Getting Prepared For Xmas, Part 2

Christmas is always the busiest time of the year. I always feel like first there’s plenty time to do everything and suddenly the Christmas Eve is just around the corner and need to multitasking everything. Does this sound familiar to you? If yes, continue to read how to avoid Christmas hustle and stress.

In my childhood, my mother were always so stressed out because of Christmas especially if relatives were coming visit. She had to cook all the Christmas foods, clean whole apartment, do grocery shopping, wrap all the gifts etc. I usually tried to helped her with everything that I can. I loved to baked gingerbreads and edges of star tart (I literally translated the word from Finnish language). Our star tart are usually pinwheel shape tarts that have plum jam in the middle. Really tasty 😋 

Nowadays, I don’t have Christmas hustle because I plan everything in forehead. So how you can avoid Christmas stress and spend it more relaxing way?

1. Keep your home basic clean

I know this sound so simple but many start to clean more better when year’s biggest Holiday is coming. Vacuum daily especially if you have pets and even if you don’t have any pets. Those furry friends leaves mess of their own behind. My cats always like to dig up all wooden pellets out from their litter box. Wash floors once in every month and take your rugs outside to tamp them. I don’t how common this is elsewhere but here in Finland we like to tamp our rugs and leave them little while cold weather so they will more fresher when you bring them inside. Also if you live in place where snowing, easy way to give quick refreshment to the rugs is throw them in the snow and cover the rugs with snow and brush them. The rugs are much refresher afterwards. This is old Finnish way to clean rugs during Winter. 

2. Start putting Holiday decorations earlier 

When December start, I always look for our Christmas decorations. I plan what curtains I like to put this year and do I need to buy some new Christmas decorations. Changing curtains takes unbelievable time especially if you wash the windows in the inside like I usually do. In my sofa table I have tea light candles that usually have small seashells within in the Summer but when Christmas time is coming, I like to change it too and put there fake snow with some glitter coated pine cones. You don’t need to put all Holiday decorations in place but some that are also suitable for Winter season too ❄️

3. Shared grocery shopping list 🛒

If you need to do every year same Holiday time shopping, it’s more time saving to save the shopping list than write every year new one. Once you have written it, you can printed it out and laminate it. That way it cannot get wet if there’s rainy weather. I’m not usually use my iPhone for any notes but last couple years, I’ve saved our Holiday time grocery shopping list in the phone. It’s so handy especially when you can share it between your family. That way, the Holiday time shopping isn’t just your responsibility and whole family can buy thing or two from the list. 

4. Buy Holiday foods earlier 

I usually do this every year. I buy frozen things as soon as they arrived in the grocery store. Usually it’s end of the November and people haven’t waken yet for upcoming Christmas so you buy frozen pastries etc. in time without rush. When buying things earlier than needed, make sure they will preserve until you need them and you don’t need to worried if they are gone. 

5. Saving money and wrapping gifts

If you have big family and lots of friends who you need to buy a gift, you can save money by buying gifts around the year and keep an eye when stores have good deals  like Black Friday or Cyber Monday or any other offers. If you like to stay organized, take cardboard box and put name label on it, so you can gather gifts there for specific family member or friend. Also plastic bag will work too if you attach name tag in it. That way, when it’s time to wrap the gifts, you don’t need to sort them out and worried later if you accidentally mixed them. 

If you have a lot gifts, it will be exhausting to wrap them all in once. So I highly recommend that you start to wrap as soon as possible one or two peoples gifts per day that will leave you time to do other things and more important, time for yourself too. 

I hope my five time saving tips will help you to have more relaxing Holiday time and time to enjoy the Holiday itself 🎄

~ Minna