Planning ahead

Christmas is nearly here! Whatever way you look at it it’s only a month and a half or 8 weeks or 51 days away today (Thursday). And whether you love or hate the season there is a way to survive unscathed.  I used to have this love hate relationship with Christmas (well the commercial aspect) and after some re thinking it’s now a love -love relationship that Christmas and I have (well except for glitter – I hate glitter!)

I realised very quickly that if I applied my “business head” to Christmas then we could exist together much more happily.  Now I’d just like to clarify that everything in this piece relates to the commercial aspect of Christmas and in no way should deflect from the real meaning of the season , according to your belief, and now we have that cleared up I’ll continue.

In my normal day to day life I run my business that helps other businesses and individuals to streamline their lives and pick up the slack – doing admin, sorting out suppliers, organising events etc.  But when it came to Christmas a couple of years ago and I found myself in a situation where I had to embrace the commercial aspect of the season – I froze and went into full blown panic!

This Christmas was not a success! We had no sprouts, bread sauce or kilted sausages with our dinner – all crimes worthy of the firing squad in my family!  I was determined that the following year would be better.  Having relayed this tale of woe to a colleague post Christmas she was shocked! She said but this is what you do for a living! Just do it at home!

The light had switched on and I decided to apply my business strengths to Christmas and the following year we had a roaring successful Christmas dinner and even had some kilted sausages left (unheard of with my lot!!) So anyway enough of my babble I’m going to share with you how you can make Christmas more enjoyable, stress free and even relaxing for you!

Step one

 Planning is the key! Get yourself a note book or planning app or whatever you prefer but this has got to have plenty room in it to write.

Step Two

Start today! It’s never too soon to start planning an event.  Event planners will have been planning for Christmas for more than a year so let us normal folks start today 8 weeks is a good time to start.

Step Three

 Decide do you want low key intimate family affair or are you going all out bells and tinsel everywhere all singing and dancing.  This may sound daft but it will make a difference.

Step Four

 Go grab a cuppa and sit down with your notebook and pen.

Step Five

Lists! Lists for everything! You will need all of these believe me. Cards list, gifts list, food, guest list, responsibilities to name but a few.

Step Six

Grab another cuppa and relax!

Now that’s all covered lets speak about planning again.  What do you want from the season? Do you want to be the one who makes all their own Christmas food by hand from scratch or are you quite happy to take the short cuts and buy things in? There is no right or wrong to this. The choice is entirely yours.  Having now done both I’m firmly of the opinion that buying an M&S uniced cake and icing and decorating it myself with shop bought icing is definitely the way forward!!

Brainstorm all the things you want to do in the back of your note book and cost and time them out.  A homemade Christmas cake is quite expensive for ingredients and should really be made by now (according to the Christmas Queen we all know as Delia) but the decision is yours.  Whatever you decide to do stick to it!

Now you have all your ideas time to implement them.  But first write that Christmas Card List – Lick your green frog, get the horrible bit done and then the fun can begin.

Go out collect all the Christmas Gift Guides, food guides etc that you can find this will make the decision process easier.  Yes I hear you saying but the internet is there.  And yes for some people that is great – personally I find the brochures and catalogues easier to use but whatever suits you!

Now you’ve done all your market research and ooh’d and ahh’d over the delicious turkey dinner from one or the Berry Scrumptious fabulous new range of truffles (which are to die for!) and taken your notes in your notebook, you can set your budget and begin. 

Budget is irrelevant whether you want to do everything for £50 or £5000 the principal is the same.  Budget and allocate and never ever over spend.  Now we have the whole budget let’s allocate it. Decide on a per head amount for gifts and dinner.  Write out your Gift list names and allocate their budget.  You can then as you go along allocate the gifts to be bought.  Soon you will have a full gift list.  But remember and note everything down as soon as you decide it makes for less “oh what was that again” moments.

Same principal applies to the food shopping.  Decide what you want to buy for and the budget for each part.  Are you doing a Christmas Eve function, full Christmas Dinner and Boxing Day too? What about all the accompaniments? Mince pies, nuts, sweets, nibbles etc  Brain storm everything before deciding and writing the list by event of what each course will consist of then transferring it to a shopping list. Don’t forget the refreshments too!

Your guest list is a strange one as you generally know who will be coming and at what point but if you plan for every eventuality you can also update your other lists accordingly.  This year you will be organised when Aunt Betty turns up on Boxing Day with a gift in hand and you can return one and wipe the smug smile off her face!  Speaking of gifts make sure you have a back up supply ready wrapped for any unexpected gifts/visitors etc.  I like to make these food gifts as if not used we can use later!

So you now have a card, gift and food list.  All you need to do is make your shopping lists and away you go.  Personally I will make these into lists by shop and pick a Monday early December and go do the cards and gifts and non perishable food then leave the fresh food 'til 23^rd December.

Now the allocation of responsibilities, you can’t do everything yourself so don’t even try to! It’s a family event so get the family involved. Whether its peeling the spuds or keeping the sweetie bowl topped up or drinks flowing - everyone can get involved.  It takes the strain off you and allows you to enjoy Christmas too. Remember and give someone else the job of battery supplies especially if you have kids!  Make this list very clear and stick it on the fridge so no one can dispute their responsibilities!

I’ve published a time scale for countdown to Christmas that you may want to take a look at here www.karinmcgivern.co.uk/christmas.html

But hopefully now you feel a little more confident about tackling Christmas head on and being able to enjoy it along with everyone else and not feel too stressed out.