The holiday season has officially begun. The holidays mean cards to be sent, gifts to buy, parties to plan or attend, baking to be done, houses to organize and clean, decorations to display – the list seems endless. It’s no wonder that for many people, the holidays are a combination of excitement, anticipation, stress and exhaustion.
In the frenzy of activity that usually surrounds the holidays, we too often over commit, over spend, over eat, over entertain and generally over indulge. As a result, many of us will greet the New Year exhausted, in debt and feeling unfulfilled.
If the upcoming holidays are already leaving you feeling more stressed than blessed, this year, more than ever, I would like to recommend taking a simpler approach.
#1. Decluttering your home:
- If the major living spaces in the home are clean and organized year-round, it takes stress away from the holiday influx of family and guests. Something to think about if not for this year, then for next year.
- Decorating for the holidays can be minimalist or over the top. Clear the decks to make room for your decorations and ornaments. Remove all magazines, papers, toys, and inactive projects from your main living areas. Clear off ALL horizontal surfaces completely. Make sure you have enough seating, but remove extraneous furniture, pictures and other decorative objects.
- Use the holiday season to “holiday clean.” For example, when pulling baking things out of the cupboard, get rid of what you don’t use.
- If you’re planning a few parties or family get-togethers, consider clearing out some space in the hall closet for your guests’ coats by emptying the closet of all the gear it’s managed to accumulate during the last year.
- If you’ll be hosting overnight guests, prepare a quiet retreat in a separate room if you can. You want your guests to feel welcomed and stress free, not an inconvenience to you. Completely declutter the space, so they have room for their belongings. Clean out the closet in the guest room as you would the hall.
Even if a separate room isn’t possible, you can still set aside a decluttered chest or cabinet specifically for their use.
Provide clean linens and comfy blankets, fresh towels, and a basket of toiletries including shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, a toothbrush and dental floss. They may not need them, but the thoughtfulness will be appreciated.
Sleep one night in the guest room so you can see what’s missing. You definitely want to know if the air mattress loses so much air that you’re sleeping on the floor by 3 AM.
For guests with special needs, provide amenities that they might need. A small space heater can add extra comfort for elderly parents or a diaper pail for young parents with a new baby.
- Take time to put away one pile a day that is stacked around the house. This will prevent you from being tempted to stuff clutter in a bag or laundry basket and hide it right before guests arrive. That just creates more work after the holidays.
- Clean out the old to make room for the new! One of the hardest parts of Christmas for many people is dealing with the aftermath. Not just taking down decorations but finding a place for all of the new stuff, most notably all of the new toys their kids get. Get rid of toys that your children have outgrown, are broken or no longer of interest to them to make room for the new toys that will be coming. Have your child choose 3 toys to give away to someone in need. I’m a huge proponent of involving them in this process, both so they can learn charity and so they can practice organizing and decluttering from a young age. It’s also a great way to teach children that you can’t get new things without getting rid of some old things!
#2. Creating a budget:
The first step to having happy holidays is to create a realistic budget. This year is probably the perfect time to reconsider your holiday spending habits. Everyone knows someone who has been touched by the recession, and millions of households are cutting their expenses in the face of current economic woes. This could be your year to turn over a new leaf when it comes to gift giving – with less extravagant gifts and more handmade gifts from the heart – and no one will bat an eye! Don’t be afraid to make the holidays affordable, as most people will appreciate the opportunity to save.
It’s important to create a budget before you start dreaming about gift ideas, new decor for your home and events you want to attend with your family because it’s much easier to make your spending fit within your budget than it is to stretch your budget to fit your spending. The good news is that if you’re discouraged by the final number, there’s still time to pad the budget.
Begin decluttering your home, keeping an eye out for items that can be sold on eBay or craigslist or repurposed into thoughtful handmade gifts. Or you may decide to pick up a seasonal retail job. If you are looking for extra money for the holidays, you need to make that your priority this week because there isn’t a lot of time left to make it happen.
If you’re not living on a tight budget and have plenty in savings, you can plan your holiday budget from the opposite perspective, writing down the amount you want to spend in each category and coming up with a total number that way. However, it’s still important to have a written budget so that you don’t get to the end of the holiday season only to look back and realize you spent way more than you intended.
Once you have your realistic budget written down, begin making decisions about how you will spend it. Depending on your priorities and the amount of your budget, you may find that the bulk of it goes towards supplies for baking or handmade gifts. If you’ve been saving all year, you might have more freedom in your spending or be able to set some aside for home decor or entertaining as well.
Be sure to think through all possible expenditures – gifts, travel expenses, baked goods for your neighbors, wrapping paper and bows and so on – so that you’re not surprised by it later in the planning process.
The key is to take the amount that you can realistically expect to have and come up with a spending plan so that you don’t end up relying on credit cards. If you’re brainstorming additional income ideas, add those amounts to the budget in parentheses so that you have a spending plan with or without the extra cash.
#3. Schedules & Calendars:
Money and budgets may be thought of as the main sources of stress during the holidays, but calendars and schedules are at least equally responsible!
Trying to balance family time and social obligations, shopping and making gifts, baking and entertaining and still finding time to focus on the “reason for the season” can stress out even the most laid back person.
The key is deciding which activities are really important to you and then keeping a detailed calendar not just of events and obligations but also as a way to make sure there’s time to make, buy and wrap gifts, send cards, bake cookies and everything else you want to do between now and Hanukah or Christmas or whatever you celebrate.
So how do you juggle it all without just saying “No” to everything? I think it’s okay to be busy during the holidays if you’re busy for the right reasons – enjoying your family and making memories – but if you’re stressed out by everything you want to do, you have three choices:
1. Stay stressed out and miss out on an opportunity to enjoy it all.
2. Cut out some activities until you’re less stressed.
3. Find a way to manage your schedule so you can do the things you love without getting stressed out.
And how do you decide which activities are worth your time? There are a lot of expectations and obligations placed on families during this time of year, and those are often a major source of stress.
Visiting family, volunteering and going to see Christmas lights are all good things. But if you don’t have time to do everything without turning into Scrooge, then you need to prioritize and choose those that matter the most to you.
For example, you may not be able to attend 2 or 3 different family/friend get togethers on Christmas Day this year. Try inviting everyone to you instead.
Likewise, volunteering and charity are good, but there’s no reason you have to cram it all into the holiday season. Choose one opportunity to give this season, and spread the rest out over the rest of the year instead of trying to do it all at one time!
Sending holiday cards, baking cookies and making thoughtful gifts are also all good activities, but you may have to choose some and let go of others to keep your sanity and your stress level down. And that’s OK because cards, cookies and gifts made out of obligation rather than love are not what we’re looking for here.
Above all, know what your priorities are ahead of time so that you can continue to prune your calendar if needed as you go.
Once you’ve decided which events and activities are important to you, how do you make sure there’s time to get everything done?
I have two words of advice: START NOW.
- Bake cookies now and freeze them until you’re ready for them.
- Begin making homemade gifts.
- Start your holiday shopping.
- Wrap presents as you buy or finish making them.
- Get your holiday cards addressed and ready to go.
Take some time now to look at the calendar and begin planning your holiday preparations and schedule. Work backwards and choose a date that you’d like to be done with gifts, baking, etc. so that you can enjoy the rest of the time with your family.
Next, think through the list of things you need to do: buy gifts, make gifts, wrap gifts, mail gifts, send holiday cards, bake cookies, etc. Put each and every activity on the calendar. By assigning each task a specific day or week to be completed, you’ll have a better idea of what you can realistically get done and a calendar to help keep you on track.
And finally, don’t forget to schedule some family “down time” because you’re probably going to need it!
#4. Gift Lists:
Simple gift giving doesn’t have to mean pruning your gift list to just your immediate family, although it certainly can be if that’s what makes sense to you. But it does require some planning and forethought so that you’re not scrambling two days before Hanukkah or Christmas to figure out what to get for your grandmother or next-door neighbor.
Take some time to sit down and make a master gift list of everyone you might possibly want to give a gift to – family, friends, neighbors, babysitters, dog walkers, church or temple staff, etc. I’m not saying you have to give gifts to all of those groups of people, but if it’s important to you, make sure they’re on the list!
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your list, go ahead and prune it down and choose the people/groups that are most important to you. Once you have your master list written out, take some time to group the people on your list. For example, it might be easier to give the same basic gift to all to parents and grandparents, maybe something sentimental like a calendar with pictures of you and your children on it each month, for example. You might group church or temple staff and neighbors together or friends and neighbors, etc. Group however it makes sense to you.
Rewrite your list with this new grouping and begin jotting down gift ideas next to each person and/or group. When it comes to baking and gift baskets, try to be as specific as possible – i.e., “peanut butter cookies, brownies, chocolate-covered candy canes and hot cocoa mix” – so that you’ll be ready for the next stage of planning.
For other gifts, it’s better to start out with some general ideas about what each person might like – i.e., “jewelry,” “girly,” “sports,” etc so that you don’t find yourself pigeonholed and searching for the “teal v-neck cashmere sweater” for hours on end.
If you haven’t even thought about gifts at all, you may want to start with a simple key – such as B for baked goods, H for handmade gifts and S for store-bought gifts – next to each person’s name. Don’t wait too long to begin writing down more specific ideas, especially for baked goods and handmade gifts, so that you can start making those gifts sooner rather than later.
It can be easy to go overboard, especially when it comes to giving gifts to your children, but if you’re looking for a way to simplify holiday gift giving, here are a few ideas:
- Set a limit on the number of gifts you give each of your children. Let’s be honest, most kids already have too much “stuff” as it is so setting a limit makes a lot of sense.
- Try a family or group gift instead. If your children generally receive a lot of gifts from their grandparents and great-grandparents, stick with one bigger gift and a stocking full of smaller things for each of them. For older children, you may want to do a family experience gift like tickets to an event or show everyone’s been wanting to see or going away on a family vacation.
– Set a dollar limit. This one can be dangerous because you can by a whole lot of “stuff” for even $25 or $50, but if you don’t give into the urge to get as much as possible within the limit, this could work as well.
Make sure you have enough wrapping paper, tissue paper, gift bags, tape, ribbon and gift tags. Take an inventory of items you have and make a list of what you need. Be creative and simple with wrapping. Stick with solid colors such as white that can be used throughout the year with different-colored ribbons, like red and green at Christmas. To avoid confusion and simplify things, wrap gifts to one set of family members with the same paper or colored ribbons. Purchase multiple sizes of gift bags and a few different colors of tissue paper.
To proactively deal with toy clutter, try making gift lists ahead of time for each of your children so that when someone asks you for an idea, you’re ready with ideas that you can feel good about. Another option to consider is non-toy gifts, such as college savings or extracurricular activities.
#5. Shopping:
Before you go shopping, go on a hunt for the presents you bought all year but now can’t find to give at the holidays. It costs no money to search for gifts in your home, while it costs a lot more money to go buy new ones! Inventory your “hidden goodies” and which family members they’re for. This will avoid costly duplication and over-buying. Brainstorm potential gifts before you go to the store, spending minimal shopping time there.
As with everything, the key to simplifying your gift giving is to have a plan in place, preferably written down, ahead of time! Here are sometips to simplify your gift shopping:
1. Make a list. Use the notes on your gift list to create a shopping list, grouping by likely store whenever possible. Working from an actual shopping list rather than trying to keep track of the gifts you need to buy in your head means you’re less likely to get home and realize you forgot the one gift you wanted to get the most.
2. Shop early. You should have your budget and gift list in place now, so go ahead and get started (as your budget allows – using cash, not credit cards). You will avoid the crowds and the pressure of having to find a gift before time runs out, and it will be one less thing to do in the midst of the holiday season.
3. Shop during off-peak hours. If you still need to shop once the holiday season kicks into full gear, try to avoid stores in the afternoon and on weekends. Instead, do your shopping first thing in the morning when stores will be much less crowded. The shelves and racks will be neater and easier to sort through and you’ll be able to get help from a sales associate, if necessary, more easily.
4. Wear comfortable clothing. Whenever you end up shopping, be sure to wear comfortable clothes and shoes so that you can focus on the task at hand. If possible, leave your big purse at home. Instead, slip your debit cards, cash, phone and keys into a secure pocket (like one that zips on your jacket) or take a lightweight purse that you can string across your chest so that you still have both hands free.
5. Shop online. A great alternative to going to stores is to shop online. Not only can you browse hundreds of stores, but you can search for specific items across the Internet, making it easier to find exactly what you’re looking for. You still want to start your shopping early in order to avoid paying rush delivery charges, though!
6. Look for coupons, deals and sales. Use blogs such as Deal Seeking Mom and sites such as Retail Me Not to find the latest in-store coupons and online coupon codes for all of your shopping needs. If you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can also download Yowza!!, a FREE mobile coupon application. It will show you which stores in the zip code you’re shopping in offer coupons. You just show the coupon to the cashier at checkout and they’ll scan the bar code off of the screen and apply the discount to your purchase. It couldn’t be easier!
7. Consider giving consumable gifts such as a gift card from the local movie theater, a pass to the local museum, tickets to an upcoming play or concert. A gift certificate for a manicure or pedicure, just be sure to find out where they like to go before buying it. A gift basket with fruit, nuts and other fresh edibles. If the recipient can’t eat it all, they can share it with others! Plants and flowers are great, if you know their taste, and know they have room for it! Or make a favorite dish and deliver it.
8. Try giving charitable gifts of TIME instead of money. Offer to baby sit on a particular day, or run an errand for a busy working mother, but put some parameters around it. Example “Vicki: 5 hours of babysitting on Saturday night Feb 14 (Valentine’s) so you and John can have a romantic night out.” “Dina — 3 pickups of kids from school plus 2 hours of after school care during your busy tax time in April.” “Bob — 2 hours of yard work assistance when you plant your garden in March.” These all show your special knowledge of the person, and that’s the best gift there is. You could also choose a birthday or an anniversary. Be sure to put it in your own calendar so you don’t get caught off-guard.
9. Avoid embarrassing situations like when someone arrives at your doorstep with a beautifully wrapped package for you, and you don’t have a matching one for them by having a stock of gifts that are lovely but are not purchased with a specific person in mind. Something small but of high quality in an edible format is usually a safe bet. Have at least a half dozen of these sets purchased, wrapped, and available with a discrete mark coding it so that you know what is in the package. When someone arrives with a gift for you, you can pick up one of these packages as if it were intended for them all along.
Also, as an alternative to giving gifts that may end up as clutter in someone’s home or eventually find their way to a landfill – why not contribute to a charity instead. Gifts like these capture the true spirit of the holiday season. Here are some possibilities I like:
World Wildlife Foundation, the multi-national organization dedicated to the conservation of nature, offers a symbolic adoption of an animal species to help protect some of the world’s most endangered animals from extinction. For a donation of $25, your gift recipient will receive a formal “adoption certificate” of the species you’ve chosen, along with a 5 x 7 color photo and a species fact sheet. Increase the donation to $50, and your recipient will also get an adorable stuffed version of your selected animal. Click here to go to their on-line gift catalog.
Heifer International aims “to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.” Your contribution will pay for a gift animal in an underdeveloped country to help families and communities achieve self-reliance. Click here to go to their on-line catalog of animals.
Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, enabling individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. For a donation of only $25, you can select a specific person somewhere in the world who will use your gift to fund his/her livelihood. Your loan will be repaid over time, and you can use it to finance another entrepreneur, or you can withdraw your funds.
#6. Traditions:
In the midst of a busy holiday season, it’s easy to lose your focus and forget about the things that are most important to you, so I recommend that you take some time to write down your holiday traditions. Having a written list helps you remember what is really important and make the time for those things.
Some other benefits of writing down your holiday traditions:
- Evaluate. You can evaluate each tradition as your family grows and matures over the years. Take the time to talk about which ones are most important to each member of your family and consider scrapping any that just take a lot of time, effort or money but aren’t that meaningful.
- Prioritize. The simple truth is that you can’t possibly incorporate every great idea you come across into your own family traditions. By writing down your current traditions and ones you might like to try in the future, you’re able to evaluate and prioritize them in light of each other.
- Remember. If you’ve ever gotten to the end of the holiday season only to realize that you forgot an activity or tradition that you’d planned on including, having a written list prevents that from happening, especially if you update it after the holidays and throughout the year as you think of ideas. You can keep it right on your computer for easy access and updating.
- Adapt. Your list of traditions can be a working document so that you can make notes about things that went great or went wrong and how you’d like to do them differently in the future.
This year I recommend starting a family tradition of seeing how LITTLE you can spend on the holidays instead of regretting how MUCH you spent come January. Don’t allow the costs of the holidays take away from the joy of the season.
#7. Holiday cards:
The most important reason for sending a card is how it will make people feel. I recommend keep only the following people on your card list:
1. Family members and friends who send you cards because they love sending and getting cards.
2. People who exchange updates with you every year.
3. Older people you know don’t get a lot of cards, don’t have computers, and for whom receiving a card means a lot to them. As you get older, you start to lose friends and family. Receiving cards during the holidays can be a wonderful comfort for them.
Whether you hand-address or print labels for your holiday cards, send a simple card or a holiday letter, write a personal note in each or include a picture, it’s never too early to start getting them ready.
If you don’t yet have a digital address book on your computer, now is a great time to create one. Rather than keeping track of dozens of pieces of paper or having to erase or white-out addresses as they change in your paper address book, you can quickly and easily update your online file.
Update your current mailing label lists and print out your labels. You should also make a list of any addresses you need – families that you know have moved during the year, new friends or acquaintances you’d like to add to your list, etc. Start tracking down those addresses now so you won’t be scrambling to find them at the last minute.
If you haven’t already, take some time to decide what type of cards you’re going to send so that you can add the cost to your budget and begin purchasing or ordering what you need:
- Do you want to send traditional cards or photo cards? Make sure you have the right number of traditional cards on hand and make sure to buy cards right after the holidays when they’re on sale. If you send out photo cards, choose your photo and get them ordered.
- Will you include a holiday newsletter or not? If you are, start outlining the things you want to include. And begin drafting it now so that you have plenty of time to edit and make changes. You’ll be happier with the end result if you don’t have to rush.
- Do you want to include an updated family photo or not? If you do, choose one and get it duplicated.
Knowing exactly what you need to do and purchase will make it easier to break the process into steps and add those steps to your holiday calendar so that you’re not left scrambling at the last minute.
Use your evening or weekend TV time to address and sign your cards over the next couple of weeks. Break your list down into manageable batches and do a little bit every day.
Be sure to keep a few extra cards ready in case you receive a card from someone who is not on your list and want to reciprocate and be sure you have enough postage stamps on hand.
OR…Instead of sending holiday cards this year, think about using the money for cards and postage to make a donation to your local food pantry. If you aren’t sure what your food bank needs, gift cards to supermarkets are a wonderful option! And instead of the time you usually spend on card sending, you could spend that same time volunteering at your local food bank.
#8. Decorating:
Locate your holiday decorations and gather them together in one place. Consider buying see-through large organizing boxes for each holiday you celebrate. Items that are displayed together should be stored together. You can use boxes with color-coded lids as well. For example, use red for Christmas and blue for Hanukkah.
Start by unpacking everything so that you can see what you have before you start making decisions about how to decorate. Fix or throw away any broken decorations. Take inventory of how many strands of lights you have before you buy more and test them. That’s a good job for the kids. Trust me, I have seen countless vats of strands of lights that owners didn’t know they had until we found them. By that time it’s too late. They’ve already bought and hung new ones.
As you set your decorations, use the empty boxes and bins by filling them with the year round decorations you’re putting away. You’ll save space, avoid cluttering up other areas of your home and when your holiday decorations are put away, your regular décor is at hand and ready to come back out. Keep all of your packing paper together in one place for packing up your decorations at the end of the season. Make a note now of any additional packing materials you’ll need.
Don’t be afraid to create a give away pile for decorations that you aren’t going to use. You may have a few sentimental pieces that you’re not using but want to keep, but try to keep those to a minimum. Use it or lose it. Be sure to pass any unwanted decorations onto family, friends or thrift stores now so that they may benefit in time for the holidays. You can also sell or give them away on craigslist or Freecycle or just put them out in your building or the street in a box marked “Free”. Thrift stores, in particular, will not want them after the holidays because they usually don’t have the storage space to hold on to them for the next 11 months.
Ideally, you should make a holiday décor inventory as you’re packing up your holiday decorations, with a list of items that you’d like to buy for the next year so that you can begin scouring the after-holiday sales when décor is marked down by 75 to 90%. If that didn’t happen last year, make a note about anything you need – or want – to buy for this year.
After the holidays, it is important to return your decorations to “organized storage”. Make sure you have enough containers and storage space to store holiday decorations post-holiday. This will make next year’s decorating simple and carefree. Store your decorations in appropriately labeled containers. Sort, organize and store by groupings of like items.
Since decorating your home can be time consuming and hectic, why not create a family tradition of tree “trimming” very early, like Thanksgiving Day. You’ll enjoy spending time with your family throughout the day as an additional activity and an alternative to football!
#9. Baking & Cooking:
One of the great things about holiday baking is how much of it can be done ahead of time. Most cookies freeze well, meaning you can start now and have wonderful, homemade cookies throughout the season.
To start, look at your gift list. Who are you planning to bake for? Do you have an idea of what you plan to bake or do you need to start looking for recipes and ideas? Have you decided how you will package any items you make (which will help you estimate the quantity for each as well)?
Add your baking to your calendar. You may decide to set aside a whole weekend to do all of your baking or to spread it out over several weeks. Either way, make sure it’s all on the calendar.
Double check that you have all of the ingredients for each recipe – and in the quantities you need – before you start. If you’re making a lot of cookies at once, line your cookie sheets with parchment paper so you can quickly slide the cookies off and put a new batch in the oven. Look at prep times, bake times, etc. For example, make dough that needs to chill first so that you can work on other cookies while it chills. Start with the cookies that bake at the lowest temperature so that you can increase the temperature in your oven as you go rather than having to wait for it to cool down. Remember, it’s much easier to clean up gooey messes right away than to wait until they’re hard and crusty! Pack your cookies for delivery right away rather than storing them in larger containers and having to divide them up later.
As for cooking, make your menus as early as possible. That way, you’ll be prepared to tell your guests what they can bring, which will cut down on your workload in the kitchen!
#10. Charity:
It’s easy to start out with the best of intentions to keep your focus on the “reason for the season” and not get caught up in the hubbub and commercialization of the holidays. But it’s just as easy to get to the end of the season and look back only to realize you’ve let those intentions slip through your fingers without following through.
How can you keep that from happening? Yep, you guessed it. By creating a plan ahead of time so that you have a time and money set aside to invest in the charities and causes that are important to your family.
I suggest choosing projects that help your children connect with a person or family and see the impact of their donation. Whether it’s filling a bag with food for a holiday meal or Christmas shopping for a family in need, putting together a donation of items is much more tangible for a child than just watching you write a check.
Also, look for opportunities that involve the giving of time and money. Both are important, and there are times in all of our lives when we have more of one or the other to give. But it’s also important to show children the rewards that come from both so that they don’t get stuck in the rut of just donating money without having to give any of their time or volunteering without having to give something more tangible.
Volunteer together. Children love spending time with their parents, and volunteering together is no exception. Make family memories centered around giving and volunteering so that charity becomes something they look forward to rather than dread.
Being organized is more than decluttering and improving the look of a space. It’s about being PURPOSEFUL with your time and resources so that you can live an abundant life. It’s about having an INTENTIONAL holiday season, where you choose gifts and activities that will provide a lifetime of memories rather than trying to pack everything into the season and ending up exhausted and unfulfilled. Remember, you have the power to capture the joy of the holiday season and to make this your best one yet!
