Planning for the Christmas Holidays

I am SOOOO not an organized person.  I always feel like I have a zillion balls in the air and that they are all going to come crashing down at the same time at any moment. I feel like I have ADHD but I know that I don't.  I just have too much going on.

So this year, this season, we are doing things a bit differently.  There are a few different factors that make this holiday season a bit different.

First, we are NOT going to Disney World.  Since 2007 we have gone to Disney for a week or so just before Christmas.  This meant that I had to be super organized because I would have to have everything ready for Christmas prior to us leaving for Disney as we would often be returning on Christmas Eve or on Dec 23rd.  So it ALL had to be done.  Not this year.

Second, we have like NO money for extra things.  We have enough to buy some gifts but we are not doing extravagant things and have no extra money to do other stuff that we wish we were able to do if we weren't going to Disney.  We aren't buying new decorations or more lights for the front of the house, or anything we don't NEED.  Not this year.

Third, because we are homeschooling we actually have a bit of extra time on our hands and we tend to sit around "wishing" that we could go here or do this.

Extra time + NOT going to Disney + NO extra money = Mom has to be creative.

So this is what I did.  I took an inventory of the things I wanted to do and then I surveyed the kids and asked them to give me their top 5 things they wanted to do this holiday season. Next I crossed off everything on their lists that would cost a lot of money or that included "going to Disney World".  I ended up with a nice list of things.

Some of the things the kids said were:
go Christmas caroling
go look at Christmas lights
have a party for our friends
bake cookies
go Christmas shopping for each other


Some of the items on my list were:
go look at Christmas lights
string popcorn and cranberries
do some baking
read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" together
read "The Christmas Carol" together

Then I looked at the calendar and printed out a December calendar and started to add things on it.  This way we will have some things to look forward to each week.

We have an extra week this year and with us not going out of town we have a lot of extra time we usually don't have. I hope that this year we will be able to make some great memories just the 5 of us that won't cost a lot of money.

What do you do to plan for the holidays?  Do you have any fun things you like to do each year that doesn't cost a lot of money?