Oh I know! But darlings, the minute September comes a calling, this HouseKeepers mind turns to Christmas. So I thought I’d get carried away and scare you silly in August!
I don’t know about you, but until I got organised (ish!!), Christmas took me my surprise, year after year. Christmas Eve was never the blissful day I visualised, but the day I finally gave up the ghost and accepted that it was too late to do anything more…
But not this year. Housekeepers, this years , Christmas is going to be different for all of us. It isn’t going to be the great big Mommy headache it alway is, it is going to be the stuff a wonderful life is made of. With a pretty little Brocante Fairy on top.
But what can we do now, I hear you ask? Now when the kids haven’t even gone back to school? When the house is awaiting the seasonal scrub and our scrumptious shoulders are still gloriously brown?
We can plan, dear Housekeepers, we can plan!!
1. Get yourself a notepad: something ludicrously pretty and small enough to fit into your handbag, but big enough to hold a whole host of plans, ideas, list and inspirations. (Look Mimi- a stationery opportunity especially for you!!!)
2. Get the calender and your diary out and work out just how Chrismas is going to fall this year. Work out when hair and salon appointments will need to be made, what the Christmas shopping hours are likely to be according to how Christmas week fall,when the Christmas tree will need to go up, last postal days, when the kids are likely to be finishing nursery/school, and by which dates any necessary travel plans/hotel rooms will need to be made and booked.
3. Start a cleaning fund. This is my yearly gift to myself: to have the whole house cleaned by the professionals, the day before the Christmas tree goes up. If it seems like to big an extravagance, start to put away a pound or two towards it now, and get it booked!
4. Get your mission lists out and work out what DIY jobs HAVE GOT TO BE DONE before Christmas. Make it clear to anyone else involved there will be hell to pay if they are not (Ha!Ha!).
5. Make any bookings you can now: with popular hairdressers, organic food suppliers, carpet cleaners, theatres, pantomimes etc, etc. No, it isn’t too early. You want to catch the worm don’t you?
6. Start to think about a decorating theme. Dig out all your Christmas edition magazines, and read them by candlelight, while you sip a hot chocolate and pretend it’s Christmas Eve. Think about what colours you want, what you will need to buy, what will Christmas smell like this year? How will you adapt your signature scent seasonally? How will you create a decorating theme that reflects everybody in the house?
The next night do the same again with your cookery books. How will you ring the changes this year? How can you make it extra special? What can you do over the few months? Start the cake? Bake the mincemeat?
7. Allocate two gift homes: one secret place where you can stash gifts for prying eyes and another space for other family gifts.
8. Start your Christmas food shopping: buy one luxury, unperishable item every time you go to the supermarket and store them away from Hungry Horaces….
9. Make your gift and lists. Check addresses. See how many cards/ giftwrap items you’ve got left over from last year. Start any Christmas crafty projects you’ve always meant to do, but have never got round to before…
10. Stop buying things for the house and let the next few months be dedicated to clearing a space for Christmas. Use the money you would normally spend on the house on teeny gifts in the end of summer sales, so you can get a head start on your shopping…
As soon as the seasonal scrub is over, the countdown to Christmas will start in earnest on the putteringprogramme, so if you haven’t joined up, nows the time! There is a mini Christmas scrub two weeks before Christmas, but the fabulous festivities are up you Darlings….
Create your own Brocante Life Book, plan Christmas, set up routines and rituals or live life the BrocanteHome way with my guided workbooks and planners.
This, my lovely, loyal HouseKeepers is what I wish for you today… No tears, fear’s or loneliness. A scrumptious Christmas pudding. A turkey not to dry to eat and sprouts that taste like little buds of heaven. Joy in your baby’s eyes. Laughter all…
It’s Time For Plan B… If in a flutter of my eyelashes I could be someone else just for a little while, you know, I think I would be Nicole Kidman- because of her nose. Recently she played Samantha, the witch from…
So there I was lying still in the silence of the middle of the night. When it struck me that silence in my house is really, really loud. Fuzzy loud if you know what I mean. I have only known pure silence,…
Gorgeous though he undoubtedly is, Finley isn’t an easy child to bring up. Like all boy’s of his age he is constantly on the move, but he combines this permanent motion with relentless conversation, 1001 searching questions, and a running commentary of…
I am feeling a little frantic. Finn’s summer holidays have already begun and we have got seven and a half whole weeks to fill. Seven and a half weeks! That’s nearly two months in which to fill my son’s days with activities…
The next Seasonal Scrub starts on the week beginning September 12th. The equivalant of a spring clean, the scrub will see your scrumptious little house as fresh as a daisy and smelling cinnamon sweet, just in time for the cosiness of Autumn……
4 Comments
way too early for me to be thinking Christmas.. I have the wedding in October and I love to celebrate Thanksgiving in November, even though I don't live in America 🙂 I do it Australian style. We all can be thankful !
Well, this is the time of year to do any of those things, for sure. I always thought about a theme/color scheme holiday… Maybe this will be that year????? I love Autumn so very much that I usually slight Christmas a little bit. You are definitely "scaring" me! haha..
Oh, a kindred spirit! I get quite a lot of ribbing from friends and family because I start my Christmas planning early, but I can not abide all of the holiday rush anymore! I've had so many years when I hardly even notice the holidays whipping by because of all of the last-minute things that I have to do. It's one of the few areas of my life that is actually now organized. 🙂
I start getting ready for Christmas every year around October. I make the Christmas Puddings first week in November and the tree goes up on the 1st of December. Im more excited about Christmas now Im "old" than I was as a kid. Go figure ! 🙂
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way too early for me to be thinking Christmas.. I have the wedding in October and I love to celebrate Thanksgiving in November, even though I don't live in America 🙂 I do it Australian style. We all can be thankful !
Well, this is the time of year to do any of those things, for sure. I always thought about a theme/color scheme holiday… Maybe this will be that year????? I love Autumn so very much that I usually slight Christmas a little bit. You are definitely "scaring" me! haha..
Oh, a kindred spirit! I get quite a lot of ribbing from friends and family because I start my Christmas planning early, but I can not abide all of the holiday rush anymore! I've had so many years when I hardly even notice the holidays whipping by because of all of the last-minute things that I have to do. It's one of the few areas of my life that is actually now organized. 🙂
I start getting ready for Christmas every year around October. I make the Christmas Puddings first week in November and the tree goes up on the 1st of December. Im more excited about Christmas now Im "old" than I was as a kid. Go figure ! 🙂