How I Keep Christmas Organized (Stay on budget & Opt out of gift exchanges!)

well i think for most of us christmas is going to look a little bit different this year but i still think that it can be one of our best yet so today i want to share with you my really simple system for keeping christmas organized how to stick with your budget so you don't feel remorse come january and my favorite one-liner when it comes to opting out of gift exchanges or anything else you don't want to participate in this year [Music] all right i was just listening back to this video and realizing my esses are kind of wispy i had like a bunch of dental work done which i'm so grateful for it was a long time coming but i used to have a retainer and i don't have it anymore and so i'm having to learn how to re-speak and so um my asses are very lispy but if you have any ideas or tips or like resources i need to try and find like a youtube video or something to retrain myself i am all ears if you have any tips so thank you for bearing with me and you all are so kind and sweet i know you won't make a big deal out of it but i appreciate it well hi i'm dawn from the minimal mom we love sharing tips and tricks to help you simplify your house but i thought hey let's simplify christmas to and stay organized this christmas season one of my favorite uh tips from mel robbins is that she says whenever you're feeling a little bit anxious a little bit overwhelmed stop and do a brain dump and i think that's so important and so what i like to do every christmas season is set up a notebook that i use just for this season and i put everything in here and so i want to show you this today i want to talk just really quickly about how we can stay in your christmas budget any size budget we can make it work and also my favorite phrase when it comes to opting out of gift exchanges or anything else that you don't want to do and so let me show you my christmas notebook real quick i know there's lots of like fun printables out there if that's your thing go for it they always overwhelmed me a little bit there's too many pages to them and so i just made my own and so this was actually a notebook the girls had and it's just from the dollar store but i like this like smaller size and then this one is especially neat because it has like little pockets in the front that's handy but what i like to do is put a calendar that has the whole holiday season so it has thanksgiving through new year's day and i have it as a printable so if you want to print it out down below you can you can write it in draw it in use your planner pages um but i like to have that there so i can see an overview of the whole christmas season especially knowing like where all the weekends fall like how many weekends do we have between thanksgiving and uh christmas and i still put like events or appointments into my calendar on my phone but again this is just kind of a good bird's eye view of the whole holiday season and then in the back i like to tape in an envelope where i put all the receipts related to christmas gifts so any gift receipt other recipe in case i want to take something back or exchange it that goes in here and then from there i just start using different pages for different lists and so i make my gift list in here grocery list i like to right off the bat have a page dedicated to a grocery shopping list for each of the four weeks during christmas so i can plan out my groceries non-perishables i try to get towards the beginning of the season but anything perishable you know you can only get it so far in advance so i like to have a grocery shopping list for each of the four weeks where i can put things on and then also my gift list holiday baking list any other task list that we do i just like to keep it all in here and it just it works really well i take this with me whenever i go shopping or if i'm doing online shopping i have it next to me and it just works out really well for me and i also like to make a page for like meaningful activities so what special things are we gonna do during this holiday season to spend time together as a family to get together with people that i care about to do an advent devotion i have actually i ordered like six different devotionals because i wanted to be able to recommend my best one to you so i actually have a blog post down below with all the different devotionals i got and which ones i think are best for who like family individual so you can find that down below but it's it was kind of fun going through them and i'm really excited like i really want to for me this year sit in front of the christmas tree with a cup of coffee and read a devotional every day and so i don't know if that will actually happen but it just sounds really nice and i'm really gonna try so i'm sure to like schedule in and list out those things as well because there's nothing worse than getting to christmas day and feeling like december was a blur and we never remembered the true reason for the season now another thing that i really like to do in here is to keep track of my holiday budget and the budget part is the most stressful part about christmas right i mean that's what it always has been for us and so uh here's where i become unpopular sometimes is that raining things back in so that christmas isn't all about the gifts and that we could try really hard to stay within our budget so first thing what would be a practical budget that you could pay cash for this year and even if you're like you know what it might only be a hundred dollars okay let's talk about that so take a page write 100 at the top and list out everybody that you have to get gifts for this year and do it in order so most important first like kids you know parents whoever down to mailman teachers not that teachers are not important but i have heard from you that a handwritten note is very nice to you don't expect gifts because teachers are so generous i do like to give gifts when possible but we're talking about being realistic and the teachers wouldn't want you to go in debt for their gift right okay so put everybody on here so maybe you'll put two well teachers this year too oh god they have it so rough okay so you might put teachers more towards the top and that's totally fine okay but start writing out an amount next to each person and this is where it gets tough right you're like 100 i'm two people down and i've spent it right but here's what i want to remind you okay so we've been talking about maslow's hierarchy of needs and many of you said this really resonated with you when it comes to the reason behind simplifying your house because again if we look at the hierarchy once our base needs are met clothing shelter food we talked about how adding more stuff to that it doesn't add a deeper sense of happiness or feeling good about our circumstances it actually just makes it so we have more to manage it bogs us down in this main level and keeps us from working towards the top which is love happiness self-fulfillment self-esteem uh helping others and so let's look at this hierarchy in regards to gift giving when we look at that we see that gifts don't actually lead to happiness what leads to happiness is self-esteem which comes from contributing to the world not from contributing gifts or buying gifts but from contributing to the world ideas helping others being there for people being there for your family being a support system to other people listening to them validating them that's what causes esteem and us to feel like we're contributing to the world unfortunately gifts don't contribute again they keep us keep us bogged down in this level of stuff that we have to maintain now there's a couple things okay i'm gonna get in trouble i know i know okay here just hear me out one more minute okay there are gifts that contribute to this right if we're learning new skills or languages or art projects or things yes there are gifts that can contribute to this and yes there are people whose love language is gifts so we look at that layer of relationships and love there are people that feel loved through gifts but here's the key with that it is not the dollar amount on the gift it is that they feel that you thought about them that when they open the gift they think oh this person knows me oh they put thought into it they put some time into it some effort some of their own talents into it and so it does not have to be an expensive gift for you to fill that need of a gifts person and so i know my gift love language is very low and i often felt overlooked at christmas time because my love languages are quality time and words of affirmation and so you know it was like people are like here's the gifts here's the gifts and i'm saying like well i just want to spend time with you all and even a card where you wrote out how you feel about me or how you appreciate me would mean more to me than the gifts and so if you ever feel unfulfilled by the gifts at christmas it could just be because it's not what your love language is and that's what makes us all so complicated is that we all view gifts differently right and we were raised different ways and it's such a complex topic but i think this year is the year to start new traditions and to scale some of this back especially if you have been feeling slimed by the holiday season do i mean right the shopping the wrapping just the craziness of it the stress that we get through christmas and we feel slimed and we feel martyred and we feel yuck and so let's not do that to ourselves this year so here is my favorite line when it comes to raining christmas back in is to say we're gonna take a break this year from gift exchanges from extra holiday events i think we're going to have fewer holiday events because of the circumstances in the world anyway so that makes that easier but the office gift exchange the adult gift exchange we do we still participate in the kids gift exchange like with cousins that kind of stuff but adult stuff we have seriously reigned that back in and tom and i are both tom's a gift person too but we just both realized that it was getting too out of hand and it just didn't feel like it was accomplishing our goals for christmas which was to spend time together with family and to remember the true reason for this season and so i love this line of just saying we're gonna take a break this year it doesn't mean you're quitting it forever doesn't mean you might not participate again next year it doesn't mean that the people doing it are bad we don't have to say you suck because you're all into consumerism and gift giving no we just say you know what you guys go ahead anybody that wants to participate that's so great but we're just gonna take a break this year and so one of my i mean one of the memories that stands out from christmas the most to me was that i mean we grew up very modestly my parents worked their butts off but there still wasn't always a lot of extra and i'll just remember we must have been like a freshman or sophomore in high school and my mom had through the community action center found families that didn't have enough groceries to make a nice christmas dinner and so she had taken the list they gave gone to the grocery store and packed up this bag of groceries to drop off at someone's house so that they could have a nice christmas meal and so she had packed it all up and we were diane and i were in the car with her to go deliver it and i just it really stood out to me that she did not have a lot of extra and that she was taking from the little bit of extra she had to buy groceries for someone else it that just really stood out to me but then we drove up to the house and she was going she was supposed to just put it on the back step and and leave it there and she was walking it up to the house and i realized that it was one of our classmates house and so to see my mom spending of the extra that she barely had and then to know that one of our classmates didn't even have hardly enough money to have a nice christmas dinner it just really put things into perspective and and it also just felt so meaningful seeing my mom do that and so again as we look at this hierarchy i it's not the end i'll be all but i do feel like the excess of gifts keeps us bogged down in this base level and it keeps us from moving upward and being able to look around and see who the people are around us that need us this year that need an extra phone call that needs some extra surprises in the mail that just needs someone to show them that they're thinking about them and caring about them and so that has oh that has always stuck with me there's a jewish proverb that says when there is excess usually something is missing and so for our family i don't want us to hide behind the excess i don't want us to get distracted by that i want us to be able to focus on the true meaning of the season and what that means to our family and i know it's not easy i know it's not easy it's not easy we are against an uphill battle of marketing and expectations and all that i know that but i do think it's a fight worth picking this christmas season so again going back to our holiday budget then just to be able to say you know what okay how about my kids right maybe i just maybe we need to be honest with them and tell them that you know what christmas is gonna look a little bit different this year it's still important to us that you get a couple gifts that you're excited about but it's not going to be quite as extravagant as it has been in the past but here's what we're going to do instead we're going to spend a bunch of time together as a family we're going to play games we're going to read stories in front of the christmas tree we're going to make graham cracker gingerbread houses we're going to make some holiday cards and deliver them to the retirement center we're gonna bake together there's so many things that you could do that are gonna make your kids feel loved and appreciated and you might see that even though we assume it's all about the gifts for kids at christmas because that's what marketing is telling us you might find that your kids feel a similar emptiness after christmas morning after opening all the gifts that i used to feel because the gifts aren't filling that need kids have so much stuff right now and piling more stuff on them it's not usually what most of them need they need to feel loved and appreciated they need to be noticed and seen and to feel like we care about them and care enough to spend extra time with them and to affirm them and to say positive things about them and take an interest in the things that they're interested in okay so if you're still watching again i know this is sticky but i just think this is the year to do it and to have these conversations try and be the one to do it first try to send out the first text message or email um i do think that makes it easier but um yeah um i guess this could be where i ask you to subscribe if any of this resonates with you and if not i still think we can be friends so even if we're not on the same page with gift giving but all right well if you haven't done so already i hope you subscribe so we can spend more time together especially coming up in january we are going to hit decluttering hard we'll go all in so you'll want to be subscribed for that but i love you i hope you have a really good day oh and share any of your ideas for simplifying christmas and keeping it organized down below that is always so helpful all right i love you and i will visit with you again soon

Channel: The Minimal Mom

Views: 104,451

Keywords: minimalism, family minimalism, minimalist, the minimal mom, the minimalist mom, minimalist home

Id: 0s464d4VOq8

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2020