I thoguht I’ve participated in the following themed blog day at least once in the past, but I can only find a similarly-named theme post. Maybe I participated in comments only or my posts never made it past draft stage. I’m going to try to participate in this regularly, as it is always edifying to read, and responding is even more of an encouragement.

I only do light decorating, and it’s all centralized in the living room, save for some poinsettias I stuck in the bunk couch in the den because I didn’t know what else to do with them and didn’t want to put them back in the box.  There are also two smaller trees: one in the dining area and one on the tv.  I hung blue lights around our living room window and the kitchen divider and put a basket of apple spice potpourri under the big tree.  Overall, it seems to fit us.  I wouldn’t be up for much more, since it takes so long to unwrap all the ornaments and unfold the branches.  Yes, I have an artificial tree.  It’s too messy and expensive to have a real tree.  We have pine Febreze to “make up” for it.

Prayer

I don’t have any particular devotionals or activities that me and my husband do to keep focused on the true meaning of the season.  At the same time, there isn’t a lot of hustle and bustle to distract us either.  I purposefully don’t overdecorate, not only because I don’t have the patience for it, but I don’t see a good reason for it.  This helps us stay focused.  We celebrate lightly and sometimes we forget it’s even the holidays (is that too much on the other end of the spectrum?).  Besides the trees, our lives aren’t that much difference in December that the rest of the year, except there might be a bit more Christmas music playing.

I’ve also just been introduced to advent this year.  I’ve always thought it was a Catholic thing, but when my church set out candles I decided to research it.  I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a good thing – the holiday solution I have been searching for to make Christmas more than the commercialized holiday it’s become.  We don’t celebrate advent at home, but we do enjoy the readings they do at church.

Prioritize

I don’t struggle to stay focused on the important things during the holiday season anymore than during the rest of the year, which is plenty.  There is always something fighting for my attention, and so far December’s actually been easier than November since I was laid off last month.  I prioritize by making lists per category of things to be done (blog, kitchen, house, etc) and then compiling the most pressing into a daily to do list.  I have a tendency to want to incorporate a schedule into the list, but I know I won’t stick to it, and I get discouraged when I don’t.  Plus it’s much more satisfying to be able to go through the physical action of crossing something off my list than to simply notice I accomplished a task in the time I estimated.

Planning

“This time of year usually calls for extra baking, holiday shopping, party planning, and gift wrapping.”

I’m not much of a baker because cooking takes up enough time as it is.  If we want dessert, we buy ice cream, but I try to discourage that and stick to healthier snacks instead.

I finished most of my shopping on Black Friday.  I just need something for my husband, and I’m going to wait until the last minute for that, unless someone has any good hiding tips.

We aren’t throwing any parties, so that just leaves gift wrapping.  I do want to do that soon, to make our tree look more Christmas-y.  We’ll probably do that tonight, as we probably won’t have time again until Saturday.  Plus there is a movie we need to mail for Swapadvd so we can wrap that at the same time.

Progress

The small project I will be tackling this week is cleaning the kitchen.  I’m really bad at keeping track of food in the fridge, so there is probably a lot of stuff that needs to be thrown out.  At least my husband already took care of the vegetable drawer last week while I was sick.  I want us to eat healthy so I buy fruits and veggies, but then we just end up eating quesadillas or out of cans.   Now that I’m home more, I should work on cooking real meals for the sake of health and frugality.

Share

Hide Sites

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.