Lessons Learned or Just 364 Days till Christmas

 As most of you know, the entire year I have been counting down the weeks before Christmas until the end of November when I switched to counting down the days.

I sat down in the quiet of Christmas night after everyone had gone home and TheHub had gone to bed, reflecting on the day and the year leading up to the day

Here is my take away of things I learned both through successes and failures. This is meant as a reflection and lesson to myself, but if any of you find something you can use, feel free to. 

There is no order to this, just random things as I thought of them.

1. Plan, but don't be so rigid in the planning that I can't be spontaneous. (Mostly successful)

2. Carve out time to be with friends and family. Remember entertaining can be as simple as taking friends on a tacky Christmas lights tour, or inviting someone over for a soup and cornbread dinner. It is also wonderful to have something like the cousins lunch which I went all out for. 

(50/50 I did spend time with friends and family but should have done more entertaining.)

3. Do not be upset if the decorating vision does not pair with reality. (Personal example here: I ordered 2 wine barrel staves with partially drilled 1 1/2 inch holes to hold votives. I planned on putting them in the middle of both windows in the dining room. I grossly underestimated the length of the staves, or grossly overestimated the width of my windows and found it was not going to work. So much for my vision! Instead I put one on the coffee table in the den, and the other on the mantle. Not what I planned, but it turned out I really like the way it looked anyway. As for the windows, they were decorated with a big bow between them and candles in the sash of each window. I was not crazy about it but it worked fine.) 

(I am giving me a success on this because other than wondering how I was so far off with my estimation, I just found something that worked without getting upset or bummed out)

4. If I use the "flame" fake candles, only buy the usb rechargeable ones. I have gone through AAA batteries like crazy this year. In all fairness I have them all over the living room, dining room, kitchen and den. Don't get me wrong I do burn real candles daily, but these are all in places where using real would be a fire hazard or hard to manage. 

(50/50 on this. All old fake candles are battery operated, all new ones are USB rechargeable)

5. Start deep cleaning in October and do it by zones leaving the areas that get the most traffic for the last to be deep cleaned. 

(mostly successful)

6. Instead of buying Christmas throw pillows, buy themed pillow covers. Amazon has tons of them in all sizes and they are not expensive.

 (Did this with 2 pillows, but will do it to all the den pillows next year)

7. Use enough food from the freezer in October and November to have room for frozen cookie dough, or other Christmas prep foods. 

(Failure)

8. Make several kinds of soup available for meals during December. That way a quick meal is always available, so there is no reason to say no to any spur of the moment event or invitation. 

(Giving me a so/so rating on this. I had some made but not enough varieties)

9. Make a Christmas notebook and become a Christmas spy.  Give everyone on my list a blank page or two in the notebook. (I am old school and still want to write things down instead of keeping a digital notebook.)  Anytime I hear someone in my gift group mention something they want or need, post it next to their name in the notebook. When I buy or make something write it on their page. I have 4 columns I check off  by each gift when each task is done: Bought/Wrapped/Bowed/Tagged I can flip through my notebook and know what each gift is and what its status is. That makes it so much easier for me. 

Also keep up with the Christmas cards sent. Change or add to the list as needed.

(Success, kind of ,but I need to be a better spy)

10. Have 1 dedicated gift space, drawer, closet, whatever works for you to store all presents before getting ready to wrap them. 

(Failure. I had to go on a gift hunt. I buy gifts year round and had stashed things all over the house. Bad move!)

11. Have one day each month January- November dedicated to holiday prep. For me that means making decorations for Christmas, for others it might mean making gift items. 

(Close to successful but not totally)

12. After the holiday pack everything away with all similar items together. (Not what I have done in the past) and put everything away neatly. Before packing or storing things make "keep it or coast it" decisions. There is no point in packing and storing anything that will never be used again. This year I am creating an undecided bin with things I am not sure about. Next year I will decide one way or another and anything that does not make the cut will be offered on my local buy nothing facebook site. 

(Failure! Paid dearly for my failures of years past. Remember the room of horrors?)

13. I personally have a lot of silver. It needs to be polished in late November and used. Even store bought spritz cookies look festive on a little silver tray. 

They served no purpose sitting in the cabinet, because when I got ready to use them, they were badly tarnished. Not only did I not have time to polish them at the last minute, I was also completely out of Wright's silver cream. 

 (Complete failure)

14. Volunteer during the season. Goodness knows there are so many folks who need a little extra help or care.

(50/50 on this. I did volunteer 3 times at IP and helped package and deliver food bags for kids in our school system who need a little extra. There are other things I could have /should have done)

15. Be generous with time, talents, and finances 

(Success with finances, semi successful with time, other than volunteering at IP not sure about sharing my talents)

16. Get Christmas cards addressed early, then wait before mailing to add greetings to the card 

(Success)

17. Listen to Christmas music often. Listen every time doing any Christmas prep.

 (Success)

18. Make freezable Christmas foods by early-mid December 

(Failure. I had no freezer space)

19. Inventory all Christmas wrapping supplies. If I need anything buy it cheaply at the after Christmas sales 

(Success except for stocking up on tape)

20. Browse after Christmas grocery sales for anything I might use next year  I buy things like baking chocolate, nuts, hard cheese*, shredded coconut and what nots at the after Christmas grocery sales. I cryovac them using the food saver and they are fine a year later. *Wrapped hard cheese goes in the freezer. (50/50 I did some last year but maybe not quite enough)

21. Reach out and call friends I think about often yet rarely speak with. A five minute conversation relays their importance in my life. Even if the time for intense friendship has passed, they were still there for a some part of my life's path. 

( Semi successful. I made an effort to renew, regular contact, at least by phone, with one of my former neighbors. When she lived near, we were very close friends, but over time had only holiday and birthday contact. I called her on her birthday last January and we maintained pretty a regular phone relationship. Last May I called her and she told me she had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. I continued to call her randomly until she was no longer able to communicate. After her death I talked with her son who thanked me for staying in touch with her and said every time I called, she would tell him all about the conversations.  I missed talking with her this Christmas. Sadly successful with her, but there are other important people I did not make the same effort with)

22. Declutter surroundings and declutter life. I have a much larger house than 2 people need and it is filled with things I love, need or use regularly, and things that are just things. "Just things" need to go. They occupy real estate in the house, occupy time maintaining them, and occupy space in my mind that does not need taken up with minutiae. During the holidays I do not need to find storage for things I am not crazy about or use regularly, to make a place for holiday items I truly love to display. 

(Failure)

23. Give myself grace for not being "as good as".  Like most humans I fall way short of perfection and no one is as critical of me as I am of myself, especially during the holidays.  

(Failure. I keep a mental list of all my flaws, what I should have done and didn't, or what I did/said I should not have, and have been known to mentally beat myself up.)

24. Take photos of Christmas decorations. That way I can have it as a reference for next year repeat whatever I really liked and change anything I think needs improvement.

(Never even thought to do it before this year)

25. Buy a new bloomin' tree for the living room. The one in there is old as Methuselah, it's shedding like crazy and I had "set up" injuries from the wires in the bare spots poking my arms and hands.

(I can't rate this a success or failure until I actually find a new tree)

26. Do not be afraid  to change things up. Each Christmas does not have to be a carbon copy of the year before. For example, this year I changed our brunch meal from the ridiculous amounts of food I have made in the past to a more reasonable amount and a much simpler menu. It was still delicious.

(Success!)

27. Everything does not have to be homemade. I can find delicious desserts all over town, and believe it or not the 3.99 pumpkin roll from Aldi was as good or better than I could have made.

(Success)

28. Set the table for brunch the night before (I usually do this but did not this year and it cost me prep time in the morning)

(Lesson learned)

28. Go to bed on Christmas Eve at a reasonable time. I stayed up until 3:45 the got up at 7:30. I was tired all day and it was self inflicted.

(Another lesson learned)

29. Keep a Christmas planning journal and fill it as I go with decorating ideas, recipes, things I want to see and do during the holidays, entertaining ideas, etc.

Last thing: Understand that nothing is perfect, but the object of a successful Christmas is time spent with friends and family, lots of laughs, and for me times of worship. Everything else is gravy!

p.s. DIL2 gave me this wonderful publication Daphne's Diary. Yikes! I already started reading it and plans for next Christmas are in the book! I noticed while reading it, I can subscribe to future issues. I think I am going to NEED to do just that.