How not to go cray, cray this Christmas

This is a sponsored post for Woolworths.A recent Galaxy Poll discovered that one-third of Australians start planning their Christmas main meal three months or more in advance. Hands up if you’re in that third? {By the way, my hand is up}. Thirty percent of grocery buyers who were surveyed said that they leave it until the last two weeks. Is that you? {That was me just last year}. Over the next 8 weeks I’ll be working with Woolworths and bringing you Christmas posts/recipes/ideas that will hopefully put you in that excitable, organised third of Australians. Believe it or not.

Did you know that it’s 55 days until Christmas Day? 8 weeks. This excites me {like a little school girl!} and scares me {like a mum with a looooong to-do list}.

I think there are two types of people when it comes to Christmas, the organised and the last-minuters. I have been a last-minuter, always leaving everything to last few days and then getting it done. And this year I vow to be an organised person. I started a few weeks back buying gifts for Lacey and putting them away. BUT I already gave two of the presents to Lacey because I was too darn excited. Oh boy I’m gonna be in trouble. {Hubby if you’re reading this, there’s nothing to see here – move on}.

I’m particularly excited because this is our first Christmas in a house, in our house. We’re having all the family over, from both sides, {minus my brother and one sister – who can’t make it} and we’ll be cooking up a storm, swapping gifts, drinking and no doubt having lots of laughs. This week I’ve even been working on the lunch menu. Did someone say excited much?

Here’s an 8 week countdown plan, so that you won’t be sent batty being a last-minuter. Promise.

8 weeks to go: Make the big decisions
There are decisions need to be made at Christmas time, like where on earth will you be celebrating the big day? For some families that decided well in advance and for others {ahem, mine} those conversations are just starting to take place. It’s time to start asking, “Where are we spending Christmas this year?”

7 weeks to go: Work that budget
With Christmas comes spending money. It’s kinda inevitable. We always have a budget and we’re never really extravagant. And we do Kris Kringle to keep costs down. My family only buys for one person and the budget is $100, and that’s it. Hubby and I have the same agreement between ourselves too. Perhaps you can afford more, or not as much. But it’s a great time to now start thinking about finances and how much you’re willing to spend.

6 weeks to go: Plan the gifts
Get it all out of your head and onto paper. Do you need to buy for teachers? Make foodie gifts for the neighbours? Figure who you need to buy for, how much you want to spend and what you’re going to bake for others. Just quietly I love foodie gifts {doesn’t everyone?}. This great FREE printable gift planner is a great place to start. Slowly buy gifts each week, and check out stores online too. Doing it gradually helps the budget and saves the stress too.

5 weeks to go: Plan the menu

This is my most favourite thing to do. I scour the web, magazines and cookbooks for the perfect recipes to make. I kinda really like entertaining. I don’t do fancy, but I do do yummy. If you’re not having people at your house this Christmas {lucky you!} then figure out if you’ll need to bring a dish, and start dreaming up what you’ll create {or buy}. We still haven’t decided whether we’ll do a hot or cold lunch.

4 weeks to go: Decorate mate!
It’s time to get the decorations out, put the lights up and dust off the tree {or buy one!}. Having lived in an apartment all our married lives we’ve never been able to decorate, and now watch out. We’ve promised ourselves to not get too excited with the lights – but seriously I think it’s doing to be hard to restrain ourselves. Don’t forget to get the Santa photo taken too.

3 weeks to go: Get wrapping & send out the cards
This might just be another of my favourite weeks, I love to wrap. Love it. Give me some gift wrap and sticky-tape and I might just be the happiest girl in the world. Now is a great time to wrap the gifts, write the cards and send them out. If you want to save the environment, Red Stamp has a great app where you can create easy photo Christmas cards and share them via email, text, Instagram, Facebook or snail mail.

2 weeks to go: Make foodie gifts
Crack out the flour and sugar, it’s time to get cooking. Make cookies, rocky road and other delicious goodies for loved one in your life. As I said, there’s nothing better than getting goodies that are made with love.

1 week to go: Eat, drink and be merry
You’ve done all the hard work early, so now it’s time to enjoy it. Get the grocery shopping done, enjoy time with friends and family, celebrate the end of another lovely year, and a beautiful Christmas. Cook up a delicious storm, open gifts and see the reaction from loved ones when you hand them their gifts too.

This year I’ll be counting down to Christmas each week here on my blog, and we’ll have company. Woolworths are coming along for the ride. My Ma has worked at Woolworths for the past 20 years, so it feels like home. They’re giving me yummy, fresh recipes to create and share, prizes to giveaway and a few little more surprises. It’s going to be fun. They’ve just released their new television commercial; you can check it out here.

Does the thought of Christmas excite you? Are you a last-minuter or an organised person?

If you’d like to read more about sponsored posts, you can check out my disclosure policy here.

24 thoughts on “How not to go cray, cray this Christmas”

  1. We buy gifts for so many kids and receive so many as well. It will be good to have some Chrissy sanity reading your blog.
    It’s hard to make decisions and expensive as well.

  2. As the years have passed I have become less and less organized for Christmas. I’m hoping that this year will be different. Love Christmas season not a fan of shopping though!

  3. Every christmas since having Raya I have been very organised. This year we will have to be SUPER organised as Raffie will be in the Kids Hospital for Christmas having spinal surgery. Still haven’t worked out the logistics of everything, particularly where Santa will deliver his sisters presents.

  4. I am starting to get a bit excited about Christmas. This comes just in time as I was starting to plan. I need to be really organised because we’re having Christmas at my place for the first time. Bit daunting as well though! 🙂

  5. We are usually very busy with our fruit season so unless Im super duper organized Christmas is a bit rushed in our house. With 2 teenagers and a small extended family it should be easy right? LOL maybe this year will be the year. Although i have brought a gift for my daughter so that is a start! xxxx Look forward to you sharing your tips and hints Chantelle thankyou for being so generous 🙂

      • Yep a fruit platter is always on the menu.:)

        Over Christmas we are harvesting apricots, nectarines and plums (some are for fresh market and some we dry) ,we have been known to pick apricots in the morning and plums in afternoon, or nectarines in morning and apricots in the evening, Then just after Christmas add peaches to the mix, in Feb comes the pears. Other fruit we grow are apples, oranges, lemons tangelos, and the odd cherry tree just for us:)

        Believe me it is totally crazy here…..you are welcome to join us for a fruit platter:)

  6. We will be spending Christmas at home, alone, just the four of us and this year I’m going all-white and simple as we’ll be travelling for 6 weeks soon after. I simply ADORE the hoo-ha, the big family and friend get-togethers but part of me is excited to be doing something super simple and relaxed. Present shopping virtually done – starting on the cards soon (some electronic) and I also LOVE to wrap!
    x

  7. I LOVE Christmas! Totally excited about it. I am a serious organiser. But this year I will be 3 weeks off giving birth so I will probably still organise and the rest of the family will have to be the doers!

  8. Enjoy your new house this year Chantelle. I love Christmas, the house is always decorated (too much? lol) and we do the big lunch etc. A few years ago I decided I wouldn’t decorate, as my boys were all teenagers and I thought it wasn’t cool, but the eldest who was about 17 complained. He said he loved walking into the house and feeling all Christmassy every year – it’s nice to know they’ll remember the traditions as well as the pressies :-).

  9. Oh I love love love christmas and this year I am totally organised… Have nearly finished all of my chrissy shopping, I have even bought things to make my own advent calander and have little gifts to go in it…. I’m not usually this organised but this year I am pumped!!! Hope you and your family enjoy christmas in your new house. xx

  10. This is my favourite time of the year, it’s close to my birthday, the autumn is just turning into winter and the Christmas preparations are starting to be made.. I used to work in a place where Christmas is the busiest time of the year, and I loved that feeling – it was almost like working in Santa’s shop 😀

    Every year we do our traditional Christmas foods at home, so it doesn’t take much planning for that. The only stressful thing now is to figure out where we are on which dates, as we always try to visit my family, hubby’s family, and hubby’s daughter’s Christmas plans need to be coordinated into that as well (which dates she’s spending with her mom and which with us..) Of and I LOVE buying and wrapping Christmas presents, making Christmas cards and foodie gifts!!

  11. I ADORE Christmas! On the day when everyone is eating their hot lunch ( yes, it might be 38c and we still have a hot lunch! ) drinking the punch and getting giggly, opening all their presents and have HUGE smiles on their faces….I can breathe and know……all that madness was worth it!

  12. I’m organised! I have been buying one present per pay [fortnight] for the last couple of months…i don’t even notice the money missing, and now – 8 weeks out – i only have 3 pressies left to buy!

  13. too funny mum and I just organised our lunch about 2 hours ago, I can’t plan stuff for tomorrow so this was a big step for me, finished and organised.. .then I see this post! serendipitous

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