Come A Little Closer, My Ultralock!

One week today and it’s Christmas Eve!!! I’m getting excited. The tree is up and we keep finding decorations to place around. I’m sure that there is a bin of decorations missing as we can’t find the Christmas hats and tomorrow is wear a Christmas hat day for the kids at their school. Thank goodness for 24 hour shops to quick up an inexpensive one (or two). Likely would have needed to buy new ones anyway as little heads have gotten bigger. Shopping is 95% done and wrapped. We’ll need to review the Christmas list tomorrow and go get those

18 December 2012 2 Comments

Meet our elf, Carol Jingle

After much debate and price comparison I found and purchased an Elf on the Shelf. If you are unfamiliar with such a beast, this little elf works on the power of Christmas magic. Ours is a girl and she was just named Carol Jingle (Christmas Carol and Jingle Bells) that we also can shorten to C.J. (but I prefer Carol myself). At night she reports to Santa the nice and naughty parts of our day and then returns in the morning in a new place for the children to find her. The fun part is that they cannot touch her

4 December 2012 No Comments

Organizing Christmas Decorations

I have been very focused on my mission to declutter. I have cleared a whole lot of clutter from my home. I have been spending each week on a zone and have made significant progress on the house. Today I can even see a clear space in the play room where I was storing the Christmas bins. The bins have been purged, organized, and have found a home under the stairs with the other holiday bins. I think it could be shrunk from three to two bins but each Christmas will let me go through things further when we see

16 February 2012 No Comments

What to do with Christmas Cards After Christmas?

Jenae at I Can Teach My Child re-posted a great idea on what to do with your Christmas cards after the holiday season has passed. For each family that sent a card, keep them in a basket by the kitchen table and choose one family to pray for each day. Up until now we have been using the fronts of the cards as gift tags on gifts at the next year’s holiday but using them throughout the year is a great way to think of loved ones regularly. What do you do with old Christmas cards?

9 January 2012 3 Comments

Getting Organized 2012

My post on organizing for the new year touched on two areas: finances and household management. On Friday I worked on organizing my tax information for last year. Last year I made the effort to note income and expenses at the end of each month. This gave me a more accurate picture of what we were actually spending and minimized the dreaded tax organizing I generally experience at the end of the year. I also had an ongoing estimate of what my taxes owing would be so I could put a savings plan into place and not be surprised at

8 January 2012 2 Comments

Do You Use Santa and His Elves?

The kids were so hyper for a few weeks leading up to Christmas. We did threaten to call Santa a few times and then I came up with the brilliant idea that Santa and his elves do “spot checks” randomly throughout the day and we can’t see when they are peeking. But not toilet times, of course. Then we got caught up in all the “how do they check” questions and it got tiresome and questionable in answering them. Ha ha. Do you use Santa and his elves when your children are too excited to remember how to behave? Surely

29 December 2011 2 Comments

Helping Others Have a Merry Christmas

Finally a feel-good story that echoes the pay-it-forward example. Any person could do this and make such a difference in someone else’s life any time either at Christmas or otherwise. Anonymous Donors Pay Off Kmart Layaway Accounts(click to get linked to the full story – I’ve checked it out. It’s a true link and a beautiful idea).

16 December 2011 No Comments

Holiday Deals

Today I thought I would hit up a consignment shop to get a few games for the kids. We are on a tight budget this year but the kids don’t need to know that. For $25 I got a circular knitting machine (kids version), 2 bags of yarn (okay that’s for me to make presents), 4 puzzles (Cars, Diego, Strawberry Shortcake, Dora) and a brand new Crayola Toy Story colouring kit. I’m really pleased with my purchases and I hope the kids will be thrilled too – this just stretched the budget big time so that there will be more

27 November 2011 No Comments

Black Friday

It’s Black Friday. The Canadian Thanksgiving was in October (which I am grateful for!) but with our American friends we do have some Black Friday sales. The frenzy really gets you excited about it – even if we don’t need anything and most of our holiday shopping is under control. Do you shop with Black Friday sales? What is the best deal you ever got?

25 November 2011 No Comments

Organizing for Christmas

I really appreciate the tips for organizing Christmas from Echoes of Laughter. Her secret is to “start early, give yourself deadlines, and do only the things you enjoy – let the rest go!“ I got some great tips for her. Specifically I have set the following deadlines (I had months in before but that seems too vague for me). Christmas Cards – in mail Dec 1stChristmas Decorating – outside lights, wreaths Nov 20th; inside decor Nov 26/27th; tree Dec 4thShopping Complete – Dec 10thGifts wrapped – Dec 15th Totally do-able, right? How do you organize yourself for a less-stressed Christmas?

24 November 2011 1 Comment

Category: Christmas