Mondays Question of the day

Now some of you will have already seen I've started to plan my Christmas (I know its very early)

So how far in advance do you plan things, holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays etc?

:shocker: You are worse than my SIL who lives in Denver!! :lol3: She usually starts calling in July to get Christmas gathering's arranged!!!! I don't even start thinking about Christmas till well after summer. What I have been doing just the last few years is when I am out shopping and see a special gift, I will pick it up to use as a Christmas gift for someone! I keep the little gifts stored away till December. If I need to ship a gift then I do that right after Thanksgiving. Since this will be our first Christmas in our new home then I will probably start decorating shortly after Halloween this year.

I've completely changed from not wanting to hear about Christmas until December, to being excited about it all year long!  Just like a kid, lol. We used to put the tree up around the 15th but last year I talked everyone into decorating the first week of December. 
 

We plan gifts for holidays well in advance since shopping on the island is very sad, we have to order most gifts online. Cakes and food get planned a week or few days in advance, earlier if we are having people over.

I like to have most of my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving. :lol3:

Maybe 1 month ahead.

I periodically look through toy sections for clearance items for my kids.  I also shop the clearance racks for the next year's clothing for them.  I'm not sure if this will work so well when they are older!

For the holidays I plan meals a month or so out.  I plan the shopping for Christmas in October but might pick up things here and there.  For other birthdays it's about a month ahead of time.  

MoochNNoodles said:

I periodically look through toy sections for clearance items for my kids.  I also shop the clearance racks for the next year's clothing for them.  I'm not sure if this will work so well when they are older!

For the holidays I plan meals a month or so out.  I plan the shopping for Christmas in October but might pick up things here and there.  For other birthdays it's about a month ahead of time.  

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what to do if you buy a clothing item that won't fit them then ?  You know you can only keep the receipt for so long.

I do not do partys or decorating but the things I do plan are usually a few days in advance.  Our wedding we found a person to marry us a month or so before and everything else was done week before.  I did a birthday party for sister and that was a call to ask people to come over and doing actual prep day before and then hanging stuff day of.
 

AbbysMom said:

I like to have most of my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving.

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I managed to do that once. Just once. And since then, it's been a madhouse. Part of the problem is that our kids don't give us the shopping list for the grandchildren until Thanksgiving Day....so that we can do the Black Friday thing. We'd love to have it earlier so that we can get it done, but it never works out that way.

I do like to plan ahead....as much as I can. For dinners, I will plan my menu out at least one week in advance (for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I start planning at the beginning of the month. (I usually call into the butcher shop the Monday after Thanksgiving to order our crown roast for Christmas dinner.) And then I figure out my shopping list, so I can buy throughout the month for the dinner. It works better that way for me. I need lists and I need to know what I'm doing. Anal? Yes.

When I did that birthday party for dear Richard for his 60th birthday a couple years ago, I started planning that thing back at the beginning of the year....and the party was at the end of May. But I had to; there were around 60 people there and I wanted to make all the food myself. We built a tiki bar (which is still up, BTW). Bought a huge tent (it was actually cheaper to buy one than it was to rent). Lots of tropical decorations.

I can't just throw something together at the last minute. I can if it's just a few people or if it's just family and close friends. But for something big, I can't do it. But I enjoy the planning, too, so it works out.