Being Prepared Feels Awesome!

No crazy, life-changing, mind-shattering revelation today. But I did learn something that is just awesome!

I am a fairly organized person. I plan our menus at least a week in advance. I love to cook ahead and freeze meals. I write everything on the calendar. And I have a daily to-do list. But one thing that always sneaks up on me and that I'm never prepared for is Christmas. I absolutely love the holiday. Everyone is cheerful and places are decorated beautifully. And my most favorite thing in the world to do is give people gifts! (Just as a general disclaimer, we don't believe that gifts are the best thing about Christmas, but when you know you are buying presents because of the awesome gift that God gave us in His son, Jesus, giving gifts is even more enjoyable!) I don't really love shopping, but when I'm buying things for someone else, (especially my boys!) I go crazy!

Despite my love for the holiday, I typically find myself shopping up to the week before Christmas, and wrapping on Christmas Eve! (We don't do Santa in our home so wrapping gifts before Christmas and having them around where our kids can see them isn't a big deal. I'm sure that will change when they start wanting to open them, though!) I decided that this year was going to be different. No last minute rushing. No spending all that money on gifts within a couple weeks. No wrapping until midnight the night before we leave to visit family. Especially since we have a fairly new baby and things are kind of hectic right now.

So, we started shopping in August. See something someone might like on sale? Scoop it up! Make gift baskets so we can buy a few different items. And slowly, we have come to accumulate a mound of gifts for our family! The best part is that we have been able to purchase more, better quality gifts for everyone because we took advantage of so many great deals and spread our shopping out for months instead of into one hurried month.

The other great part? As of tonight, aside from stocking stuffers that don't get wrapped, every single gift we have bought is already wrapped, labeled, and ready for ribbon! (I don't do that until closer to Christmas because the pretty bows get smashed when storing.) We only have a few gifts left to buy, and a few things we are waiting on to be delivered, but I am already 80% done shopping and it is only the beginning of November! I'm so excited that I don't have to stress about getting gifts between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year (though I will still go check out some Black Friday deals for last minute things.)

Now for the hard part... Waiting almost two months to give everyone their gifts! Thankfully my son's birthday party is this weekend, so I can at least give him a few things. ;)