Planning for Christmas album and decorations

Today Lauren and I grabbed our Christmas planners for December Daily and filled in the activities for the month.  If I don't do that now I will have too many days with nothing planned to photograph or journal.  We managed to fill in something for each day but I have to say that this December is not going to be exciting.  Corona is messing with all the activities we usually do.  Sigh.  I really need a vacation!  I have been thinking of November around my birthday and back home before Thanksgiving.  But...where is it safe?  And close enough to drive because I am not flying right now.  

But, back to December Daily.  This is a scrapbook activity that I found on Ali Edwards Facebook page.  She does an album documenting activities in December with her family, travel, activities, etc.  I really liked the idea because I had done an album of my Mama and Daddy's Christmases through the years until I was 20.  That is when I got married so I had photos at our home after that (which are only partly scrapbooked).  I am seriously in love with doing this project every year now.  She takes orders right now for supplies for this activity.  You can find her at aliedwards.com.  She also has a Facebook page.  You can view all her past albums on her website for ideas.  

We also went over some ideas for our Christmas trees.  I think we will put up 25 this year.  That is not set in stone yet.  I have to make my Excel tree spreadsheet soon.  We will start to put them up at the end of September.  I start upstairs in the kids rooms and the loft and in October I will move to the Tennessee room and the Disney room.  Then the lights outdoors go up. I have to wait until after Halloween to do the kitchen as it is where all the Halloween treats and decorations are!  I will decorate the kitchen for Christmas before Thanksgiving.  In fact the only room I leave Thanksgiving decor in is the dining room.  It works for me.  I love having my house glowing with Christmas lights and trees for about 8-10 weeks.  I really love Christmas!  My parents always did over the top Christmas decor and they adored Christmas.  It was inevitable that I would too.

I am collecting my ideas for this year and putting them in my folder.  I have a folder that has 10 pockets and is red.  I labeled each section and I put the information from magazines, ads, addresses, lists, food, etc in each section.  It is actually 13 years old!  LOL!  I empty it each January and put back the things I will need the next year.  It is ready then to collect an idea here and there as the year goes by.  I also use 2 binders for planning, a smaller binder with my spreadsheets in it to use when shopping for new decorations, and my Land's End Christmas medium size open top tote bag.  See the photo of all this here.  Is it too early to think of Christmas?  For some it might be.  But, since my entire home is decorated for Christmas and there are nine of us since Mama and Daddy spend their Christmases in Heaven now it is very helpful for me to plan this way.  We miss my parents a lot at the holidays...and every day.  Planning to follow their traditions makes it easier to get through the Christmas season without so much stress.