have a happy and relaxed Christmas this year

This was a fantastic goal. My family and I had a wonderful Christmas. Everything went smoothly and the day seemed more relaxed than usual. Everyone enjoyed their gifts and the food was great. By having this goal I pushed myself to get things done in a timely manner so that I didn’t have to rush at the last minute and it really worked. I will want to do this again next year.

Everything is really going great. Pretty much all of the decorations are up and I only have a few presents left to buy. They are basically for people that are hard to shop for and one more thing for my DS. He needs a new backpack (his third one this school year) and I figured I would get him a new one and wrap it up for Christmas. I never know what to get my DH’s Dad and neither does anyone else in the family. I also do not know what to get DH’s Mom’s “Friend.” He gets us presents at Christmas and we want to give him something in return. Besides I love watching others opening their gifts. It makes me so happy.

All of my Christmas stuff is going smoothly so far. Today I am going to put up the tree and a few other decorations. I have a lot of shopping left to do, but I will worry about that after Friday when I get paid again. I will not use any credit cards this year so I am waiting and spending some out of each pay check. There are only two left before Christmas so I really need to get it done soon. Other tan the shopping, I feel great about everything else.

I now have a Christmas Tinkerbell backround on my laptop and am using it as my avatar for now. Just another thing to remind me to have a happy Christmas.

I won an E-bay auction for a new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory DVD today and paid through Paypal. It should be on its way soon and I paid a lot less than I had planned on purchasing it for. Yeah me! I also bid on a DVD for DH, but won’t know if I got it until next week. It’s one of those things that it doesn’t matter if I get because it’s not that important. Also while running to Wally World today we found the perfect gift for the Grandmas from my DS. They had these snow globes in the photo department that you just insert your own picture into. Both of the Grandmas will love those and my son could afford to buy them himself because they were only $3.53.

I bought my first two gifts today. It made me feel like I had accomplished something even though I have so much more to do.

I’ve been following Flylady’s Holiday Cruising missions. These are great. They are just little missions to complete each day that take less than 15 minutes and helps make your holidays less stressful. I think this is really going to help me accomplish this goal.

DH usually hates me talking about Christmas this early in the year, but he’s been bluntly letting me know what he wants for the last couple of days. He actually had me write stuff down tonight. Maybe he won’t mind me doing some early shopping next week. Only 6 more paychecks before Christmas!

I will only be buying gifts for close family members this year. If I haven’t spent more than a couple of hours with someone in the past year they are only getting a card. This narrows the shopping to:
DH
The Kid
Grandma
Mother-in-Law
Sister-in-Law and Husband
1 Uncle
and maybe Co-workers

The Kid will be doing his own shopping this year. If he wants to buy someone something he has to use his own money. All other gifts will come from us as a family.

I love Christmas music. I can not get enough of it during the holidays. There is this one local radio station that plays nothing but Christmas music from Thanksgiving through Christmas. It’s great! I can’t wait for the music. It is one thing that gets me into the holiday spirit the most. The people at work hate it that I always want to listen to Christmas music. I think it’s good for the customers though. I want them to be in the holiday spirit too.