A time for reflecting: Week 9

I had to double check after I wrote week 9 in my title, but yes that is right; we only have 9 weeks till Christmas.  It's not too late to jump in and here is a quick recap if you are just joining us:

Week 12

Master Roster for Christmas Cards

Christmas Card Design

Week 11

Christmas Devotion

Christmas Budget for gifts and celebration

Decide where you will have/host your Thanksgiving Fest

Create a cleaning plan for your home

Week 10

Pick recipes to use for Thanksgiving dinner

and decide how you will organize them. 

This week will either be fun or stressful. For me it will be a little stressful because I completely forgot a lesson learned several years ago when it come to drafting up our Family Letter. So I will share it with you in hopes that you might benefit as well next year. I have found that it is easier to write up our family letter when I have a calendar in front of me that I have noted all our family activities. But I never keep those calendar pages unless it has a spiral binding and you can't just tear off the pages. They already have the 2012 calendars out and I even saw one at the Dollar Store. So if you can, go get one this week to help you out next Christmas. But if you are like me you will need the next 2 weeks to help figure out what you are going to add into your Christmas Letter. Take your time and make sure you make it fit the personality of your own family.

One year I had a friend who sent a page of pictures showing what her family did that year and it was fun to look at. You can recap the highlights of each family member's year or write a joint family letter. Whatever puts your family in the homes of those you send it to is what you want to do. In fact you don't even have to send a snail mail letter. You can email it, blog it or even start up a Christmas Blog for your family and send out the link!! Here is my blog post for 2009 and 2010.

If you like to send the photo cards for Christmas start thinking about the photo you will be using. Do you need to make an appointment for a professional photo or will you have a friend snap it for you?  One of my favorite things to do is edit the photo in paint and then print the picture off at my local print shop.

And the final thing you need to do this week is to print off or write out all the recipes you will be using for your Thanksgiving dinner. And that will move us one step closer to having a stress reduced Christmas celebration!!!

Alright before I go this week here is a quick look at what we will be working on this week:

• Starting your family letter (with the goal of having it completed in 2 weeks)
• Make arrangements for your Christmas photo
• Print off or write out all your Thanksgiving recipes
• And if you are really motivated go out and get a spiral calendar for next year!!!!

And for those who are itching to know what is in store for next week it will involve pulling out your Master Roster for Christmas Card List along with Make and Take ideas!!!!! Hope to see you back next week!!!!