Tuesday Morning Tidy: Early Holiday Prep

Don't get mad at me, please! I know it's just October 4th, but it's a good time to knock-out early holiday preparations before life gets busy and overwhelming. I've made a list of things I'm taking care of this month to ensure our upcoming holidays are fun and well-planned with manageable stress.

- Menus and Early Grocery Shopping - We'll be preparing food for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I'm working on our menus for all three holidays, and throughout October and early November, I will purchase a few nonperishable items each time I grocery shop. I'm hoping this will help me combat the desperate last-minute shopping as well as ensure I don't miss out on sought after items, especially baking ingredients. Early grocery shopping is also a budget-friendly way to spread out the food expenses.

- List for Gift-Giving - I'm creating my list of family, friends, teachers, etc. that our family will honor through gift-giving this year. This list generally stays the same, but there are always a few changes -- additions and deletions -- from year-to-year. For the past two years, I've used the Gift List app which saves my list from the previous year. I may try a different one this year. Whichever app I use, I'll update our list before Halloween.

- Holiday Cards - Now is a good time to figure out if you are going to send out cards, and if so, update your address list. Over the course of a year, life happens and our list requires adjustments. I'll also check out the photo card selection and order ours before Halloween.

- Gift Wrapping materials - I aways like to assess our holiday gift wrapping situation early on. If I'm running low on paper, ribbon, gift tags, etc., I'll make a list. The next time I'm at the store and see the early signs of wrapping essentials on the shelves, I'll pick up what I need.

- Christmas Lights - Are you decorating the outside of your house with lights this year? We'll be going through our storage bins to see if the strands from last year are still working. Are our wreaths in good shape? How about the inflatables? I like to have an idea of what we may need to take advantage of early shopping opportunities.

I hope this list was more helpful then stress-inducing. We still have plenty of time until the holiday season, but completing a handful of tasks early on can minimize last minute and late night tasks when all we really want to do is sit under a blanket and watch a Christmas movie. You'll thank me in December!

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