pampering!

Lovely day had here. Caglets thrilled with their presents, lots of snuggly time. Neighbour kids popped in for a bit which was unexpected but nice!

Decided to book a last minute trip to the cinema for tomorrow (er, today) which is a rare treat at full price! But DH is back to work and it feels a bit of an anticlimax. So Moana awaits!

Hello, just packing car and off in a mo to go and do horsey things, on tiny tablet thing so pls forgive typing. Bit jaded as didn't finish clearing up until 2 am and have had three really late nights in a row, but had a really lovely time yesterday.

High points: Christmas was more relaxed and "go with the flow" than usual. Think we have got more practiced at it over the years. DD was delightful and charming and amazingly helpful throughout (and she loved her presents.) And we cut down on a lot of optional extras and no one has missed them at all. Attended amazing joint Catholic/Muslim/Jewish service (complete with fab array of pastries with coffee afterwards) as well as midnight mass, and managed to squeeze in brisk dog walk in deserted park to counteract the pastries!

Low points: close family member has the flu and couldn't come, so we missed her and felt worried about her on her own. Hopefully, she'll be able to join us in a few days. Dh tried new experimental way of cooking turkey which didn't work, so after I had served up and had brought bread sauce, sprouts, kale, chestnuts, parsnips, roast pots, bacon, gravy, stuffing to table; and everyone was sitting there anticipating the feast, I discovered the wretched bird was not properly cooked! Dh made a bit of a very polite protest (he doesn't like his cooking being criticised) but I judged that offending him was the lesser evil, rather than poisoning guests, so back in the oven for forty mind or so it went, while I plied everyone with wine! Cue mahoosive kerfuffle and removal re-heating of everything else! Big coordination fail! Never mind, it was lovely in the end! And dh just aboutforgave me later

Sorry times are so tough Zoo

Hope everyone enjoys the rest of the holidays! Big waves to all.

A belated Merry Christmas to all the fledglings. Sorry some of you have had/are having some difficult times.

I've been lurking a lot this month, and it's great to see so many of the people who joined the thread in September still here (There are going to be hoards of new members next month!)

< frantically excited waves to knitting > great to see you back on the thread.

So after seven months of set backs and exasperation, we exchanged contracts for our new house last week - moving day in less than two weeks!!!!!

Coming in late to wish everyone a belated happy Christmas. Good day yesterday here with extended family and only a few hiccups... So nice to hear about all your days. One nice bit of mine was going out for an early run with my nice SIL in festive running gear and having a really good chat. Couple of meltdowns from my poor DD later who was being goaded by her elder brothers grrrr... but otherwise a happy family day. Why do we seem to have more food in the house than we did yesterday, though?!

Grey moving in less than two weeks - you tried to sneak that one in! Good luck with the move, it can be so stressful during the packing phase but hopefully when you are in your new property it will all be worth it.

SC quite right about the undercooked turkey. I found one pink spot on ours (it may well have been cooked as it was an odd place not to be if that makes sense) and wouldn't let DH carve that bit for the same guest-damaging reasons although the eater was not in our house at the time and I cooked it!

I am feeling quite fired up with optimism and enthusiasm for next year at the moment I do like a fresh start (I must do, I have so many of them through the year )

It is nice to have a mix of newbies and regulars on the thread. A good point that January might be a busy one threadwise Grey, I am happy to do January if there are no other takers? I do have some of the links set up in Word docs now so I can just block and copy easily, happy to pass them on if anyone wants them.

Flylady usually posts clean up missions as well but I didn't have the links for them last night - if they appear, I'll add them to the daily post.

Have a good Boxing Day.

I have a huge amount of study to do in Jan but can do Feb or March? Will definitely need a link guide though as am clueless (think you said you had a guide of how to do links SC and yes please to some kind of Word document Cotswold. Will post properly in a bit. Happy Boxing Day everyone.

Hello everyone, Merry Boxing Day. Great to hear from you again Grey.

Ta da (I know it might be a bit much for this on Boxing Day!):-
Went for run
At park with DDs
Laundry on
DH at home making lunch

To do:-
Sort out Tupperware (needed as the turkey DM bought really was huge, bless her)
Mini Xmas clear up - we have wrapping paper everywhere!
Hoping for quietish afternoon with film / books etc and DDs playing with my mum and dad since we have taken them out to burn off some energy now - we shall see!

How are things zoo ?

Hi guys

Ta das
Putbout recycling and bins
Slept.a lot
Dd2throats a nightmare.she cry frustration yest couldn't eat nice things
I had massive panic attack 4am and dodgy tum
Think body has had enough of Me lousy eating,no sleep and stress
As it stands dp and I aren't tog after yesterdays shenanigans I had a massive rant about behaviour and put on brave front for ONE DAY.he took it badly and walked out. He's used be allowed unchallenged behaviour as his mum was adant he gets asnt to be upset under any circs as she was terrified it would lead suicide.well shra not here anymore and I believe we are all accountable our actions and our own lives!(blows Raspberry's to heaven)

Glad everyone's seem had good Xmas

Must go feed zoolets. They've been amazing playing nicely n let me rest(we'll dd2 just lay other sofa watch TV) but lil zoo and D's not bothered me.joys new things
Last moan-at over 30 gifts each I've totally lost living room under sea presents and my beautiful declutteringness had disappeared(sighs at bloke fir overdoing it.again)

Promise I will pull up my big girl pants
Now,stop moaning and just get on with thing(gently today tho)

Big cheery wingflaps to all!!

Zoo hope things are OK - when did he walk out, he may be crawling back already. It's a really stressful time for you anyway.

I can do January so don't worry, I know that a few of the fledglings or their children have exams and study, moving and packing, etc and I'd rather you did that. I'm away for a couple of nights but the hotel has wifi I'll do anything to get out of actually doing the stuff I'm posting so it's really not a problem to do it if needed. We don't have much on that I know about in January so far.

Hope everyone is having a good Boxing Day, we've just got round to eating some of the Christmas Pud!

Cotswold he's back at work tom,so won't be at least til things back to normal he will even think bout it.least atmosphere better here....