Are you ready to begin Christmas planning yet? If so, I want to tell you about a great free resource you can use to make the process both fun and less overwhelming.
If you're not ready to begin Christmas preparations yet, and instead think I'm completely off my rocker to even be suggesting the idea, I'd love to convince you that no, I'm not quite as crazy as you first thought!
Did you know that September 16th marks 100 days until Christmas?
That means sooner than you may realize fall and winter holidays will be upon us, beginning with Halloween, then Thanksgiving and then Christmas.
You may still be reeling from back to school time, but the calendar doesn't care. It just keeps marching along.
Even though the holidays are supposed to be a joyful time many people feel overwhelmed and stressed out by them. I can relate!
There have been years that I didn't want to even think of everything I had to do for these supposedly joyous occasions that seemed like a pain in the neck instead, since I didn't seem to have enough time to get it all done.
As I've traveled along my journey toward organization, I've come to realize that planning my holidays allows me to take them back from commercialism, and all the extra demands the world puts on these special family occasions.
Instead, when I plan and prepare thoughtfully and mindfully I can replace the stress with joy and fun, choosing to do as little or as much as I want with my time and resources.
Planning and preparation put me back in control and allow me time to experience the joy of the season, and also pass that joy along to my kids and the rest of my family.
But planning is often a lot easier to talk about than to do. That's why I'm sharing my free resource with you below that makes it easy to plan and prepare for the holidays.
Many of you may know, but in case some of you don't, I don't just write this website, but instead I have a couple of others too, and one of the sister sites to this one is called Household Management 101.
For the eleventh or so year on that site I'll be running my 13 week Stress Free Holidays series. This series launches this year, for free, on October 1, 2022, and it is designed to give you tasks each week to do to get your home and family ready for the holdidays in a stress free and joyous way.
I'll be sending out the missions each Saturday, to allow you the weekend (and all week really) to work on them since many people suggested weekends worked better for them.
Only those signed up for the Household Management 101 newsletter will receive these challenges. To be clear, this is not the same email list as those signed up for the 52 Week Organized Home Challenge series, and Declutter 365 missions that you receive from this site.
Therefore, I would encourage anyone interested to go ahead and sign up for the free emails to receive each week of the series, which helps you plan for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and also to clean up from each of them as well. Fill out the yellow box on that Household Management 101 site to join that newsletter and get the series once it begins.
It may seem a bit early to say, but I'll say it anyway, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
You can also sign up directly here by clicking the button below and filling out the information to receive the Household Management 101 newsletter:
I know last couple years have looked different than previous celebrations because of the Pandemic, and potentially this year could also be different, but if we've learned nothing else, we know holdidays still occur, and so again this year I've decided I'm going to run the Stress Free Holidays Challenge.
That means again this year we're practicing flexibility, to make the challenges make sense for our current life circumstances, because we need to lower our stress levels around this holiday as well as make it as positively memorable and enjoyable as we can, for our own sanity and well-being.
That could mean, for you, that you choose to have a full holiday celebration, while others may choose to scale back. The beauty of this challenge is that you get to decide, for you, what you will and won't do, so this challenge can accommodate everyone.
I know that changing things up in your holidays can, in and of itself, feel stressful, so that's even more reason to do these challenges, to the best of our ability, and meet the challenges head on, together.
Share Your Comments, Tips & Ideas
I would love to hear from you, sharing your thoughts, questions, or ideas about this topic, so leave me a comment below. I try to always respond back!