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:

1. There was one card that I didn’t send out, that of my friend in New Zealand. Once I realized that it didn’t have a chance of arriving in NZ before Christmas, or even in the first week after Christmas, I decided not to send it. Needless to say I will consult my list from the post office of timelines for getting parcels and cards around the world on time and make sure that all cards and gifts get out on time!
2. Gift giving is very stressful for me, because I feel pressure to get people the best possible gift, the gift that will make them oooh and aaah in excitement and surprise. The longer you know your friends, the harder it becomes to find gifts for them. I think I was generally successful with the gifts that I got for people: my family members certainly got what they had asked for and my friends seemed to be happy with what they received. In 2008 I will be more attentive to my friends’ needs and interests all through the year, in the hopes of reducing the stress of gift hunting.
3. I didn’t do as much baking as I hoped to do this year. Besides the fact that it’s a lot of fun to have yummy treats in the house, I had hoped to give out baked goods as gifts to coworkers and as an addition to the gifts of friends. Next year, I will embrace the idea of making dough ahead of time and freezing it, so all I have to do is thaw, roll/cut and bake.

   Other than the gingerbread house party that my sister and I managed to organize early in December, I didn’t host any other events. I would like to have a dinner party next year.

4. Well, a lot of my time ended up being spent on making Christmas cards. This is not something that I regret but next year I will pace myself better so that I’m not spending time that could be spent baking on card making. In fact I’m tempted to make up all next year’s cards now, before the end of this year, while my sewing machine is out and ready to work.
5. Next year, I will start earlier. It truly is never too early to start preparing for Christmas, and I will take that to heart. Starting with my plans to make next year’s cards this year, I will keep thoughts of Christmas on the backburner year round, from stocking up on stocking stuffers earlier in the year, to buying gifts when I think of them/see them on sale, to mailing out cards and parcels earlier to avoid the postage charges. Doing things sooner rather than later is definitely the theme for 2008.

Now it’s your turn: Looking back on Christmas 2007, what changes do you have in store for next year?