Life Tips Daily

The gifts have been given and opened and hopefully the stress of Christmas is behind you. Now that you have a moment to breathe and reflect on your Christmas experience, take the time to ask yourself the following questions. I will do the same and hopefully you can look back on the answers next year and avoid any pitfalls or unpleasant experiences of this Christmas, and make some tweaks to improve things next year.

1. Did you mail out all the cards/gifts you wanted to? If not, how could the process be improved?
2. Did you get people the gifts you wanted to get them/gifts they had requested? If not, how could this process be improved for next year?
3. What things did you forget to do/omit due to constraints on your time or energy or pocketbook or all three?
4. What did you spend too much energy, time, or money on that didn’t end up being worth it?
5. What changes would you make for next year?

My answers are below:
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Christmas Eve is one short week away. How are you coming along with your shopping and other preparations?

My shopping is somewhere between one half and two thirds completed for family members, and somewhere near 0% completed for friends; but I’m not at all stressed about it this year for some reason.

For those of you who have purchased all your gifts and perhaps even wrapped them all, where are you hiding them so that the curious don’t have a chance to feel or shake gifts in the hopes of guessing its contents? Do you keep your presents lying in plain sight, but leave the gift labels off them to confuse recipients?

Here are some good hiding places for gifts:

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I’ve been mailing off Christmas gifts these past couple of weeks, and sort of following these tips, and while I am sure they will get to their recipients on time, I can’t deny how irritated I’ve become at having to pay over six dollars to send a measly fifty or one hundred gram package! This is because I’m sending it by air in most cases; sending by ground generally costs one third less, but takes three times as long and let’s face it: I don’t have three weeks.

The post office I tend to go to has an employee who is really good at inspiring panic in the hearts of holiday gift mailers. As I waited in line, he told each customer that there were only seven mailing days until Christmas, then asked if they’d like to send their package by an express service. If the person said yes, he stopped his spiel, but if they said no, he’d begin what sounded almost like a guilt trip, about how you wouldn’t want the recipient to get their gift after Christmas, would you? And with all this bad weather we’ve been having, you wouldn’t want to risk the possible delay, would you? If you are a guilty “last two weeks” shopper and mailer, his comments can make you throw your cash at his face, as long as he guarantees your friend in Maine will get her gift by the 24th of December!

So the lesson here is start early, and always start earlier than you think you need to; you won’t regret it. For next year, my goal will be to mail off Christmas packages going out of the country during the last week of November, and send by ground because it’s cheaper. I figure if the recipient gets it early, they can enjoy the suspense of wondering what they received, and my gift to them may even have the unique honour of being the first gift to be placed under the Christmas tree.

That’s not such a bad thing, is it?

Is anybody else suffering from the “Christmas is coming far faster that I want it to arrive” blues? Well instead of suffering, here are some ways to enjoying the fast approaching day. These tips are guaranteed to halt most, if not all cursing, and put you back in a cheery mood.

Take a day off
If you work somewhere where you can take a day, a half day or a couple of hours off, do it! If you’re worried that your shopping list will never shorten, spend this extra time shopping, if you’ve been shopping like a fiend and need a little extra shut-eye, sleep in, then hang out in your pyjamas all day (afternoon…rest of the day). The key is to do what will make you feel better at the end of the day. I’ve followed this and taken every other Friday off from my full time job so far in December and it’s been great shopping during less busy times.

Get a cold nose
If you’re lucky to live somewhere where the snowfall has been excessive so far, get out there and enjoy the snow! Snow is a hassle if you’re the one responsible for shoveling it, but nothing says winter like snowy days and if you live somewhere where it snows, you know how much better it is when you have a white Christmas. Go out and enjoy yourself in the snow: build a snowman to guard the house, make some snowballs or even do some snow painting. If your inner child is calling especially loudly, make a snow angel. When your nose starts running and your cheeks are red and you’ve lost sensation in your fingers and toes, it’s time to come in and warm up with hot chocolate or coffee.

Bake Therapy
When the smells of something delicious is coursing through your house, I dare you to be sad…unless you use so many bowls and utensils that the cleanup is staggering! If thoughts of baking make you think “more work I haven’t done!”, then bypass the mixing of ingredients and buy your dough ready made. Everyone knows the fun part is decorating the cookies anyway, followed closely by eating them.

It’s very easy during this season of giving to keep on giving to everyone but yourself. Give yourself permission now, not after the season is over, to do something that’s just for you and has you singing along with the Christmas carols in the mall the next time you have to venture there.

(For part I, please read here)

If you spend the Christmas season worrying instead of enjoying, here are some worries and ways to combat them.

Worry: You can only afford to spend about half of what you normally spend on your gift recipients, or only a few dollars, and you’re afraid they’ll be disappointed.

Antidote: Let people who might be expecting a gift of a certain price range from you know that you cannot afford to spend a lot this year. If it would lighten the load of stress that this situation can bring, you can ask if people would mind not exchanging gifts this year. Alternatively, why not suggest a gift exchange of hand made (by them) things (if you need ideas for Christmas gifts that can be made, visit the Creative Mom Cafe)? A suggestion that will either be loved or hated is to suggest re-gifting something that you received previously, but think someone else would enjoy far more.

Worry: It’s one week before Christmas and you haven’t mailed out Christmas cards yet

Antidote: I have personal experience with this one and there are a number of ways that you can takcle this. You can decide to give yourself a break this year and not mail cards at all. You can mail them anyway, with the premise of “better late than never”. Some creative alternatives are:

• mail them a Happy New Year card instead
• call them on Christmas day or a few days before to deliver a personal greeting
• send them a centrepiece flower arrangement for Christmas dinner (make sure to get a guarantee that the flowers will arrive before Christmas!)
• send an e-card expressing your wishes for a merry Christmas

Yesterday’s tips will help you when you’re mailing your cards or packages, but do you need some help organizing Operation Christmas Card Write-up? I’m happy to help! Here is how to make the most of this repetitive but hopefully rewarding task.

Start early
If you give yourself plenty of time to write your cards, you will avoid feeling stressed and feeling put on the spot to come up with something suitable for each card. Hopefully by having a lot of time, ideas will be able to flow, and you will be in a good mood which will inspire positive thoughts and plenty of goodwill as you write the cards.

Get it together
As with any task, nothing is more irritating than having to get up every three minutes to grab yet another needed tool. To that end, make sure you have the following before sitting down to write your cards:

• plenty of cards and envelopes (including extras for mistakes!)
• nice pens that write well (you may want to use different and festive coloured pens too)
• scrap paper for testing pens, or for writing out practice messages
• water to seal the envelopes if you don’t like licking envelopes
• tape if you like to use that to seal envelopes
• correction fluid if needed
• a cleared off area with good lighting and comfortable seating.

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Christmas will be here in no time and if you have to mail anything out of your city or country, you may want to pay attention to some of the following.

Consult the post office and postal service
My local post office produces a flyer every year that gives me the deadlines for mailing card and shipping gifts to other countries and I find it handy. I take all the dates on that flyer that apply to me and put them on my calendar and then I give myself reminders so that the due date doesn’t hit without me having planned what to buy as a gift.

If you’re a last minute sort of person, and you don’t mind spending (a lot) extra, there are services in place that guarantee (in many but not all cases) that your package will be received before Christmas. Keep in mind that not all services can guarantee this, especially if they have less than one week’s notice (and you may have to pay dearly for the convenience!). In any case be sure to ask before assuming.

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If saving money for Christmas is something that you find yourself starting at the last minute, here are some tips to make the money you have go further, or tips to save up a little bit more before you get around to shopping.

Cut out the treats
If you’ve been indulging a little too regularly in that after lunch coffee from that expensive coffee shop, cut the habit in half or a quarter. Take the money you would have spent and put it in your Christmas money jar. The best part is you’ll appreciate the treat of coffee far more since you’re not getting it every day. You might not save up a bundle but I guarantee you’ll have just the right amount for stocking stuffers, or one medium sized gift.

Work more
Nobody likes to do this but if you work somewhere where you can take on a few extra hours, start now rather than a month before Christmas. If you work just five extra hours a week at a retail job for 4-6 weeks (and you live in North America), you should be able to earn $100-$200, if not more. If you work in an industry that allows you to receive tips, the holiday season might make people more generous than usual.

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