The Eagle's Nest: 5 steps to enjoying {an organized} Christmas...

This is my absolute favorite time of the year! I love the months of October, November, and December, and I'm like a kid at Christmastime. I get a little giddy over it all -- just ask my husband (or mom). This year, since Thanksgiving was early, we have a little extra time to recover from Thanksgiving and get ready for all the advent festivities and exciting things to do, see, taste, smell, and just enjoy in December. I feel like a lot of the enjoyment of the holidays gets missed when we get caught up in all the things we "have" to do. One of my friends said on facebook this week that she wished she could bottle up her preschoolers' excitement over everything Christmas-related, and I feel the same way watching my daughter... I want to be especially conscious this year to take time to enjoy this season, to focus on the Greatest Gift we have been given, and all of the other gifts that flow from Him. Having this week in between Thanksgiving and the 1st of December has provided me with time to plan and organize a bit and I wanted to share some of those ideas.

1) When it comes to decorating -- keep it simple. Pretty doesn't have to be extravagant...often it isn't. 2 years ago, I went through all of my Christmas decorations and purged and donated a lot of things that I didn't love and didn't have sentimental reasons to keep. It has made my decorating much more efficient (and easier to keep my house clean!).

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2) Set up a gift wrapping station somewhere in your house. As gifts arrive in the mail or you go shopping, wrap them as soon as possible to stay ahead. (Note: Husbands find this particularly helpful so that they do not have to go hunting around trying to find supplies to wrap present for their wives.....)

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3) Add some holiday pages to your home notebook, or if you don't use a home notebook, create a holiday notebook...or just choose a few of the pages that would be helpful to you in planning and organizing. This website has tons of printables and it looks like they are free pdf files. (I already had some printed from another site that I have been using, but I'm curious to poke around this site a little more...)

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4) Make a bucket list of activities that you want to do with your kids/family and if necessary, make a note of where you saw the idea so that you can find it quickly if you need to. I want to try to do one Christmas activity each day for the month of December, so I have "Christmas Activity" on my to-do list for each day of the month and will choose from the bucket list one that suits that day. I'm planning to make the same sort of list for new recipes that I want to try and old favorites that I want to be sure to make. Then, when I have to make something to take to a party or serve to guests, I can just consult my list and choose something. (I hope to publish all of these lists on my blog soon.)

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5) If you like to take pictures, wish you took more or better pictures, want something creative to do with pictures for Christmas, or need some blog ideas, consider participating in a photo project for the month of December. You do not have to have a fancy camera or a blog...you can publish your photos to facebook if you wish, or keep them to yourself. It's a fun activity that really helps you stop and notice aspects of the holiday season that you might otherwise overlook. Remember...we're about enjoying... Here's the photo project I'll be doing in December...