Christmas Planner Set Up | Let's Plan Christmas | Christmas 2024| Episode 1/4

[Music] hi everybody Welcome to let's play Christmas here on plan beat I this is a series of four episodes where I show you how to break down Christmas in manageable easy Tas and teach you how to pre-plan so you can apply that not only to Christmas but to anything anything you need to plan for I show you how I create my planning sheets which I'm going to be using for the next six months from July to December to break down Christmas into big chunks and then actionable steps so hopefully this can take maybe just a micro tiny bit of stress off of Christmas I don't know about you I am the one who does Christmas for my little little family set up at home I have my sister and her kids live with me and so we do our own Christmas I've the baker of the family so I have that is the biggest Christmas thing Christmas for me is multiple elements multiple cogs in the wheel of Christmas so I hope you join me for this don't don't feel like you have to do any anything that that I do I'm just showing you the process from the ground up creating both a a planner that you can use um and a system and not only that is like I said you could apply this for anything not just Christmas so um I invite you to join me for that this the initial episodes are 1 through 4 the first episode you're going you're watching right now this is the only one I'm going to put this introduction on is we're going to create the source material for Christmas we're going to start Christmas from scratch what do you what youve been normally doing what is your time what does your Christmas timeline look like what have you been doing and what do you need to do for this Christmas episode two we're going to take those notes and um organize them into categories further break them down into tasks that you know know now that that either typically happens or what you have to do now so you're going we're going to break those down in episode two and then then we're going to go in episode two episode two is the longest one I'm sorry and and highlight to see what task can we pull now regardless of the time of year you're doing this and regardless if you know the time of you know when is your Christmas party going to happen well I don't even have a guest list yet okay you don't know that but what you know that that party is going to happen regardless of you know a date time venue start pulling what you can do Now map we're going to map that out so you can see what something like that looks like for me and I do that with um a Christmas decorating cookie party I do every I've been doing since I was a child and my niece and nephew are kids so we're going to do that that's the episode two is the longest one and we're going to create planning sheets so you have six months at a glance and then you can see what you could pull and you're going to put them on on these planning sheets now this is not exactly your your schedule because things will come up as the month's progress and later episodes I will be sharing I don't know when I'm so busy but I will be sharing my as I work through the book as July through December the the release of this video series is June 2024 hey what's up and we're going to you're going to watch me do this I'm going to try to post a video every month like a Christmas followup to see if the system I am creating in in this video series both for me and for you okay is working I'm sure it's going to work now in episode number three we further break down those tasks that we have put on our planning sheets into actionable steps into and it doesn't have to be step one of the thing right you don't the DAT or time or anything doesn't you pull whatever like you know for for gifts you make a gift L you know you don't need to know how many how many people you're buying for maybe ideas right now oh okay Boop Bo you can do that do something now I'll go over what I can do now in that video you'll see that in episode episode number three when I create the event pages and then episode four is the last one is my planners um set up for for Christmas 2024 so that is the series in a nutshell the idea with this is to make Christmas planning easy again to introduce what my planning is my system is so far in develop what I've developed for this year I really invested the time in creating a system for myself I want to make stuff as easy as possible for myself and pre-planning is the way to go you can make your if you can make your shopping list now you can make whatever you can do now regardless of knowing the date or time regardless of Christmas is now for you or not what can you do now to help just take a little bit off your plate even if it's sending a text to someone what can you do now so I hope you enjoy this series um please um leave any feedback and any comment videos and if you need help with some I'll try to answer as many questions as I can um I have never seen anything like this on YouTube please point me in the right direction if I'm wrong if you see any vide like oh cool I'm like yeah so I can connect with people and we're going to be using the hashtag planner beat Christmas cuz if you're on Instagram I'm just starting my Instagram out um I want to see your progress I want to see how you're doing doing so I hope I hope you enjoy this series I hope you find it helpful or at least maybe uh informational educational I know the projection value is not that great um all my filming happens at night when um the kids go to bed so um let's plan Christmas hi friends in this first episode we're going to create three sets of notes these will be your Source material that you'll be pulling from for your Christmas planning we're going to be creating an overview what a typical Christmas looks like and then we're going to map out Christmas on a timeline so we can see what we have been working with in the past and what we need to do for it and then finally we're going to brain dump everything we have in our heads that is related to the current Christmas that we're going to be planning for the tools you'll need in this video is paper and a pen or a pencil um I consider using the paper size you want to use that you're going to build your Christmas planner with and that way you could store these notes uh that we're going to be creating in in your book or your planner if you don't want to waste planner Pages be sure to have some sort of storage folder or binder so that you can keep your notes together and organized in one place this is going to be key essential for the system as we're going to be UTI excuse me utilizing these notes to set up the bones events tasks plans and schedule for christas Christmas uh for my digital exclusive friends I suggest um using a Notes app to collect these notes in one place or even composing an email to yourself and keep it as a draft so you can constantly add notes to it because uh you know once you send an email um that you can't really update it unless you resend replies or something so in this first video don't get stuck on the Aesthetics like you know what planner size you're going to use what sort of paper you're going to use or anything um for this first episode um cuz right now we're just going to focus on getting Christmas out of our heads so what does Christmas look like for for me and I'm going to use this first piece of paper here and I'm going to write out what Christmas typically looks like for me this is going to help for anybody who's going to be intimidated by a blank piece of paper this is a good starting Place writing out what Christmas look typically looks like to me so I I'm going to have to write here in an angle then I'll show you folks once I'm done so Christmas um we do Christmas morning at my mom's I bake all of the cookies and treats for Christmas we have a cookie decorating party in December to decorate my sugar cookies super delicious of course we'll be I'll be sharing that with you folks the recipe when we get to that point okay so Christmas morning we go to my mom's um we also do we also do christas Eve pizza at Pizza at remember these are rough rough notes so don't even worry about I'm not going to worry about pizza at tit's house and tit is me the kids that's how what the kids call me instead of Auntie they say Titi pizza at titi's house um and then usually open one gift at Xmas Eve night um we exchange gifts Christmas [Music] morning with the family we do um a breakfast or in early like we've been doing um like finger foods for Christmas and we snack on all day Christmas decorating [Music] usually happens around Thanksgiving okay so that's what my Christmas I just going to quickly write that hopefully you could see that let me see if I could zoom in my my crusty handwriting here no I guess my my phone's being a buttthe head right now okay okay so Christmas at at my mom's house um Christmas morning at my mom's house I bake all the cookies and treats for Christmas we have a cookie decorating party in December to decorate my sugar cookies um and then we we also do Christmas Eve pizza at titi's house usually open one gift at Christmas Eve night we exchange gifts at Christmas Eve a Christmas morning I can't even read my own handwriting with the family we do a breakfast or an early finger foods for Christmas and snack on all all day uh Christmas decorating usually happens around Thanksgiving that's good enough that's good enough for me that's pretty much what so I have the starting point here for the planning this is what we typically do we've been doing you know ever since I was a child so that's our pretty much our tradition right here so now I'm going to create a timeline to see when this stuff typically happens as well as add a bunch of other things so I'm going to set this guy aside and pull out another one of my other sheets of paper I'm going to use more of a blank paper on this and then I'm going to grabb my pencil here so I'm going to draw a timeline and then for me Christmas I always considered the end of um after Christmas part of Christmas too like Christmas uh uh New Year's Eve and stuff like that we don't do anything for that but usually that's part of a holiday break that I I take from personally from work and then also we got to think about Christmas cleanup so I'm going to end here with maybe you know January and then have like Christmas clean up clean up okay remember these are going to be super sloppy notes so don't even don't even I'm I'm telling that more to myself okay so then we have Christmas cleanup um and then I'm maybe leave a little bit Christmas morning at Mom's Xmas Eve at my house and then we're going to do somewhere around here is the decorating party another thing I do which I didn't put on the list cuz I'm doing this live with you guys is I also do cookie exchange with um family I bake for the entire family and then I get give it to him before Christmas before Christmas Eve cookie exchange with family and my co-workers so that happens around around this time you know we're going to think what December whatever December 25th okay and that's January so somewhere around then here is December is this is my Christmas okay and then you do yours obviously um during this video or after the video so we're going to we're keeping it we're keeping it real here okay so we do cookie decorating cookie exchange with family and co-workers and then we have I'm going to put Thanksgiving here cuz even though this is not Christmas part of the planning process we're going to have to consider Thanksgiving as well as Halloween and these actually are three months we have October November December and then well January is he's over here think about all that so we got Halloween Thanksgiving and then then we're right into December so this is what pretty much I and then usually I do decorating for Christmas say decor for Xmas I've been doing it usually the week before or a few days before Thanksgiving just because um I don't know about you but we put quite a bit out for Christmas so and it takes it takes a bit and plus it's really gets us up in the spirit I don't we don't do as you can see I don't do Christmas at my house the my sister and her kids live with me but what we do is we do Christmas morning with the kids at my house and then we run over to my mom's and we spend the rest of the day day there so decorate for Christmas is going to it happens right before Thanksgiving and that's in November and then I have to also consider Halloween because I personally I also do a cookie decorating party Halloween and I consider that usually my warmup so that's about that that time so this is this this is what pretty much what Christmases look like and then usually I start my gift buying actually we'll put July and then I'm going to say August and September so I usually start my gift list and purchasing this is how I've been doing that past couple years gift list and purchasing around these three months here my goal and then I start my I'm sorry we're going to this is all raw here and then my goal is always to have everything purchased and wrapped up before Halloween that's usually my goal goal if I can spell that looks whatever anyways that's my goal every every year is getting the gifts gifts purchase and I buy the gifts for you know usually my mom my dad kids we'll we'll go over that in a future video and then that way it's all done my my issue for this and why I'm creating this series is I do all my baking I do my baking so here's Thanksgiving this is when I start all course it's baking and then I also make um chocolates and Candy sometimes too and if you could see I have all this space I'm waste I'm pretty much not doing anything for Christmas but then it's condensed as we get farther this is pretty much only a couple weeks essentially so what I've been what I've been doing in the past is I take you what every Friday off in December and I dedicate that to my baking this year I really want to en enjoy December more and Christmas a little bit more and not feel so Rush with having to do all the baking for this within this small little time time frame from Thanksgiving personally I'm going to see if I want I am able to start it here because I'm awesome and all pretty much everything I bake except for a few things it go it can go straight in the freezer and comes out tasting fresh and amazing so that is this is what my Christmas for me what my Christmas has been looking like for the past couple years my goal this year besides you know making a whole dead you know like knuckling buckling down and creating a whole system for Christmas because as you can see Christmas for me is there's there's quite a bit of elements that are involved and not a lot made it made it to this paper um we're going to be doing that in the probably episode two when I when we go in and um I'm going to be processing my brain D but this is just a rough ugly look at what these three months are are crazy busy crazy busy this is the last quarter of the year so this is this is Q4 the this right here is Q3 so our goal for this Christmas planning or at least my goal for creating this series and doing this with you guys is to get as much as we can done at quarter three for Christmas and maybe even you know I'm going to be also starting some of the LTS and shopping stuff for this guy and Halloween as much as we can actually whatever as much as we can in these three months here CU that's quarter three I know I have my October right here but whatever as much as we can done as much as we can done so that way once we hit these these big events it's it's pretty much just following following the plan that is the goal with this entire series and my systems that I will be creating both for myself and hopefully yet you're able to follow along and create your own systems so that Christmas so that we can enjoy Christmas again I don't know about you but it's it's always super stressful for me it's because of this right here it's because of all the baking my family I'm the baker of the family everybody um looks forward to all the cookies every single year and it's just become just quite quite the ordeal most planning videos or what you have available that I've found over the years they start their planning videos or Christmas at least they're telling you folks that in November around Thanksgiving for me that just that's too late that is too late to try try to do all this stuff or plan for all this stuff in November plus we have to consider this guy and this guy um you guys might not do a whole lot for Halloween but I do I Decor I do big decorating of my house for the kids and we do party another cookie party and all sorts of stuff so that is my uh goal is to get all the what I can planned and done with in quarter three so that all I have to do is follow the plans and hopefully not have that much on my plate this year so the next step now that we have a a snapshot of what we do uh what we do for Christmas right what our Christmas typically looks like and what we have been doing you know this is our visual of what we have been doing now we want to see um now we need a place to dump out all our thoughts for this Christmas for what we need to do this is what it's called a brain dump it's simply just whatever is in your even even if you're sitting down watching this video and thinking about something else just write it down on that piece of paper doesn't have to be Christmas related um I have an I was thinking of an example um of if you've seen the Harry Potter movies Dumbledore when he T he uses the pen and takes out the thought from with his wand and puts it puts it on into the pens so think of all this what we're going to be creating and then the third the third set here of the notes as as your as your pens right uh this is the idea with creating your Christmas snapshop first um the what does your Christmas look like to me and our Christmas timeline so this page wasn't intimidating you know the blank the blank piece of paper wasn't intimidating and so that we can simply have something to work off and then as we progress through this series these are going to this is your Source material that you're going to be using to plan out any events that are related to Christmas for me event is the cookie decorating party um and as well as you know elements of Christmas and Christmas Eve so that this is this is going to be your Source material so we're the next step is the brain dump so I'm going to be writing everything I know right now that I need to do for this for this Christmas you're going to watch that right now so the very first thing I I was in my my shed yesterday and I need a another Christmas tree bag and I apologize I'm writing off off to the side it's cuz the tripod for the camera is in the way okay um Christmas tree bag for the flock tree I got a new tree I've always wanted a flock Tree in my entire life got one last year but I didn't have a bag for it cuz I have the old tree in that bag so and my sister maybe wants to take the old tree okay so then I need to what else add Christmas recipes into my Christmas book oh let's see what a what other what recipes I need I need the Divinity I have a bunch of these recipes bookmarked on my iPad like from last year of uh YouTube videos xus uh the bark and I just I need to write them down and put them in one place so I don't have to rely on those uh I do Oreo cheesecakes what else and my coconut balls balls I'll just say balls cuz I know I know what that means um I need to lock down the menu and then as I said been saying in the video see can start baking earlier and uh do that instead of November December because this just it's too much for me I want to relax the end of the year too much okay so and then I'm so I got to think member freeze um what I can freeze is the Christmas mix sugar cake box I make cake box cookies the bark can get Frozen uh and then I'm going to remember I might not have enough room in my freezer freezer so I need to do schedule um ref freezer clean out for [Music] that I need to create a Christmas budget make sure you guys can see that in the frame Christmas budget what else do I need to do um I want to create the Christmas Box and that for me is um I so I pre-wrap I get all my gift done gifts done wrap them up and then I have a a a big old giant list that I keep let me see if I can find my old one okay so that's what this is what I call the Christmas Box and these are the gifts that I purchased this is last year and then I so I track um when I get them when I wrapped them and then I also when it's small gifts like this I put it in one box so I wanted to let myself know hey i r all these are going to be in one box so when I go and get them out of my Hiding my hidy hole I know that oh when I freak out if I if I freaked out because there was only one gift from Mom be like hold on in this box it's all these all these so that's what I'm going to be creating we're going to create I'm going to create for myself later on in the this video series but that that's what that looked like for me last year and I did here's another one too so this is me tracking and then I so I have everything's all together and it's super super essential or and super helpful okay what else do I need to do um okay then I have baking baking is like demanding my thoughts right now baking schedule plan decorate outside foras I have notes here too on the side that from last year some scraps from last year that I'm thinking about [Music] see what else so I need I for sure know need a oh I need I know another thing KJ and Curtis stockings letter letters we have stockings um for the each family member has like a letter little stocking I guess that's not the best one of like something like this so we don't have one this is my sister's husband and his his son so we don't have one for them so I'm thinking k for Curtis and J for for KJ K C KJ's short for Curtis Jr that's a sun so so I need I I I remember I need to look for that um okay um let's see I I want to clean up I need a I have clean out Christmas and Hut I have a store jury that that it's just been a dumping place for random bits and pieces for Christmas and it's it needs to be organized um minimal decorating Christmas was nice chair yeah see rough and ugly I did I bar I didn't do a lot of decorating for in my house on Christmas I kept it super simple and I really enjoyed that because it was very easy to put up and very easy to take down so that's that's who that um um I'm going say Christmas breakfast question mark was last year we didn't do it cuz my mom didn't want us to be full and that was usually that was my job I was bringing um besides all the bacing right I also did Christmas breakfast I you do like like a beautiful like I I think I did like waffles like belgi chocolate deep chocolate Belgian waffles um and stuff like that and because we eat so early excuse me we eat so early and then we just kind of enjoy the the day together just kind of lay around watch movies and stuff or whatever and so I'm going to ask I need to ask her if if she wants to just kind of Exe on Christmas breakfast and I usually we just feed the kids before we we leave they have a little munchy munchy okay let's see what else do I need to do besides make a Christmas planner hello that was is my one of my big goals and that is what you're watching me do in this video series I'm making a Christmas planner and my goal with this is going to be Christmas planner book it's going to house all the planning sheets for Christmas all these sheets that we're creating right now it's going to cre hold some the recipes and it's also just going to be something that I can use every single year without even having to think about it so that that's that's a big goal for for for this so that's pretty much what I have in my head right now I'll obviously probably add to this half to the video when I'm thinking what else do I need to do oh you know what I'm just thinking about something right now I need an inventory inventory my baking Christmas Christmas supplies so funny and like uh the sprinkles and everything so I don't have to so I don't Reby that so this is just just like in these however minutes long don't freak out if you don't know or don't have everything on this PE piece of paper as soon as you sit down or when you leave have this paper in an accessible place so that we know as you progress through your day your week or your night in the middle of the night and you think oh I got to do this keep that keep this guy on standby and that way you can um constantly refer to this I do have actually a working um a working brain dump in my filea which I'm going to quick I'll grab right right here I'm going to the fra I'm going to change uh it's going to transition to a new frame I'm going to show you how I keep kind of notes throughout the year and then I can transfer them on U when I go actually sit down and plan for Christmas you know I have those notes already as you know cuz it'll pop up in random times of the year sometimes so let me go grab that and we'll be right back okay I'm back I got my um my file of access is an aan spec binder and I have Chris look how messy it is Christmas is in my project section and I have a you might have seen this in previous videos I have kind of O open projects or brain dumps that have a lot of notes that I might be doing some thinking of while I'm out of the house and one of that is Christmas so we're going to flip to th this to see what I have written down for Christmas and I have a couple things already here and I said Andy's mints everyone enjoyed it and and cookies Divinity for Dad bark for me and Christmas mix so I kind of had that on my brain up so am I going to add I'm going to add that real quick about Andy Andy's mints I made these uh I think they were chocolate Oreo um with the Andy's mints cookies was a hit last year so last year and then I don't really need cuz I have Divinity I wrote Divinity down here here and the bark here so I'm going to going to get rid of this note cuz I have that now going to go on the main brain dump list another thing here is some Christmas ideas that I already had kind of for my sister and Mom and then um oh see look to buy the K&J stocking and then the Christmas tree bag yay and I that's it that the info section is not relevant to this video but so that's good I'm going to leave these these uh papers in here so um if I think of anything on the go what I do is I can jot it down here and then I usually use like a little flag like a little flag marker I guess I don't have any active right now let me find my little flag markers so I use a little flag marker one of these guys let's see I'll just use one that's ready to go right now and what I do is I I pin it up there and so at a glance or at the top I can see that I have some right here and I know hey I got a note I need to do something with and I need to process it and put it somewhere so that's actually the next video what we're going to be doing is we're going to process all these notes and put them into categories and do something with them put them on our planning sheets or whatever so that is how I quickly do it when I'm on the go and I take this is my everyday day carry so I this is my schedule my and my agenda and then I also keep the the active notes in here or papers for my active projects so if I'm thinking about something while I'm at work I can jot it down in these areas and then when I get home I TR I process them and put them in the appropriate appropriate areas that I'm keeping that information in and this will be my Christmas book Christmas planner that I'm going to be that I'm be creating you're going to watch me create it from the ground up in this video series so this is the end of episode one um we are we created our source material we have our brain dump paper we got our timeline and we got pretty much what Christmas me looks like to you you can put whatever you want this is your this is your Christmas okay this is just what this is what mine looks like so you have a a reference so when you go maybe if you're interested in creating your stuff you have kind of like a guideline maybe you know look hey what did what did Angelica do what did she do for this so okay so this concludes episode one and episode two we're going to process all this and we're going to put them in category so I hope I hope you uh took some uh value out of this episode and we'll see you in the next one have a good day bye-bye [Music] n

Channel: Plannerbeat

Views: 245

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Id: S-nN-fRoT6k

Length: 37min 35sec (2255 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2024