Oh No, Just 42 Weeks Till Christmas

This kind of sums up my planning for Christmas in the 42nd week prior to the big day. As fast as January and February flew by, and now March is rolling past, I have much less time than I thought I did. But it's spring here and I though I don't have the blues about trying to organize Christmas, I had rather be planting zinnia seed.

I found 2 different free to me cookbooks with recipes and Christmas customs from Sweden and France, and another book about Christmas in Nigeria. I was thinking it might be fun once a week during the Advent season to have a meal using the recipes and customs of a different country. I could easily do it for just the two of us, but it might be a great impetus to get my rear in a weekly holiday entertaining mode.

I've read through all three of them and there are some wonderful sounding recipes as well as some tips to make the meals "feel" more authentic.

I have already added this idea my Christmas to-do calendar. Right now I have it planned for Wednesday nights during advent, but that is subject to change, obviously.

I will need to try some of the recipes in advance and plan to do that sometime in the spring. We are planning a trip at the end of the month through mid-April and I don't want to buy any unusual ingredients before we leave. (Translation: I plan on doing the minimum cooking until we leave and just don't want to be bothered doing anything out of the ordinary.)

I did get all of my Dickens Village houses packed neatly and safely away. I have 14 houses and to keep all the boxes they came in takes up too much space. Instead I keep them in a huge storage bin all wrapped snugly in thick fleece, then I use the same fleece to fill in any gaps so there is no movement or shifting. I had taken them down long ago but had just moved them and not carefully packed them away. Now they are happy and if the container gets bumped in the room of chaos I so fondly call the decoration closet room, there is no longer any worry of them breaking.

Wrapping and securing the wrappings with rubber bands does not take very long at all. It's fitting them in the container like a jigsaw puzzle that takes a while. But now it is done and one more item is crossed off the list. Just don't ask what else was done to the room or closet because the answer might possibly be nothing. I am a master at avoidance.

Other  than reading a few newly found on the library app Christmas magazines and listing a few ideas I might like to use next Christmas, I did nothing. 

I had said I was going to read one Christmas book a month and found some through my library app, but it is too early to request them since I plan on reading during the trip.

And that all I have. Now I begin the 41st week before Christmas with no plans other than avoiding the room of terror another week.

Ho, Ho, Ho or Ho, Ho, Hum; your choice!

Anne