The holiday rush has already started! There’s Thanksgiving to prepare for. Holiday cards need to be bought along with presents for Hanukkah and Christmas.
As Willy Wonka said:
“So much time, and so little to do! Strike that, reverse it.”
The cooking shows and magazines are giving ideas about how to make a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner along with having the best Christmas or Hanukkah ever. In theory, it looks and sounds great. In reality, it’s a whole other story.
Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas can be simple and great at the same time. All three holidays are celebrating: being grateful, hard work, miracles, and compassion and understanding for our fellow man/woman. If we think about these basic reasons for celebrating it will be easier to keep from being caught up in the commercialism of fancy cooking, elaborate decorations, and over the top and expensive gifts.
To help counteract the media pushing us into believing these high expectations we need to have a written plan for the holiday season. The best way to do this is to create a notebook and write out your plans for each holiday you will celebrate. These plans should include what you want to accomplish and by what date.
Here are some links to help with the planning of Thanksgiving:
http://www.oceanspray.com/planit/essentials/planning_book.aspx
http://www.bhg.com/holidays/thanksgiving/planning/
If you don’t know where to get started with Christmas then Flylady.net has some great information.
http://www.flylady.net/pages/HolidayCruising1.asp
I have written an article on how to set up a holiday card system that I’ve used for years. It may take a little time to set up at first if you have a lot of people on your list, but in future years it will save you tons of time. You can check it out here:
If you are mailing gifts this holiday season then check out the USPS site for dates. Write in your notebook who you want to mail gifts to and when you need to buy them and mail them. You may want to mark your main calendar with the “mail by” dates to make sure you aren’t late.
http://www.usps.com/holiday/shippingcalendar.htm?from=home_ftpromo&page=holidaymaildates
Below are links a few more links to help with Thanksgiving planning. I’ll be adding links for Hanukkah and Christmas on the next blog post. Be sure to check back soon.
*Thanksgiving Day – Thursday, November 25
http://www.butlerwebs.com/holidays/thanksgiving.htm
http://www.history.com/content/thanksgiving
http://holidays.kaboose.com/thanksgiving/
http://www.holidays.net/thanksgiving/
Janice
https://cutclutterwithscissors.com
If you have piles of paper clutter then you need to get my eBook, “Cut Out The Paper Clutter”. It can help you clear out the piles and organize the important papers.
