On Mondays for the next five weeks I will be sharing some simple planning tips to keep your holiday preparations manageable and merry! So go ahead and put on your Christmas sweater and let’s get to work!

Cards & Memories

Holiday Cards

First things first. Are you sending cards this year? Do you need to set up a family picture session? How is the state of your address book? Will you send out an email letter? Do you need to stock up on stamps? With around five weeks until Christmas now is the time to devise your POA – plan of attack!

What am I doing for cards this year? – Every year I have stayed with my tradition of getting photo cards made and we write-up a short recap/letter of our year to go along with it. I honestly was contemplating not doing that this year. I was feeling a bit ~~lazy~~ unmotivated, but decided I’m not ready to break tradition, not yet anyway. I have ordered my stamps online and next up we will be getting our photo taken this week. Then I will order my cards online and make a goal to get them mailed out by December 9th. Since we’re living overseas I want to give a little extra cushion of time.

Christmas Scrapbook

Another tradition I started and have managed to keep up with, is my Christmas Scrapbook. I take a few pictures of our celebrations each year and add our personal Christmas card and letter. It makes a great capture of the holiday and with our yearly letters posted it also provides a nice highlight of the past year’s events and milestones.

Past Years Cards

What do you do with all the cards you have received in the past years? Are they sitting somewhere in a box? If you have recycled them and have no desire to hold on to them, I get it! However if you want to save them I shared over here how I got “morganized” last year and put my past years in a cute “tied up” little system!

Time is on your side. So take advantage and stay ahead of your schedule. When you plan realistically what the best projects are for you to take on this year, the more joy you will be able to experience.

Your turn, tell me. Are you inspired? How is your merry factor? What is your POA?

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IF you didn’t stop by on Friday you should go now, there is only a little time left to enter my FAB GIVEAWAY!

And don’t forget…starting this Friday, November 22nd, I’m participating in a fabulous blog hop that will run every Friday for FIVE weeks! It is designed for other bloggers to link up their holiday/winter/Christmas type posts. In addition there will be a giveaway each week! So if you have some DIY Christmas posts in the works or a favorite family holiday recipe to share, come by and link up!