Time to........

......get ready for Christmas. I know it's not even Halloween yet! (tomorrow, YAY!!) but I have started to think about Christmas. When my Mom was up for Blaise's Baptism we started talking about Christmas, and how we wanted to bring more meaning to it.

I have noticed that my kids, like most, are just "I want that!" "I want this!" and I know I am partly to blame because my kids are pretty spoiled, but I want that to change. That doesn't mean that they won't get what's on their list (when I explained our new Christmas idea Blaise freaked out thinking he wasn't going to get his precious Xbox 360 games) it just means that we are going to go about it different.

I want this year to be more meaningful than just shopping for everything on people's list. I don't want to be shopping until the last minute, and not really enjoy the season either. In fact, I don't even want lists this year, except from the kids - what's a Christmas without a list to Santa, but rather I would like this year to be more thoughtful than just going to Target and crossing another name off my list.

That being said, I want to get an earlier start this year. That is why I made my Christmas Planner. I want to CELEBRATE Christmas and everything it is. So my planner has different sections, one for Thanksgiving and all the preparations for that. I love Thanksgiving, and I have a special activity planned for the month of gratitude that I will share on another post. I also have a section on getting my home decked out and ready for Christmas, a Christmas card section, a Traditions section, a gift idea section, a Remember section - this will be for ideas on how to celebrate Christmas by serving others, by remembering Christ, the TRUE reason for the season. I have a Calendar in here, and places for recipes, craft ideas, and activities.

My goal by doing this is to keep things organized and to get things done so that I don't feel rushed and unable to enjoy the season. I am really excited about my new focus for this year. I am excited to see my kids embrace it too.

If any of you have any ideas or traditions that you do, and would like to share them with me I would LOVE that.

23 days til Thanksgiving.
24 days til "the day after Thanksgiving official Holiday start!"
56 days til Christmas.