Holiday Chaos? Not This Year!

CEO's Christmas Countdown is ready to begin in just two days. Has it really been ten years? Yikes! I have been following the program for many years. I didn't jump in the first year or two she had it up on the message board, but I did join the mailing list as soon as she made it available. I was at first following Katie Leckey's Holiday Grand Plan from the Holiday Grand Plan List Serve group. Over the years I have enjoyed CEO's tasks, reminders, links to articles and of course the recipes. I still have printed copies of these in my Christmas Countdown Holiday Organizer. CEO, aka Cynthia Townley Ewer, the author of Houseworks and the editor of the website Organized Christmas, also developed a Houseworks Holiday Plan, that I have been successfully using for a couple of years. I have been enjoying the Holiday Tips on the Organized Christmas site this year since the beginning of September when this year's Houseworks Holiday Plan began.

Flylady has also helped me through my organizational challenges in years past with the Holiday Cruising Missions on her list and The Holiday Control Journal.

This year, with the experiences I have had with the different programs for over a decade, I am going to use the Houseworks Holiday Plan to keep the house in order and the Christmas Countdown site to keep my holiday preparations on track and finished before the last minute. I will still do any of the FLYLady missions that help simplify my life (her missions started Monday), but I am sticking to CEO's plan. Do you hear the commitment in my tone.

Why am I so adamant about this promise some two months before Christmas is even here? I know that I don't want to be wrapping gifts at 2 a.m. on Christmas morning. I have spent years with shopping only on the few days before Christmas and being frazzled and short tempered because I tried to do a lot in a little time. I have also enjoyed years with a plan with everything wrapped days before Christmas, shopping finished weeks before Christmas, evenings spent enjoying sitting in front of a fire with the family and even planning for guests coming to my house through each of the holiday meals and a party for my mother's side of the family one day and another party for my husband's many siblings and their families another day, and all went well. The difference between working the plan or not is CHAOS or relaxed sanity. I prefer the latter.

When It's Just Too Much

As many of you know; I use routines to get through all of the repeating responsibilities in my life. I have daily sets of tasks that I do at the beginning and end of my day, and I also have daily routines at work. I remain sane, as I don't have to repeatedly write down these routines. I just do them in the same predictable order, day in and day out.

When I first started to get a handle on my home twenty-five years ago, I found the card file system in Pam Young and Peggy Jones' book Side Tracked Home Executives (see my journey). Since then I have been using my planner and daily routines and a Basic Weekly plan. I have also adopted the focus area plan where I focus on an area of my house for a week and do seasonal cleaning and decorating in those areas.

My biggest challenge has not been with keeping up with routines, nor with finding time to focus on areas of my home. From time to time everyone can fall off the routine wagon for whatever unusual circumstances come up. But they can easily be picked right back up and all is well and the house is running smoothly again. The challenge is what to do with all the stuff. I have closets including two walk-ins in the master bedroom and a linen closet in the master bathroom that is large enough to store much more than sheets or towels. I have shelves and cabinets in the living areas that hold specific items. We have one set of shelves for family board and card games, another set of shelves for DVDs and videos, one set of shelves for video games, one for books, one set of shelves for my scrapbooking supplies and photos, and one for other craft supplies. The kitchen and pantry have their own storage spaces for all that surrounds cooking and eating.

Things come into the house on a regular basis. New books or magazines to read, clothes to wear, gadgets for any family member that we just can't live without, food and consumable supplies and a good sized stack of mail, school papers, receipts and other paperwork to sort throughout the week. I am happy to say that most of these things find a home or are cycled in with the regular schedule of time that makes my house a calm and comforting place to be. Sometimes my desk day just involves dealing with these items that have been left in a holding place. As you are probably guessing, this is often my undoing. Finding time to deal with stuff that really hasn't found a home can be just too much. And it's not that I don't want to deal with it, or that I forget to find time to deal with it. It is that when I encounter this new stuff in my house that really doesn't have a home yet, I don't know where to file it, place it, and keep it... If I get a new book I need to decide which book has to leave so I can keep it, or if am I just going to read this book and pass it on, or am I going to expand my space for my library. How much of the boys' creations should I hold on to? I do have a place for what I am keeping, but where is the holding spot until I make that final decision on what is staying in our home for keeps.

Making decisions about stuff is sometimes way too much to deal with for my very busy schedule. There is an answer to every question about stuff, but it requires that I have a time in the right mental state. So I have a hold spot that is in a box, and I call it my "Too Much" box. The things on hold in my life can only take up the space of the box. The box is for things that require decisions that are not autopilot or easy for me to make. I know that I will get to a point where I can make these choices about stuff, and it is not every day or just because it's anti-procrastination day on my calendar. It may be while I am working on a certain area of my home or when I have a block of time away from work. I delve into the box a few times each season when I am in that proper mental state to make decisions. I feel that with my Too Much box, I can deal. I can find a home for some of the stuff that needs a decision in a time that works for me. Stuff inside the box gets a home or is sent out the door. In the meantime the mental clutter that the stuff can create has a home of sorts, although temporary, and life goes on.

Sun Day, Son Day, Sunday

What is better than enjoying a day with the boys? Not much in my book. I think my boys really enjoy each others company, big and small. I think the older boys go to great lengths to include the younger boys in many activities, too which is really nice to see. As a mom to kids from 4 to 25, I know they definitely belong to each other.

The boys had a nice day. Part of it was spent in front of the big screen with video games, and part was spent outside catching bugs, riding go carts, picking persimmons, grilling dinner and just hanging out.