Here I am again, posting my “Christmas Sanity Plan” blog in the last few hours of the month. On the bright side though, I’ve made great strides towards my goal. My biggest accomplishment was ordering our Christmas cards. I seem to have established a reputation for sending my cards out rather late in the season. I think the latest they’ve ever been sent was in January (or did I save them for Easter?) Of course, my letter is yet to be written so even though I’ve got the cards, the envelopes, the stamps and the letterhead, this plan could all go south if I don’t follow through.
I don’t want to send the cards out too early, of course, because that could just send people into shock, or have them running to their calendars to make sure they didn’t sleep through the first three weeks of December. I want to be considerate of my friends’ health, after all. But, I’m still working towards my goal of being done by December 1.
I also made great progress this month in getting some gifts purchased. At this point, my focus is mostly on my immediate family and they seem to be the easiest. A couple of years ago I changed from buying them multiple gifts to getting them just one big thing along with gift cards, or little things for their stockings. While the amount of money I spend is pretty much the same, this plan works well for me because it requires much less time spent wrapping.
The key, I think, to staying sane at Christmas is to figure what works for you. One of my friends loves to wrap gifts. Me? While I don’t detest gift wrapping, it does seem to add stress when I’m already stretched to the limit. That is why my family plan works well for me. Of course, once I have grandchildren, things could change. I have great potential for being an out of control grandmother.
If you’ve not been following along all year in this Christmas sanity scheme of mine, you might want to consider starting in the next few weeks with your Christmas plan. Norman Vincent Peale once said, “plan your work – work your plan.” Good advice.
And, if you’ve never tried it, check out internet shopping. As much as I love email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, planning trips, and looking up interesting tidbits of information, I would have to say that internet shopping is by far my favorite part of living in an age of technology. Internet shopping has proven to be the biggest stress reducer of the Christmas season for me.
Before I close I would like to bring up something I wrote at the beginning of the year. While I love giving gifts to family and friends, I think the best gift you can give someone is time spent together. Be sure to make include that as part of your Christmas plan.
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