A Christmas Retrospective
Things to do:
Plan in advance how much to spend and on whom, add up amount. Divide amount by eleven months. Put resulting sum in special savings account each month so that next Christmas, half the stress can be eliminated.
Shop for Christmas decorations right now, while they are on sale.
Needed items: several long strands of white, outdoor lights and/or net lights. More candle lights to put in windows. Greenery. Christmas cards?
Buy weekly organizer to hang on wall. Use to plan out weekly menus and to organize shopping trips. Buy more recipe cards. (Done...well, couldn't find the weekly organizer. Will think of something.)
Things that worked:
A huge Christmas breakfast. That was awesome, we can do that every year.
Having Keith pick out his own presents and then taking them away and hiding them. This requires fielding many, many insistence queries about said gifts.
Listening to a mix of Classical and Country Christmas carols every morning throughout December. Usually, after Christmas, my biggest regret is that I didn't sing along with and enjoy the carols enough and now the chance is gone for another whole year. This year, however, I was replete with them. (How's that for a sentence?)
Things that didn't work:
Baking a lot, unless I know exactly who is going to eat them, and that person had better not be me.
Going to midnight service. We never made it. I feel fine about not going, but it still remains a pleasant possibility.
Things to try next year:
Picking out large, mutual Christmas gifts, such as a camping tent and ordering or buying them early.
Going to some kind of musical Christmas performance. I miss that.
