Christmas countdown – seven weeks to go!
Start planning a fabulous Christmas with our seven-week festive countdown! Avoid some of the annual seasonal stress with easy weekly plans and tasks.
Ready for Christmas? If you’re anything like us, it’s probably not even on your radar yet. (If you’re really like us, you’ll probably be panic buying gifts and food on Christmas Eve – that’s not a good thing!)
But according to the much-more-organised Nerissa Buckell from online gifts, homewares and accessories website Crimson Tiger, Christmas should be on your radar now. And to help us (and you) start planning early for a less stressful festive season, she’s kindly written a seven-week Christmas countdown, packed with helpful tips and must-do dates. And here’s her first (we’ll publish the rest every Sunday from now until the big event!).
Christmas countdown – seven weeks to go!
I can almost hear you groaning from here at the mention of the C word. Yes, it may just be November, and yes, I appreciate you don’t want to think about it until at least two weeks before, BUT ladies, we are all very busy and Christmas (see I said it again!) can become incredibly stressful if we don’t get organised early.
Some of you may already be on top of it and I bow down to you ladies, but for those who struggle we have some pointers to keep you on top of things, hopefully leaving time for you to enjoy yourselves. (WARNING though – this plan does not come with a guarantee that relatives will not be the cause of stress at Christmas!)
Grab your diary and start planning
First I need you to go gather your diary or calendar, and start planning:
- Write in all school activities you need to be present for – the carol concert, the school nativity play, the Christmas fair. Everything that you are expected to attend goes straight in the diary.
- Book any time off, or book time out of work for those events. You really don’t want to be punished throughout Christmas because you failed to attend your child’s first nativity (and it will only cost you more in guilt presents in the end). If you or your partner really cannot attend try and ask grandparents, a friend or neighbour to go in your place so they at least feel someone is there supporting them.
- Write in the dates of your partner’s and your own Christmas work bashes and book a babysitter NOW. The nearer it is to Christmas the harder it is to book a reliable sitter, so sort it now and make a note to confirm that they are still okay to do it two weeks before the event.
- Ring a friend, someone who you enjoy shopping with, and book a date for a girls’ shopping trip. I have already managed to do this, having left my husband with our children and my friend’s two children overnight. We headed down to Chichester for some great shopping, treated ourselves to a decent lunch and then went and stayed by the sea for the night. I have also made my husband take a day off work for us to go shopping together so we can get his family presents and I can do the not so subtle ‘ooo! I would love that’ present hinting to him. Unfortunately this technique does not always work.
- Make a list of all the people you need to buy for and hide it somewhere nosey eyes do not pry. On the back write any ideas you might have for people. Whenever you buy something write it down against the recipient’s name along with how much. When you have all the presents for that person put a tick in front of their name.
- Time to work out who you are having Christmas with and where. This is often a sensitive one with the relatives, especially with step families. Someone will at some point feel upset about the arrangements and the only thing I can say here is… Good Luck! Remember Christmas can be spread over a few days; Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and the bank holidays and weekends either side.
- Do you have young children who want to visit the big fella? Time to get online and start booking as the good, jolly ones are always booked up early.
See, nothing too horrendous or overly Christmassy, yet. See you next week with more!
Looking for Christmas gift inspiration? You’ll find plenty of good ideas at Crimson Tiger.
