ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Christmas Planner A Step By Step Guide To Making Your Festive Season Run Smoothly

Updated on April 1, 2018

Making Lists

Make your to-do lists as early as possible. Make sure you start with the most important tasks first and then work your way down to the no fuss chores. This should give you a good view of the shape and size of your festivities. And it will definitely help with the planning. By writing down these lists you will be able to see exactly who is coming, what they eat and don't like, and be able to prepare accordingly.

You never know, there may be a Vegetarian lurking in there somewhere. It's amazing how many people start making their Christmas plans the wrong way round. There is no good buying in all the food and decorations before you make up your mind what you want to do.

Share The Load

Delegate all the different tasks to the appropriate people. For example, ask the children to wrap the presents and gifts, and your husband or partner to do the heavier work such as bringing in the larger table, or climbing up to hang up the decorations. This will leave you to do the lists and get the cooking ingredients sorted out.

Shopping Online

Don't panic if you haven't got time to buy the gifts. Buy online, there are many places that will deliver very quickly, even the next day, such as Amazon. This is a great way to buy all those little things that you will forget. We all do it, spend hours at the shops and stores then when we get home we forget the most important thing of the lot. That's why having a Christmas Planner is such a good idea. This way you will save any embarrassments when your guests arrive.

Source
Christmas Lights
Christmas Lights | Source

Tree Time Fairy Lights And Insurance

Make sure that your Fairy lights for your Christmas tree work before you set them up. I know it sounds obvious, but you wouldn't believe how many people go to all the trouble of putting them on the tree only to find that when they switch them on they don't actually work.

If they are good to go, put the lights on the tree before the rest of the decorations. This way you can hang your sparkly globes nearest to the lights, and can see which color comes out best when only the Christmas lights are on. It makes so much difference.

Insure Your Gifts For Peace Of Mind

Accidents can always happen when you are rushing around. Not only can you attract burglars at this time of year, you can also suffer damage loss to your food and breakages in the house. A good house insurance will cover all of the above.



Charge Your Batteries

Don't forget to charge up your batteries in all your camera's, camcorders and phones. If you are buying gifts that need loads of batteries, make sure that you stock up with the right ones. There's nothing worse than buying a gift for a child who then wails that he or she needs batteries! How many times have we all done that? So make sure everything is charged and ready to go. If you don't want to put the batteries in the toys just in case they run out, wrap them and place them on the top of the gifts.

Munchies

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, make sure that you have loads of lovely munchies in your cupboard. Food such as little Pizza, sausage rolls, nuts and crisps/chips will always come in handy just in case you have loads of people descend on you to wish you a Merry Christmas. And don't forget to add a bottle of Wine to that list. Keep a good red or white wine separate from your holiday drinks so that you can quickly get them out of the cupboard at short notice.

Perfect Christmas Dinner
Perfect Christmas Dinner | Source

Get Ready To Cook

When its time to start cooking, work your way backwards from the time that you want to eat. This way you can calculate when everything needs to be put in the oven. A good idea is to set the timer to go off whenever you need to put another dish in the oven. Timing is essential, even a few minutes can make the difference between a well cooked Turkey and salmonella! Also you don't want soggy Brussels sprouts or potatoes that have turned to mush. Trust me, I know that one very well!

Say Thank You

One of the most important and forgotten must things to do, is to make sure that your write down the name of the person who has given your children gifts. This way you will remember exactly who to send a thank you letter to, after the event. Not many people do this these days, but I think it's a vital and very polite thing to do. It makes the present giver feel just that little bit special.

Hopefully after making your Christmas Planner, everything will go great on Christmas Day, then after all the hard work and cooking, you can sit back, relax and have a well earned glass of Wine.

One last thing, just remember that after everyone has gone home, make sure that its not just you that does all the cleaning up. Get everybody working, and it will be done in next to no time.

Happy Christmas!

Do You Get In A Muddle At Christmas? Or Are You Organised?

See results
working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)