Well, It's That Time

Time to seriously think about getting organized for the upcoming holidays. Time to finalize plans for family gatherings, special meals, holiday parties (ones to host and ones to attend), holiday shopping, crafting, and holiday cooking and baking.

So far I have accomplished a few things in the right direction.

• put important holiday gathering dates on the calendar
• made the Christmas card picture, ordered the cards, and guess what?? The cards came in today!
• purchased a few gifts
• finalized plans with my girls for what their handmade gift items will be this year
• began a list of items to order online (these orders need to be placed soon)
• bought most of the paper goods I will need for the two Christmas parties I am hosting
• took inventory of my gift wrap and ribbon, and sadly determined that I do not need to buy any more paper or ribbon this year! (I love gift wrap and ribbon!)

This is what I plan to accomplish by the end of this week:

• create return address labels for the Christmas cards
• create mailing labels for the cards
• purchase stamps for the cards
• create gift card labels. I want to make some cute "stickers" for my gifts. I plan to use the same labels that I use to label containers, but print our family's name on them....or maybe even the "to" and "from"....not sure yet
• decide how or if I am going to assign certain gift wrap to particular people or families--before I begin wrapping gifts. Sometimes I assign a certain paper to each person, sometimes I wrap all of one side of the family's gifts in one certain paper, or sometimes I just wrap each gift however I want to at the time. There are benefits for each method.....I am still undecided. I will decide very soon because.....
• begin wrapping 2-3 gifts a day.
• find and buy cute holiday tins (inexpensive ones) for my baked goods

If you have a favorite holiday recipe for cookies, party foods, gift ideas, etc. Please leave a comment and share it! I usually create 50 or so gift tins or bags of some sort of simple baked good to share with friends and family. I am open to some new recipes!