Christmas is Coming
Christmas is coming
The goose is getting fat
Please to put a penny in the old man’s hat
Yes dear friends, Christmas is coming. With all the back to school, back to scouts, sports, and dance chaos, time is going to fly by and December will arrive before you know it. Is all your shopping done? Are all your presents wrapped and labeled and well hidden through out the house? Are you Christmas cards addressed and stamped, because of course, you bought your cards at an end of season clearance sale last year? Are your cookies baked and carefully frozen? Are you Ready For Christmas?
Me neither.
But I’ve gotten a good start. Our holiday season actually starts at the end of September, when the Halloween decorations come out, and then we get hit with 3 birthdays, our anniversary (#15 this year!), Thanksgiving and Christmas. Throw in our cruise at the beginning of December, so if I don’t start planning now, I will totally lose my mind around mid-October. It won’t be pretty.
My planning starts with gift ideas. Somebody is getting something handmade this year, but I can’t tell you who. That project is about halfway done. I still need to think on the female members of my extended family. But I think I’ve got the kids all figured out.
In our never ending battle against the toy room, we have decided to limit our children’s gifts to things that are 1) consumable, 2) very small, or 3) additions to play sets that they already have. With that in mind, Pumpkin Girl is going to get some craft kits. I’ve already bought a couple of beginning sewing projects and a scrapbook kit. Doll clothes are on the list, too. Boo is getting a Lego Chess computer game, which can be stored in a binder with the rest of the CD-ROMS. I’m also thinking about a magician’s hat and cape to go with last year’s magic set. Boo’s Rescue Heroes and fire truck are being recycled into gifts for Bip. Probably some new Thomas trains, too.
Pumpkin and Boo both want an Easy Bake Oven. I’m not too sure about that one. They’ll be 9 and 7 by the end of the year and I’m wondering how long this will hold its appeal for them. They can pretty much just bake with me, but they might have lots of fun “baking” on their own. They’ve been asking for it for almost a year now. What do you think?
I’m going to try to have my Christmas shopping for the children done by the end of September. That’ll include birthday shopping for the older ones, too. This year I plan to print labels for our Christmas cards and have those done, early, too. As for our cards, the Disney ship will be decorated for Christmas and we can get our formal portrait turned into Christmas cards before we even leave the ship. So I won’t worry about that.
How about you? Have you started any Christmas planning yet? Do you prefer to shop early or wait until the last minute?
I can’t believe I need to start thinking about Christmas! I wish I could sell you the Easy Bake Oven I bought for my dd11 a couple of years ago. It has sat on her closet shelf after being used, maybe, three times. She loves to cook and she enjoyed her oven. But once the novelty wore off, she wasn’t too much interested in it anymore. It wasn’t quite what I thought. The heat comes from a light bulb. I can’t remember why I didn’t like that. I just remember being a little disappointed in it. Anyway, once she learned to read a recipe she discovered how much fun it was to go into the kitchen and cook (mostly just cookies) for real. Once the novelty of the Easy Bake Oven wore off, she wasn’t too much interested in it.
Oh my, I’m still trying to figure out this month, much less the next three! (Okay, not true, I just put my house on the market and I’m focused on that. Christmas will take care of itself if I have to knit dishcloths for everyone while I’m on the plane home.)
As for the Easy Bake Oven, I’m not a mom, but I wanted one of those things in the worst way when I was a kid. I never got one though, and to this day I still stop at the display when I pass it in the store. At least you would get plenty of use for it when Bip wants to join in the cooking.
I do have some of my cards done already (leftovers from last year) and purchased cards after Christmas. Our family photo was taken in March for the church director so even that’s done.
This year we’re scaling down Christmas–3 small gifts on St. Nicholas’ feast day, 3 gifts on Christmas from us, 3 from Santa and 3 gifts on Epiphany.
Most gifts have already been purchased from thrift stores or clearance aisle from Walmart but not wrapped.
In the next 3 months we have our 24th anniversary, and 4 birthdays (3 the last week in November) so I need to be prepared. 🙂
Our halloween candy was on the shelves in August 🙁
I have started buying Christmas presents but only because we live overseas and if I dont buy it when I see it at the PX, it won’t be there later. I even buy things in front of the kids since the three gifts under the tree are from us. Plus a few relatives will send money and want me to make purchases (that was much easier when we lived stateside). And then I will need a gift in the stocking from Santa plus a small gift on St Nicholas day.
The Ez Bake Oven has been recalled (like everything else)due to “Partial Finger Amputation” and hand entrapments. I had one but was dissapointed because it never baked right just a gooey mess in the middle. http://www.hasbro.com/easybake/default.cfm?KNC-easybakegoogle&HBX_PK=easy+bake+oven+recall&HBX_OU=50&page=News/Recall
Yikes, Roxanne, thanks for the heads up. I guess that settles that. No wonder I could only find the mixes at Target, and not the actual oven.