Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve posted about some of the things we are doing to help prepare our homes for the holidays and hopefully prevent a little of the CHAOS. We will continue to review those things and work on a few more things this week. Our list is as follows:

1. As we do our weekly ‘Home Blessings’ we will continue to look for things that don’t belong and get them put away where they belong or get rid of things we don’t really need.
2. I will definitely be paying more attention to the items I still need to purchase for Thanksgiving Dinner as well as making sure I have plenty of napkins and such … maybe even some To-Go containers for leftovers.
3. I will have the kids go through some of their toys (we have actually been decluttering quite a bit so this shouldn’t be too hard.) to get rid of things they no longer play with so they can make room for new items that will sure to be coming. This is better to do BEFORE CHRISTMAS rather than AFTER!
4. I try to get rid of any catalogs that come in as they come in so that I am not tempted to overspend on items that we don’t really need. It seems that we are flooded with catalogs and credit offers at this time of year but no thanks!
5. I will review the menu lists in my Holiday Planner so I can try to add as many of the pantry goods to my weekly grocery list as well as double checking to make sure that we have plenty of the everyday essentials like toilet paper and paper towels because we don’t want to run out of those things when we have guests. I will add these to my Sam’s Club order to get them knocked off the list so I have a few fewer things to worry about.
6. I will review any mail-order purchases to check off what has come in and also check off any gifts I have been able to buy/make so that I can cross them off the lists. While sitting at my desk I will also take a quick look over my regular bills to make sure that I haven’t forgotten anything during the process of ordering things.
7. I will also look up some information about Thanksgiving traditions and history to add to our homeschool lessons as well as some fun Thanksgiving activities, if I haven’t already found some. I did go through some of my older files and compiled a list of things we will be doing HERE.

Life is crazy enough without adding holiday stress to it. The simpler we can keep things, the better in most cases and we are always trying to find creative solutions to things we need to get done. By spending just a few minutes a day working on these tasks it helps to get us prepared without causing a lot of unnecessary stress.

For more great ideas you can check out the FlyLady website HERE.