A Stress Free December???

This December I'm not sure why had been very relaxing and non stressful. Usually I am up to my eyeballs in things I have to get done. Not this year. I didn't have a worry in the world. The kids wanted to put up the Christmas decorations and tree the day after Thanksgiving. I like to start the first week in December but since the kids were willing to help we went for it. Jon started putting up the tree and most of the kids joined in and in no time the tree was up and with lights and all. We did save the decorations for Family Home Evening though. They also wanted to help put the decorations up around the house. My first thought was I know I am going to drag all these boxes up and they will help with 2 things and then leave the rest for me. I was wrong and they helped the whole time and didn't take long at all to put things up. Christa and I did our traditional goodie plates for our neighbors and visiting/home teaching families . We made assembled and delivered all of them the 2nd week of December. It was so nice having that done early in the month. I also decided to give $$ to all the kids room parents so they could buy gift cards for the teachers so they could go out and buy something they really want. This was the best thing I could have done since last year I made things and hated every minute of it mainly because it took way longer than I thought it would. I did make brownie bites and PB Hershey kiss bites for the bus drivers which wasn't very time consuming. I also went to Kennedy, Talmage, and Paytons holiday parties at school. By the time I found out when each of the kids parties were the list of things the room moms wanted people to bring in was all full so I volunteered to help out at the party. Which was nice for me not to have to make another trip to the store. So in Talmages class I was in charge of the decorating sugar cookie station.

Talmage class party

I was a little late to Kennedy's class since hers started 15 before Talmage's was over. But the kids were kind of on their own and would go to one station and do that craft and then when they were done head to another. So I helped her and basically followed her around.

Kennedy class party

Jon and Hayden went to Connor's school. They were having a lunch for all the special needs classes and their families. Payton's party was the next day so Hayden and I went to that. And one of the stations was cookies in a jar. That was very time consuming and messy. It was nice to just show up and help out wear they need me. I also did all of my Christmas shopping here and there and got 98% of the presents bought before the kids last day of school and they were all wrapped as well. Jon and I went out one last time the Monday before Christmas and then I wrapped them so the next few days I could have fun with my family and sit and do things with them without thinking of a million things I should be doing because I am so far behind. I also made 2 Christmas gifts this year. Not like I make a lot of my gifts mainly make things for the teachers and bus drivers. They turned out way awesome. I will have pictures of those later. I also saved a lot of time and headache by not putting together a Christmas letter this year. Even though I love getting Christmas letters because for some that is the only update I get on them for the whole year. I decided to do a picture card and tell everyone to go to my blog and check what we have been up to this year. Not much from last year. I think that is why I didn't want to do it because nothing has changed since last year. The kids still like the same things as last year, Jon and I are still doing the same thing as far a work, church, and home. I guess I could have just reprinted last years letter on new paper and changed the kids age and called it good. Another thing that we didn't have this year was the business Christmas party. Since money has been a bit tight this year for the business instead of a nice dinner and expensive auction Jon and his partner Mike took his employees to Dave and Buster's for lunch and game playing. Dave and Buster's is Chuck E. Cheese for adults. They all had a great time and the employees were very surprised since they weren't expecting anything this year. Even though as I type this it seams like I had a lot going on it was all spread out over a month. I am going to remember this and try and have a stress free December every year and not have to feel like I have to make everything and do lots of things.