Making the Holidays Meaningful, but Simple

It almost sounds too good to be true to have both a Meaningful and Simple Holiday Season.  But, that's exactly what I'm planning on having.  I only have a quick moment, but I wanted to write this out to share with all of you.  For years now I have stuck with a simple organized plan.  The key is organization, I have done things basically the same way for about 10 years now.  Before I made my system that actually worked for me I was always running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  I thought to myself....it's just not fun, I can't enjoy this season of my life and my children's lives if I'm so scattered and last minute.

Here is what I do...usually in late September or early October I set down and map out a plan for the Holidays starting with Halloween.  We came back from our 9 week long RV trip in Early October, so I whipped mine up pretty quickly.  I organize Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years into sections of my binder.... this year I put it in my bullet journal.  Starting with each Holiday I make a section for Decorations, Activities, Crafts/projects and Food.  

Obviously I start with Halloween listing front door and porch decorations, I don't really decorate a lot.  Under activities for Halloween this year we had a fall scavenger hunt that we did around the neighborhood, pumpkin patch and a few movie nights.  Our October flew by since we were on Vacation for the 1st part of it.  For Crafts/Projects we made spiders, monster bread (I will post the recipe tomorrow), carved pumpkins and made gooey eyeball slime.  And for Food, besides the Monster Bread we made some brownies and stuck bone candy inside and frosted some mini cupcakes with witch green cream cheese frosting.  

I look at Halloween as a warm up to the rest of the Holidays to come! :)  It's nice to have it all written out, easy to see and cross off when completed.  I also like having everything in one place.  I even use a zipper pouch to keep all my receipts. 

I hope this gives you an idea of how you can stay on top of your Holiday planning.  I'll share more tomorrow and next week along with some pictures.