Closing thoughts on 31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas

Another October has come and gone and another 31 days series is finished!  I hope you enjoyed, were challenged, and got some great ideas, and during the 31 days to take the Stress out of Christmas.  I know I got lots of great ideas while writing it and also was really challenged with specific ways I plan ahead and do things ahead this year so December can be a whole lot less stressful.  I printed my November and December calendar this weekend and am already mapping things out on it, our Christmas bucket list is printed and on the fridge and I am SOO excited to do all of those memory making activities, and I hope to get done all of my regular Christmas photos cards written out this week and take our Christmas photo. 

Have you accomplished anything we talked about during our series?

I thought I would link up pictures to each post since in my intro post they are just links.  You can click on each image below to be taken to the post.

     

        

     

     

     

         

   

    

    

I had hoped to talk about decorations but realized that was more I could tackle in this series.  But stay tuned because I will be showing you lots of my own decorations in just a few weeks.  And you can also browse past Christmas décor posts here.

Overall I hope the one thing you gained from this series was to keep the meaning in Christmas and make memories, not cross off to-do lists.  I loved what Christa said in the Keeping Christmas simple post – “Prioritize and then Pick – Whenever you choose one thing, you’re always saying ‘no’ to something else..”   Think about what you want to remember about this Christmas or what you want your kids to remember or what they will remember.  Do you want them to remember huge stacks of presents under the tree (which they won’t), or spending a fun family night waking them up after they went to bed to get hot chocolate and go look at Christmas lights in their pj’s?   Will you or your neighbor remember that you made, decorated, and delivered elaborately decorated Christmas sugar cookies or could you buy some Christmas m&m’s or kisses, fill a mason jar, attach a cute poem, and it be just as good?  Stop and consider now what the most important things to you are about this Christmas.  I hope to make this year one of the most meaningful and memory filled Christmas seasons with my husband and I know that as the wife/homemaker of my home a lot of that depends on ME!

Now some thoughts on blogging for 31 days straight…  I am always excited about it at the beginning, and ready to kick myself for doing it about 10 days in, then I finally finish and I am glad I completed the task.   I have a love/hate/love relationship with October and 31 days series!    I missed a few days this past on the last few weekend,s but I am ok with giving myself a bit of grace – it just wasn’t worth trying to write 3 posts on Mondays to catch up.  I have already decided that if I blog another 31 day series I will take off on the weekends so it will be more like a 22 days series spread over 31 days.   There are many weekends I never even turn on the computer so it meant a lot of extra work during the week.    And yes, even though I am glad to have it finished and may have said mid-series that I was never doing this again… I already have an idea for a topic for next year!  So we shall see!   I also have decided that I would like to do some shorter series throughout the year so look for those beginning after the new year.

I also want to thank you for reading.  There would be no point in me blogging for 31 days if no one was reading – so YOU are what inspires me to write, you are the reason I share and I am thankful for my readers!

I can’t wait to get back to sharing decorating posts with you!  So hold on to your hat it gets a bit crazy around here from now till Christmas!  Fall decorating posts are coming, along with some more painted furniture, progress on the master bedroom, some giveaways are in the works, plus I have been working on some other DIY projects/crafts, and then Christmas!

Do you enjoy 31 days series?   Did you enjoy or benefit from this series?  I would love to know your feedback.