Time Tidbits: Holiday Timeline

Are you worried you won't be able to get everything done before the holidays? Professional Organizer and NYTimes Best-selling author Jennifer Ford Berry wants you to know that GOOD ENOUGH is the new PERFECT!

Jennifer challenged her fans to a 65-day organization challenge to help them to get in control before/after the holidays. But you don't need to use those 65 days, it isn't too late...her tips (some of which are below) are timeless, and can can help you with everything from Thank-you cards to last minute holiday shopping and pot-lucks.

Expectations

• Let go of the “It’s a Wonderful Life” theory & be realistic
• Ask for help! Delegate…split up tasks with your family. Consider hiring help just for the season…it may be worth your sanity.

Holiday Time Line

• Have a family meeting to discuss everyone’s top 3 things they would like to do over the holidays: include watching movies, seeing lights, events, baking, spending time w friends, school functions – traditions - limited
• Grab your planner and schedule time for each of these
• Be honest about what family traditions you would like to continue and which you would not.

 

Gratitude

• As a family write down everything you are grateful for and post it where you can see it during this season.
• Designate a notebook or journal as your Gratitude Book. By writing down what you are thankful for you will begin to appreciate even the little things life has to offer and you will be reminded of how grace affects are lives on a daily basis. You will also become a better person realizing that a little task you do could be the very thing someone else is grateful for!
• Each day for one month, write down one reason you are thankful for your mate or your friend or family member. At the end of the month, give that person the list.
• Make a point to practice being grateful for the hard times too. Why? Because good things do come out of bad situations and there is always an important lesson to be learned.
• Give back during this season: sponsor a family, work at a soup kitchen
• Reflect on the past year. What are some of the good things in my life that I may be overlooking? 
• Incorporate gratitude everyday, not just at Thanksgiving dinner

Experience vs Gift Giving

• How can you bring back the true meaning of the holidays
• Gift cards, tickets to a concert or play
• Do you remember which toys you got as a child or do you count the memories?
• Set a budget
• Kids: tickets to a favorite concert, magazine subscription, Little Passports, gift card to Bookstores, Itunes, One on one sport/music lesson, Pet, Season Pass to Amusement Park, Trip/Vacation, Bounce House, Memberships
• Parents/Grandparents: gift card for house cleaning, Windows, PO’s, overnight at a hotel, dinner gift card, grocery service delivery, Co-Op, Wine Club, Emeals, Movie passes, Babysitting coupons, Kids give coupons to grandparents/hugs/kisses,  Netflix, Amazon, Red Box

Greeting cards

• Start early before things get too hectic
• Do you want to send cards? If so, when? Alternative times to send: Thanksgiving, Fall, New Year’s, Valentine’s
• Card services: cardstore.com or send out cards to save time
• Spend a little time now typing labels that you can reuse each year
• Ways to display cards: bulletin board, clothes pins, basket, old window shutter
• Tough love: you can throw out the cards! Let the guilt go about throwing away photos!
• Put them in a little ring per year, send them to kindergarten or preschool for arts and crafts, gift tags, St Jude’s: www.stjudesranch.org

Entertaining

• Do you want to entertain or not and if yes why are you entertaining? Are you enjoying your guests? Are you putting too much pressure on perfect?
• Simple ways to entertain: avoid yearly parties, every other year or change it up, entertain somewhere other than your home, combine your entertaining family/friends, entertaining this a gift, think outside the box
• Smaller more intimate gatherings vs one big one
• Set a budget for entertaining

Gift Wrapping

• You can recycle/reuse gift bags but throw out the wrinkly bags!
• Let the kids help and you can give up being the perfect wrapper

Holiday Storage

• If you want to be able to see your items use clear bins.  Otherwise consider using different colors depending on which holiday you are storing ex: red: Christmas, orange: Halloween
• Label both the top and the side
• Consider a shelfing unit so that you don’t have to pile too many containers on top of each other
• If you pull out an item that you don’t like or use throw it away or donate. There is no reason using good storage space
• Use waterproof, pest-proof containers that can withstand temperature and humidity changes. You can also use a water absorption product or a cedar plank to help you.
• Reuse gift wrap or newspaper for breakables
• Zip lock bags are great for those homemade decorations esp glitter!