Oh hey Christmas, I’m ready for you this year!

This is going to scare a lot of people, but I’m just going to come out and say it.

There are 37 days to Christmas.

There, I said it!

37 days can be converted to one of these units:

• 5 weeks (rounded down),
• 1 month and 7 days,
• 37 days,
• 888 hours,
• 53,280 minutes, or
• 3,196,800 seconds!!!

Had a heart attack yet? Last year, I would’ve been with you. Freaking out about everything that has to be done, and gifts I have to buy that I can’t really afford because I haven’t saved, planned or prepared in any way.

Stuff that. It sucks. It sucked the worst last year when the hubs and I decided we can knock the shopping over in one day. ONE! We did it, but it took ~5hours and 3 trips back to the car to dump bags and goodness only knows how much we spent (and probably overspent). By the end of it we were exhausted, frustrated and just generally annoyed. Christmas shopping brings out the worst in people – how ironic that it’s supposed to be a happy time that’s all about love and giving.

This year, I wasn’t having a bar of it! No siree, Christmas shopping at the last minute is not for me from this year forward. The answer? LISTS! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Lists are your (mine at least) friend! I have a bunch of list apps I use for my phone, my favourite being Wunderlist, but I also use the heck outta my Notepad app. There’s no excuse now for not jotting things down these days… Throughout the year whenever anyone comments off the cuff that they want or like something, I mentally remember it and then jot it in my phone when it’s not obvious. That way there’s no forgetting and when gift buying time comes I’m sorted. Similarly if you are at a computer all day, I keep an email in my drafts of any cool links that I come across that someone might like.

So, I can happily say that with 37 days until Christmas I’m about 65% of the way through our shopping. I’m feeling relaxed and organised. For the first time ever, I’ve also kept a spreadsheet of how much we have spent and even that makes me feel better because I know we’re not blowing way out.

Having given myself some more time to wrap presents this year, I’m going to take my time, and decorate them more than any other year. I’m a paper person, and have always made a concerted effort to make any gift I give, beautiful and generally I think people appreciate that. Whether they do or don’t isn’t going to change me into not caring though. Last year this was thrown in my face a little when I heard that a family member said behind my back that “Jenny didn’t wrap those presents, she had them professionally done”. Say what? Because we’d left shopping so late last year I actually ran around like a mad woman trying to find decent ribbon. Nada. I ended up with raffia. Just putting it out there – raffia is not ribbon! I was a little bit hurt but also a little bit flattered that she thought they were professionally wrapped. But still, it need not have been said. Here’s a little of what 2012 looked like at our place.

So 2013 is going to be bigger and better than ever, biznatches! I’m planning on making lots of paper rosettes and other crafty pretties and am sticking with the brown and red paper base like last year. Here are a few inspiration pics (from Pinterest of course – click for links).

I managed to get a bit of practice in over the weekend and here’s the first ever paper rosettes I have made. It’s my besties baby shower on the weekend, so after this I went a bit hell for leather making pastel ones for decorations for the big shower, so I got my rhythm down pat after a while.

See? I’ll do a tutorial next week and spill all the baby shower beans. In the mean time, I’m going to keep ticking pressies off my list.  Are you feeling organised this year?