Holiday Grand Plan, 2011

[Harriet]

The Holiday Grand Plan is a program to clean and organize your home for the holidays.

Whether you are following the plan already (this would be "dining" week in the plan, btw), OR just want a place to have accountability for your holiday preparations and enjoy others' excitement, come in and chat with us. Check out what you posted last year in the 2010 thread, too, to jostle your memory or warn against previous mistakes!

And before we end this thread in January, let's come back to post what went right/wrong with our 2011 holidays in our homes so we'll have a record for next year.

Browse each week's HGP assignment for cleaning and holiday prep using the link below. Free printable checklists and calendars make it easy to plan your progress and organize each week's goals.

Holiday Grand Plan

Happy Holidays!!!

[Harriet]

I have not followed the grand plan this year. Our focus rotation of declutter/clean has been my house prep, and I have had to recognize limitations and not expect handmade gifts to happen in 2011. Thanksgiving gathering will be larger here than I had thought until the last couple days. Now that I find out I will have houseguests for the weekend after all, and little fingers, we may go with very casual dining.

Sudden new needs to meet for a bigger Thanksgiving:

1) Shop for Thanksgiving design paper items, buy utility paper plates and bowls, cups, napkins
2) pick up honey baked ham

As we move into my usual cards/gifts/decorating time I feel I can leave deep housecleaning behind (lets see if that's true, lol) and concentrate on the specifics of our Christmas. Others pick up trees as early as now, but I wait until about Dec 5, or Pearl Harbor Day, the 7th. That has always worked best in our household. So the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is usually quite busy. I always try to get cards finished and supplies put away BEFORE any gift wrapping or decor. DIVIDE AND CONQUER. So, my first checklist for Christmas is this:

1) buy stamps for cards - CHECK
2) decide if new Christmas cards are needed or if I'll pick and choose among those here
3) decide if new address labels are needed
4) decide if photos should be included
5) get the cards done!

[Dove]

Thanks for posting the link to the Holiday Grand Plan, Harriet! I just browsed through the site & discovered that CEO had developed a plan as well (the Houseworks Holiday Plan). That one intrigues me -- especially when I read about focusing on areas instead of rooms. Will be going back to read about that one in more detail.

You are so wise to use paper goods with all the little ones visiting & everything else you have going on. Less cleanup = less stress = a happier Harriet .

I need to add " buy stamps" to my list, too. Thanks for the memory jog. If I go soon hopefully I can avoid long lines at the post office.

[Nancy]

Found the red and green extension cord for the tree today so I could test the lights and they work yea!

I've given the turkey platter away to dson sigh oh well.

[Harriet]

Thanksgiving paper plates for when children were with us worked out fine. On Thanksgiving when it was all adults, I even got out the red tablecloth, but we were much happier with paper and no tablecloth when children were present!

Cards - I decided I was worried enough about my Christmas cards order from Current that I would call and make sure it wasn't being held up by another item, personalized return address labels. The lady says non-personalized things are going out tonight or tomorrow, so I feel much better. I've always liked Current and want to have a good feeling about ordering from them. My shopping needs to lean more heavily on phone/online now that my ddad is here, and I need confidence that it will work out. I have a feeling Amazon is going to get some of my business this year.

Decor - I'm ready to start sewing on the sleeve to hang the green and white quilt that will take the place of the autumn Alphabet quilt in our dining room.

Tree - I noticed the lot where I have bought Christmas trees for two straight years is opening up. This year, I'll have my ddad's pickup at my disposal without the heavy cover on it, so I can carry large things easily, and I think dd and I could go pick up a tree by ourselves. (Dstepson has gone with us 2 years straight in his pickup.) That is calendared for around the 5th-7th, whenever weather looks clear.

[Harriet]

Reprinting this from PWYC today
Calendaring is going well. Using the HGP calendar page. And I printed a few Holiday Grand Plan cranberry "lined blank pages" and noticed that when they print out there will be open space within the border, at the bottom. So I turned them upside down in the printer and printed my own centered titles in red, in a font that looked Christmasy to me - I thought I was quite clever. I don't do l-i-s-t-s on a regular basis, but I do want a record of sending cards and buying gifts this time of year, and I don't need the more elaborate forms. Anyway, I thought it was an for those who can l-i-s-t without getting hives, and would like an attractive custom title over a lined page. It would match other Organized Home pages in Household Notebooks.

Discovered a helpful site for shopping for children from baby up through young teen. Fat Brain Toys has graphs under each item that show which age and sex of child played with the toy more so you don't buy something too young or old. Or, you can just click on the age and sex of the child you are buying for and see exactly what the favorites are. (Their research really shows how different girls and boys are, and how different children are just a few years apart!) My spending limit for children at the family party this month is $20 or under, and I found a pretty good selection - if slightly too high there, I thought I could check for sales or Amazon, but at least I'd know the ones I was looking for.

[Harriet]

It's been a long wait for our Christmas card order, and I don't believe I'll order from Current again except for things that can wait a long time. That said, the cards are as attractive as any I've sent, except for maybe very high priced ones. Still waiting on the return address labels ordered at the same time. I also got money-holder cards for my ddad and they are nice. Stickers on sale and mount-in-your-own-photos calendars for dd33 and ddil look good.

9 of my 24 gifts are purchased (though some are partly complete), 2 wrapped as of today. Almost all the cards addressed.

[Harmony]

You're doing very well, Harriet. My Christmas is still "in my head". Was the wrong time of year to let my house go to pot!

[Nancy]

Did some baking today w/ dgd and delivered a plate of cookies, dgd took a plate home.
I explained to dd that they did not have to keep them if she did not want then around as she had just done a batch of. ch. chip ones the night before. The tag said from dgd she was very pleased that we'd wrapped them with cellophane I was surprised that she paid that close attn.

Harriet speaking of l-i-s-t-s:
I spent some time looking for tissue paper I must be out. So I need that more cellophane and tape.

Dd dropped of a small gift bag for me at dson's today.
I shopped for an ornament for the Christmas party at church that is about the extent of my holiday shopping this year.

I am going to get more cake mixes to use for cookies for the church youth group as dgd & I enjoy making the cookies we don't have to eat them all! LOL! It is good to share.

[Harriet]

Got 9 gifts wrapped tonight. 3 were little things. No tags on yet. Shopping today was a good idea, several things found.

dd33's family will be here Friday evening. So I would like to color my hair Friday morning. Thursday morning (tomorrow) I'd like to make deviled eggs for the party Sat and rinse the new shirt I want to wear (store folds won't hang out).

Today I did the linens from the other house. I'll need to carry them back tomorrow. HRH already did the grocery shopping for that house. Other things to do before then are some more decorating, spif the front bathroom - well, both bathrooms. Kitchen floor mopped.