Christmas 2019: Make thank you cards, shop sales, start thinking about tiers

I know, I know. "It's too early for Christmas!" But hear me out, here: It's never too early to start if you technically don't stop, am I right? Anyway, I'm starting you off super easy.

Step 1: Thank the people who have given you gifts
When we were kids, things like adding a picture to a thank you note were way more work than it was worth. Still, I quite remember sitting on my living room floor writing out thank you notes to all of my relatives. These days, it's super easy! For your family and close friends, I still think a handwritten note is the best avenue but here are some ideas for thanking everyone else. As a bonus, share a picture with your thank you of the gift or of you with the gift!

• Make a Facebook shout out post. Remember to tag your friend!
• Share on Instagram or snapchat.
• Send an email if you prefer things private
• Make a YouTube video

So you don't even have to make handcrafted thank you notes (unless you want to). These thank yous will take all of two minutes, so go do it!

Step 2: Shop the Christmas clearance sales

Start stocking up for Christmas 2019. If you're into decorating, get discount garlands and lights. If you like card making, get a bunch of discount cards and envelopes for inspiration or to implement into your own cards. Got a sweet tooth? Discount candy, baby! Here's my shopping list:

• Discount cards and envelopes. I look for textures, images, and even sentiments on the inside of the card that I like. Around this time of year, they go for about ten cents each at Dollar General.
• Stickers, also for cards.
• Tinsel garlands and small home decor items that will come in handy for either home decorating or office decorating next year.
• Trinkets and toys to put in my prize box at work.
• Candy!
• Baking items like sprinkles or candy molds, or every day home items like Ziploc bags and Tupperware.

Step 3: Start thinking about tiers

Think of tiers like your own personal Naughty and Nice list. It's helpful to have when you're planning out how many cards to make or making a budget for gifts. Tier 1 people are the people I would go to the moon for. My mother, sister, and mentor make this list. Tier 2 people are people that I like but don't really have a deep relationship with. Most of my coworkers fall here. Tier 3s are people that I gift to because I'm nice like that, or people who have to receive a generic gift from me because a personal one would put me in iffy waters with HR. The people on the team I supervise fall here, as well as teachers from my daughter's daycare (okay...and one of my bosses. shh!) So what does this mean for Christmas?

• Tier 1: The best of the best. The card they receive is handmade, and lights up. I think this year I'll experiment with detailed popups or musical cards, and these will go to Tier 1 as well. When budgeting the present, they traditionally land somewhere in the low hundreds, or in terms of time I prepare for a DIY that may take anywhere from ten to fifty hours to complete.

• Tier 2: I like these people. They were nice to me last year, or gave me a thoughtful gift. But it's not like we're really besties. We probably don't hang out at all after work, or even follow each other online. This may even be a family member that married into the family that I don't talk to. I'm still giving a handmade card, but it probably won't light up. It definitely won't sing, and any popups will be quick and easy to make. Gifts usually don't cost more than 30 dollars or any more than 5 hours to make.

• Tier 3: Think bulk. Usually the people on this list receive a store-bought Christmas card, maybe with a thoughtful message inside. Gifts range from a simple box of baked goods (homemade, I'm not a monster) to a small box filled with trinkets or candy. I'm not spending a whole lot of time on these gifts, so if I do DIY something $20 might get supplies for 5-10 people and putting the gifts together takes less than an hour.

So go, grab your Christmas notebook or open your Christmas Excel sheet and start writing down names and sorting people out!

How to: Store Christmas ornaments

Alright! So yesterday we found some fun ways to store Christmas lights, and there were a great many ways to do that so I waited for a brand new day to start before working on ornaments! Whether you have Dollar tree ornaments, homemade, or handcrafted glass, ornaments can be precious so we want to store them well.

1: The solo cup method

These plastic party cups are a dime a dozen, especially around the holidays. A piece of cardboard between layers means less mess when removing the cups, and a bonus: if the hook falls out, it's easy to find. Pros: Good for almost any shaped ornament, and many sizes. Con: Eco friendly elves might not appreciate the extra plastic, but you can reuse the cups year after year!

2. The drive through regular method
Speaking of waste, those drive though cup holders have perfect sized holes to fit mid-to-large sized ornaments. It'd be a shame to just throw them away. Pros: reduces waste and has vertical storage  potential. Cons: It's a reminder of just how much fast food you've had this year, and is pretty limited to sphere shapes.

3. The ready-to-hang method
If you have some long storage boxes, this might be an option for you. Pros: Easily color coded, and you can find the ornament you want at a glance. Cons: I am just one clumsy misstep away from breaking every ornament I own.

4. The nest method
Take some of those amazon boxes and make grids for your ornament boxes. You can use coffee filters, as shown here, or you can wrap the ornaments in newspaper or magazine pages. A fun part of taking them out next year is seeing current events or trends from years past by looking at the newspaper article attached.

5. The egg carton method
Personally, I've never used this--I just don't have ornaments that small. But if you happen to have egg shaped ornaments, this is a great way to store them. Pros: Cartons are designed for protecting fragile things. Cons: Not very flexible when it comes to size.

6. The Why Put Them Away method
Why put them away? We could just move them into color coordinated glass jars. Display them in the kitchen, office, table, bookshelf, or wherever you want, really. Pros: Makes swapping ornaments for year-round trees easier. Cons: Maybe not the best method for super small spaces--every square inch matters.





That was a lot of fun! Hopefully you can mix and match ideas to find the perfect system for your family. Now that we have a little cleaning out of the way, tomorrow we're actually going to start planning Christmas 2019!

How to: Store Christmas lights

If you're the type of person to take your decorations down, you probably wonder how to store them. I know, it can be tempting to just shove them in a box and worry about untangling everything next year. Please, don't. I'm getting stressed just thinking of your stress.

First: Lights.







You could use a garden hose spool for your lights. Pro: Easy unspooling if done right. Con: broken lights if done wrong.

You could also grab a few hangers to spool lights onto. Pro: easy vertical storage if you also get one of those space savers for the closet that you can put these hangers on. Con: spooling these lights can be just as frustrating as untangling them.

To cut down on waste, you could use leftover wrapping paper rolls. Pro: Less waste and less tangles! Con: personally, I'd be frustrated that mine doesn't look as perfect as this guy's.

You could also reuse those Amazon boxes that have been piling up. Pro: again, less waste. Con: less pretty.

You could also not take down your lights. If you must, take away the 'Christmas' part of them and call them fairy lights. Make forts, wall art, chandeliers...if you do this, do a bit of research into the best quality lights and get the most bang for your buck














So that's all the cool things you can do with lights! Tomorrow we'll start on Christmas ornaments.

Planning early: Why you need to think of Christmas in January

Hello, Christmas fans. We all know the secret to a stress free holiday is to plan early. That's why I start planning the minute the season is 'over'. I'l admit, part of it is selfish: I want to be able to tell people that I absolutely do not celebrate Christmas early--I just don't stop. I have a collection of short sleeve Christmas shirts so I can wear them all year long!

Jokes aside, especially if you don't want to waste time trying to find the perfect gift or worrying about budget or scrambling on your DIYs, you want to start early. I recommend for the budget, especially, to start putting a Christmas fund aside as soon as your tax return comes in. Commit to about 3-5% of your income to gifts and you'll be in fine shape for the holidays. When you think of something someone might like, add it to an Amazon wishlist. Adding it to a list will also show you price drops if you check it once a month or so.

Here's my calendar--and don't worry! I'll post reminders throughout the year so you don't forget. Feel free to alter my plan so it fits your family!


Mid January: make a list of people I know and divide them into tiers (I have a three tier system that determines the time/effort/money I put into your cards and present. Mor to come on that later). Also buy clearance cards, decorations, and stickers.

February: Go to hobby lobby and buy cardmaking supplies

Monthly until September: make 1-3 Christmas cards a week, enter notes in my master Christmas notebook and review tiers to see if they need to be updated. Christmas movies weekly for inspiration. Update how I felt about the movie in my Christmas movies notebook.

September through November: Make any light up cards needed, order and wrap gifts. Tree and decorations go up on black Friday. Explain over and again it's not possible for me to be early for Christmas because I never stopped.

First week of December: Christmas baking for tier 3s

Second week of December: card and present distribution at work

Christmas: yay!

Boxing day through mid January: Fight with my mentor over decorations at my desk until she hides them.


There you go! A very basic and definitely NOT all inclusive guide to Christmas. Now, if you think the day after New Year's is too early to think about Christmas, well...you're welcome to stay but this blog is pretty much Christmas all year round.