October, November & December are my favourite months of the year because they give us a chance to retreat into our homes, and to slow down.
That is until the Chaos of the Christmas rush begins. You know what I’m talking about. The rush to buy presents, to decorate the house, to fit in as many ‘Christmassy’ activities as you can with your family.
Some people absolutely love this rush. I do to a certain extent. I often leave my gift buying until December where my husband and I will book a day off work and go and get it all in one day.
But, if you want to slow it down a little this year and savour each moment, then I have a few tips on how you can reset your November to give you a slow December. Plus, there’s a freebie at the end for you too!
Organise the house
Last week I did a mammoth organise of the house (not a tidy or clean, but an organise), and I’d recommend you do the same. I started with a basket and I entered each room and put anything that didn’t belong into the basket.
I didn’t clean the room, instead I just organised it. There were books in the bedroom that needed returning to the bookshelf in the living room, toys in the living room that need returning to the kids’ rooms, and football boots in the kitchen that needed cleaning and putting in the shoe cupboard.
Plus! It’s so much easier to clean a room when everything is in its proper place.
Decluttering & Selling
Ok, I want to talk to you about my new best friend - Vinted.
If you haven’t heard of Vinted then it’s basically a selling app where you can list your unwanted items and sell them (with no fees!). I actually heard about it on Instagram from a money saving account that I follow (I forget which one, I’m sorry!) who had earned over £700 in one month by selling her unwanted clothes, shoes and home accessories via Vinted.
Well, I certainly could do with an extra £700 a month so I downloaded the app, had a sort out of every wardrobe, set of drawers and cupboard looking for anything we don’t use or wear anymore.
I found loads of unwanted items that I could potentially sell. I took some photos, wrote a brief description and listed them on the app. Would you believe that my phone started pinging with sales almost instantly?!
I quickly headed to Amazon and bought these mailing bags to send the items in. They’re great and I’d recommend them. I already have a label printer for my handmade business (The English Print Co), but you can just print out the shipping label (bought by the customer) and sellotape it to the bag or box.
Cleaning
I hate cleaning. I’m not going to lie. I just struggle to find the motivation to do it because I have so many other things I could be doing that interest me more. But, I absolutely LOVE living in a clean house. It’s so freeing and relaxing for me.
Anyway, I follow Gemma Bray (@the_organised_mum) on Instagram, and saw a Reel that she’d posted about her new guided cleaning sessions. Intrigued, I popped in my AirPods, headed to the kitchen and pressed play.
30 minutes later the kitchen was immaculate! I’d even emptied the crumb tray from the toaster and cleaned out the cutlery drawer. I didn’t even recognise myself.
If you struggle to get motivated to clean then I’d recommend giving Gemma’s guided cleaning sessions a whirl. Having her in your ear telling you what to do next is exactly what I needed.
There are some that you can pay for, but I tried the free ones and loved them. I’ve now upgraded my subscription to paid because I’m loving it!
Planning
Ok, so now the house is clean and you’ve made some money selling your unwanted clothes on Vinted, it’s time to sit down with your favourite hot drink and a notebook.
Write down a list of lists. No seriously, hear me out.
Here’s the list of lists that I make:
Presents to buy each member of my close family (I don’t buy for brothers, sisters, parents, nieces or nephews - just my husband and children. It saves SO much money)
Things we’d like to do. Look at activities that you’d like to attend (the local Christmas light switch on, or visiting Santa) and write down the dates so you don’t miss them.
Food shopping. Yep, the dreaded Christmas food shop. Make a list of everything you’d like to buy for Christmas week (and maybe New Year too if you want to be super organised). You could even book your Christmas home delivery slot too!
Christmas cards. Write a list of people who you’d like to send Christmas card to this year. I also ask school if they can give me a list of student first names in my children’s classes for them to send cards to. My daughter hates it when someone spells her name wrong so I always make the effort to make sure that we spell other children’s names correctly.
Decorations. Are there any decorations that you need to buy? Do you need to head to your local Christmas tree farm and reserve your tree? Make sure you write a date that you can do this so you don’t leave it too late (or too early).
Time to yourself. I need a lot of time to myself to function properly (that sounds very dramatic, but it’s true). I enjoy time on my own and I often struggle when it comes to the holidays with having everyone at home for 2 weeks. Having some activities or plans in place that I can do on my own really helps me. I plan things like having a day off work to binge watch Greys Anatomy whilst wrapping presents, or going for a walk around my village with a coffee and a good podcast playing.
Quality time with your partner. We always book time off together whilst the kids are still at school to spend some time with each other. It’s SO good for us. This will also be our last year that we can spend together just us two before the baby arrives in March 2023, so we need to make the most of it. We look at restaurants or local pubs that we’d like to try out and book a table there. We also spend the day Christmas shopping together (as we both hate surprises), drinking coffee and having a look around the Christmas market.
Your list of lists may be slightly different to mine, but you get the idea. When you’ve got your list, you need to fill out each list. Once you’ve done that, you’ll feel super organised.
Enjoyment
The Christmas season is about enjoyment, and getting into a lot of debt just to give your children the latest iPad is NOT the way to enjoy Christmas (trust me, I know).
Instead, spend time together doing free or low cost activities. My two personally love the quiet activities where they have our undivided attention.
To save money this year, I’m going to focus on this 4 gift rule that I keep seeing popping up on my Instagram feed:
Something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read
There’s also versions that add: something to do (movie/ game night) & something for my family (an outing or experience day).
I think this is lovely, because it’s so easy to get carried away with gift giving. This’ll give me strict parameters to stay within, and it means that my house won’t become cluttered with useless ‘stuff’. Have you tried this before? Or are you willing to give it a try this year?
The Freebie
I created this Christmas countdown PDF (download it below) last year and framed it. We then use a dry wipe marker (it works best if you have a frame with plastic instead of glass, I got ours from Ikea) to cross off the days as we countdown to Christmas. The kids love it and take it in turn to mark it off each day.
I’d love to see you using yours! Please send me your pictures via the Substack chat, or tag me on Instagram (@theenglishprintco) and I’ll share them on my stories.
I’d love to know how you get yourself organised and prepared for the Christmas rush. Reply to this post and let me know, or join in my Chat via the app.