In a good place

(exhale/ big sigh of relief…..)

I feel like I’m actually in a really good place with my big “Christmas To Do” list!! And it is such a relief, because it’s only November 29th. (Which is also my Dad’s birthday!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Love you.)

I have to say a word of gratitude though, for help from people. This year it feels I’ve had a little more help than usual from my husband on holiday prep stuff and that’s been a bit of a game changer. My mom also helped with a bunch of items on the list over the holiday weekend while in town.

Here’s my current status, looking at the list in my planner: (and I realize many of these items probably seem plain WEIRD to others who don’t decorate as much as I do!)

• upstairs/main level Christmas decorations- DONE (I did this w/ boys, Ivan helped lug all the boxes around!)

• outside decorations up- DONE (Ivan did this, minus a small section I had to redo due to some faulty garland lights).

• Christmas village/houses up in the sunroom- DONE (my Mom/boys did this). See pic above! I LOVE THIS.

• basement rec room Christmas decorations up- DONE (my MOM did this for me! We celebrate Christmas Eve in our basement around our bar down there, so….we have a tradition of decorating the whole basement! It’s a lot of work. But, it’s so, so lovely when it’s done! And makes Xmas Eve so fun.)

• Asher’s birthday party plans figured out/communicated to friends- DONE (me)

• Asher’s birthday GIFTS purchased – mostly DONE (me/ Ivan). *Need to go through some stuff we ordered tonight and double check status. His birthday is Thursday!

• Christmas gifts bought for everyone- in progress, but decent start! Ivan has bought a BUNCH of stuff already. Not “done”, but we’ve definitely made a dent. yay!

• St. Nick’s Day stocking stuffers bought- DONE. (*This is a tradition celebrated on the morning of December 6th that was very popular in the region I grew up in. We had lots of German ancestry in that area, and I think this was a popular tradition there. Anyway, we always did it as a kid, so I do it for my boys.)

• Make Christmas cookies- not at all yet. Totally fine- we have plenty of time for this.

• Put up the Christmas tree! (me) and decorated it (everyone)

• Put up the small Christmas tree in the basement (me)

• Almost forgot- I ordered our Christmas cards on Friday!! ✅✅

We also worked together and finished the fall yard clean up this weekend- another big item off the list (and our leaves finally mostly fell….).

AND- Ivan scored major brownie points when he volunteered to run a bunch of errands for me yesterday. I had things that needed to be returned to 3 different stores (some holiday lights I had bought from Target, some pants from the mall that didn’t work and some curtains for Asher’s room from Bed, Bath and Beyond that were too long).

Yesterday morning I was like, “Ughhhh I don’t feel like going out and about to take all this stuff back….” So he said he could run it all back for me, no problem! YAY!! I stayed home and got the trees up (#teamfaketree) and did a bunch of other stuff with the boys.

Then, last night, we all decorated the tree! (more on that tomorrow).

Asher also decorated his own bedroom on Saturday night:

Sneak peak of the tree…when we finished decorating it, we all hung out and watched 2 episodes of “The Babysitters Club” before bed.

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for my Dad. He’s a 1 in a billion type of guy.