Thinking Ahead Thursday: Christmas in July

Over the Independence Day holiday weekend, Lifetime Movie Network did a “Jolly July” movie marathon! Christmas in July? Yes! There’s no better time than the present to start planning for your Christmas holidays! Please join us for the next four weeks as we look at ways we can start “thinking ahead” and planning for the Christmas holidays!

Today, I want to talk about two simple concepts of planning ahead: the gift list and the “crafts calendar.” For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on both of these. You can find the template for the “gift list” on Microsoft’s free template site. I just did a general search for gifts. There are more templates, but the one I’ve linked is my favorite, for use in Word 97 or later versions.

Now, you can make your “list and check it twice”. You can save the file individually for each group (immediate family, extended family, neighbors, church, teachers, etc.), or you can copy and paste the table into new pages in the same document (I actually did this and made a gift list for each month of the year, with several pages for December…as the month goes by, I just delete the table). What’s really great about this list is that it contains a column for sizes, the location of the gift (i.e. what catalog, name of store), and you can check it off when you have the gift for that particular person.

I’ve already been working on my gift list. I have a list of the people I normally buy gifts for, and I’m also helping my mom with her gift list. For example, I’m going to do a Princess tree for my foster sister for Christmas. I found some of the Disney Princess ornaments on sale after Christmas last year, and I’m making some others. I’m going to find her a small pink or white Christmas tree (search yard sales and craigslist). I’d bought clear lights for another craft project, but didn’t use them, so I already have the lights too! Now, I just need to finish her ornaments and make a tree skirt.

So what is a “crafts calendar”? Well, as part of my gift list, I sat down and went through all my cross-stitch pattern books, sewing patterns, and favorite online craft sites (I love Tip Nut’s Scrap Happy—50 Fabric Scraps and Remnant Ideas Plus free Patterns). I decided which friends and loved ones I wanted to make gifts for, and I used the gift list template to record my ideas. I changed the “location” column to date range. I made myself some “due dates.” For gifts that will need to be mailed, they should be finished and ready to go by December 10. Gifts that I will gift locally or to family members should be ready by December 15. I do have a couple of projects that are coming up before then, so I need to get started now!

The “Gift List” and “Crafts Calendar” use the same template, but they both are two great ideas that can help you get started preparing for Christmas now. Please join me next week on “Thinking Ahead Thursday” as we continue our “Christmas in July” series and talk about the household chores we can start in October and November to prepare ourselves for Christmas! Put those thinking caps on now!

What do you do to prepare for Christmas ahead of time? What kind of ideas do you have that we could do now so that we can enjoy more of the holiday season with our family and friends? Please leave a link or a comment and share your ideas!