Heading out for New Year’s Eve? Taking down your holiday
decorations? Planning to wrap up your holiday celebrations soon?
While winding up the 2014 holiday season, take time for a
little reflection of your recent holiday experiences. Then, combining the
lessons learned with a bit of forwarding thinking can help make your 2015
Christmas a little merrier ... or at least a bit less stressful. Here are some
tips and suggestions of steps to take now to better prepare for next Christmas.
Organize and de-clutter your decorations...
As you take down your holiday decorations, take time to
thoroughly inspect them. Toss out anything that isn’t working or that has seen
better days. Make a note of what you have to replace. Then, repack and organize
your decorations to make unpacking next year easier. Be sure to label boxes.
Take advantage of after-Christmas sales ...
If you discarded worn-out decorations, be sure to check the
after Christmas sales for any deals to help you replace them. Also, take
advantage of the deep discounts on wrapping paper and other Christmas supplies
that year-end sales offer. Just
don’t over do it and end up with a wrapping paper hoard!
Review and take notes ...
Do you have trouble remembering from one year to the next
how much you made or bought or ordered of something? Make a note or two of the
important things you need to remember and put them some where you can find them
... perhaps a notebook stored with your Christmas decorations or in the “notes”
of your planner. The reference
will come in handy when trying to remember whether you gave the school bus
driver a gift or how many plates of Christmas cookies you need to bake. Need
another example of how making such notes can reduce stress? Our extended family
often orders specialty pizzas for our after-Christmas get together and gift
exchange. Rather than struggle to remember what we ordered and what everyone
actually ate next time around, I noted what we ordered, what was most popular
and what we had left over.
Note anything you need to replace next year but couldn’t find
in this year’s after-holiday sales.
Make a list of gifts that were really well received. Or, if
you learned some things about gift preferences during this year’s exchanges,
note those for next year, too.
Do a holiday review .....
What went really well this Christmas? What didn’t really
work at all? What are the things that caused the most stress or arguments? What things were most important to your
family? Gather all of your family
members together and find out what they’d love to do again next year and what
they’d be okay skipping in the future. This may help you reduce the stress of
over committing during the busy holidays.
Consider a Christmas planner....
About the recommendation for notes and finding them later
that I mentioned earlier? Put all of your notes in a single notebook or
binder. You could store your new
“Christmas Planner” with your decorations, but for year-round access, consider
putting this planner in your desk or where you keep your address book or bills
or such.
Plan ahead ...
Think of things you can do a little along and try to take
care of those things once a month throughout the year. For example, mark one
day each month in your new yearly planner to make notes for your holiday letter
or to sort some of your photos that you might want for a Christmas card.
Start saving now....