Christmas is almost here and I find as I get older, I’ve come up with a tradition of my own that I’d like to incorporate into the season: organization. My family has a chronic case of disorganization, so what we end up doing from year to year varies: some years we have our Christmas tree set up two weeks before Christmas, most years it goes up a few days before. We try to give Christmas cards to all the people we attend church with (less than 75 families so it’s not completely daunting) but that usually means we’re feverishly writing out cards on Christmas Eve to give out right after the Christmas Eve service (and really how fun is that if you really only get to enjoy the card for 24 hours?). And cards that we actually have to mail? We’re even worse, some years deciding it’s just not worth it. Every card we receive well ahead of Christmas serves as a reminder of our lack of organization.

Other things that fall by the wayside due to not starting early enough are:

• baking and giving away cookies and other baked goods
• inviting friends over; general socializing (with us being the hosts)
• collaborations between family members to get gifts that other family members really want (i.e. the kids pooling their money to get a gift for the parents, the girls getting a joint gift for the boys, etc)—we can’t seem to get organized at the same time

The end result is Christmas ends up passing in a blur without really giving us an opportunity to enjoy the season and each other…or those delicious cookies! Since other people who are just as busy (if not more so) manage to make the Christmas season last more than a few days, I am committed to doing the same.

I believe it was while reading Laura’s blog last year that the idea of using spreadsheets to organize Christmas came up. I started using one at the end of last year, with the hope that it would better prepare me for this Christmas. This year, I’ve brought out my spreadsheet and the first thing I noticed is it’s not well organized, so that has been fixed. I’ve also updated it for this year, adding names to the Christmas list and adding gift ideas for those people I’ve already decided on a gift for. I’m looking forward to enjoying Christmas for more than a week this year.

Filed under: Celebrations, NaBloPoMo, Organize by jummy