January 2022 Christmas Club meeting

 

So yesterday, we had our first Christmas Club meeting for 2022!  Susan, Carrie and I met at Carrie's home in her beautiful new space.  It was a low-key meeting but very encouraging and productive.  We talked about our Christmases, and Susan even has pictures from hers arranged in scrapbook layouts.  It looked like such a wonderful time!  I would not have thought of documenting this, but Susan even had a photo of her home that she and Jim took when they arrived home on Christmas night.  It had been snowing, and the lights of their lovely home just showed up so beautifully.  It was a great photo to end with.

Carrie and I had both noticed that Christmas felt very relaxed this year.  What a blessing that was!  

We discussed Christmas cards.  Susan wants to do a photo card for 2022 and Carrie was able to share some tips about when she starts working on their family's photo card.  I have already purchased Christmas cards for 2022.  I was using up odds and ends of cards from previous years in 2021 and actually used almost all of my stash.  So I found some nice ones from Christianbook.com at an after-Christmas sale.  Below is just one of the designs I purchased:

We enjoyed beverages and some refined sugar-free muffins I had made -- Cranberry Poppy Seed, with a crumble topping.  They turned out pretty well.  I'll post more about this later, but I'm thinking of trying a new muffin recipe every month in 2022 with the thought of finding a good one for Christmas kitchen gifts this year.

At the meeting I also took a few minutes to share the after-Christmas debriefing that I try to do every year. 

As I looked through my Christmas notebook, I found that apparently I never did do this debriefing exercise for 2020.  But no matter -- I've now done it for 2021!  I'll plan to write a separate post about this.  

In preparation for the Christmas Club meeting, I also took some time to update my Christmas notebook in the way I describe in this post.  It feels great to have that task accomplished.

2021 was an interesting and different Christmas season for me, due to being nearly immobilized with sciatica for most of it.  I am so thankful that God gave energy and even adaptive ways of doing things to be able to accomplish all that was necessary to do.

And that was pretty much our club meeting yesterday.  So fun that we could actually meet on Rudolph Day!

February Christmas Club meeting

 

 Appropriately enough,  it was Rudolph Day (the 25th) when the Christmas Club gathered for its February meeting.  Susan, Carrie, and I gathered around Susan's dining room table specifically to work on making gift tags out of our used Christmas cards.  I think that Carrie and Susan were working with last year's cards, while mine were a much older batch.  We shared a tag punch, templates, hole punches and so on -- passing them around by means of the "lazy Susan" that's built into the round table.  Very handy!

Susan served us some lovely holiday tea in Christmas teacups and with the festive napkins above alongside.  (I snatched up my napkin as I left, so that I would have something to illustrate this post!)

I didn't take time to scan my completed tags, so will share some from a previous year.  I think I completed maybe 8 or so at the meeting.

For next month, Carrie is planning to print out a December calendar for each of us.  We will use these to begin planning for some Christmas events.  Sounds like fun, and it will be good to have some things pre-planned.  Then, closer to the time, as other events come along, we can fill those in.

Hope your Rudolph Day included some festive fun also!

January 2021 Christmas Club meeting!

 

So on Monday, January 25, we actually did something very appropriate for Rudolph Day -- we held our first Christmas Club meeting for 2021!  Three of us gathered at Susan's home for  a cup of tea and an hour or more of purposefully catching up on our Christmases and our plans for the coming year.  It surely did feel as if we were starting the New Year off right.  

We began by discussing how our Christmases had gone in 2020, especially considering that some things had to be different due to the virus.  We all felt that they went quite well.  Carrie felt good about keeping things more organized, and shared that her family did nearly all of their usual Christmas activities.  She had also asked the kids about any activities they might like to incorporate, and only one thing on their list did not happen.  Susan shared that their family time with their granddaughter was truly wonderful, at times actually feeling like a Hallmark movie as they shared memories and old family photos.  Wow!  It's hard to imagine much better than that.  As for Mr. T and myself, we felt that things were much as usual and we made some great memories with the local grands.

The one negative thing we all experienced in common was the unusually slow postal service.  Yes, we were warned about all that -- but for a package to take a week to get from the middle of New Hampshire to the lower end of it is slow indeed.  And then it still had to cross the country to its destination.  Though mailed in plenty of time, the gifts sent to Nevada were all late.  (Other than those sent directly from Amazon, which went through just fine! 😀)

We went over a list called "January Assignments" that I had saved from a previous year.  Most of this came from Organized Christmas originally, I think. 

 The first point -- tie up loose ends -- was mostly covered by our opening discussion of our Christmases.  In thinking about this, I know that both I and Carrie still have some Christmas things up in our houses, as we do decorate for winter.  In fact, at my house the tree is still up.  We did take the manger scene down and replaced it with a lighted log cabin.  I am also in the process of winnowing through a tote of Christmas and winter decor, and most of it is headed for the thrift store.

The second point concerns gift closets, and both Susan and I did go through ours this year.  I threw some things away and sent some to the thrift store.  I also found a couple of gifts in an area where gifts had previously been stored.  One went to the gift closet and the other to the thrift store.

 I do need to print and fill out a gift closet inventory form to really make the best use of this storage space.

The third point involves making a Rudy Day tote to have a way to stay ready to celebrate each month.  It's a lovely idea, but probably something none of us will make time to do.

The fourth point is a fun project: recycling Christmas cards.  We are going to do that at our February meeting, but I still have 2018's and 2019's cards, so hopefully I will turn a number of these into gift tags before that time.  The tags pictured below are from a previous year.

 Susan has placed a number of reminders on her phone for the various months, and for February 1 she has a note to herself regarding Valentine's Day: to plan, make, send Valentines or Valentine gifts, or to plan a special meal or activity for Valentine's Day.  

Susan likes to send Valentine cards and maybe gifts; Carrie usually makes a special meal or dessert for her family.  When my kids were in college (a long time ago now) I sent Valentine care packages.  Now that it's just Mr. T and myself, I might make a special meal or dessert, or we might go out.  We don't usually exchange Valentine cards or gifts, preferring to save the money we would have spent on these things and use it on getaways instead.

 Above you see my to-do list to accomplish before the next Christmas Club meeting.  It includes making gift tags from 2018's Christmas cards; printing out and filling in a gift closet inventory form; and going through cookbooks to identify new recipes to try for kitchen gifts.  (For example, I am planning to retire my bran muffin recipe as I just don't like it anymore, and so am looking for something different to replace it.) 

 We will see how well I do.  But it does feel great to have met for Christmas Club -- and on Rudolph Day, to boot!

Not much accomplished

Well, it's the last day of April and I can't believe how little I have accomplished toward the goals I had hoped to have completed by now.  Recall, at January's Christmas Club meeting, Susan had had us make a list of things we knew we needed to do soon.  Below was my list:

The thought was that for February and March, we would each do Christmasy things on our own, but in April we would plan to get together for a meeting.   In the meantime, we were each to work on accomplishing the things we wrote down on our to-do lists.

Those plans were all well and good, but we never expected that March and April would be hijacked by a virus.  Obviously, we didn't get together in April, but hopefully maybe we can in May.

Of the 6 things on my list,  I've accomplished one of them: putting away the after-Christmas bargains.  I started working on updating (actually, creating) my Christmas card list, but haven't finished that task.

 I've had this sweet Mary Engelbreit Christmas notebook (purchased at a dollar store in Nevada) for many years and have utilized many of its features.  Not the Christmas card list, however; that's remained blank.  So this is what I'm using for my card list.

So I still have to:
🎄 Finish my Christmas card list
🎄  Order Christmas stamps for 2020's cards
🎄  Go through cookbooks and magazines to get ideas for kitchen gifts
🎄  Make gift tags from 2018's Christmas cards
🎄  Make a tentative Christmas gift idea list for 2020

I should make it a point to complete these tasks in May!

Another thing I'm pretty sure I haven't done is to make a nice, neat copy of last year's Christmas gift list to place in the back of my Christmas notebook.  So that needs to happen soon also.

I recently discovered, at the old homestead, another treasure trove of cards, most from the 1940s but some from the 1930s.  Oh, my.  I had thought that all of the greeting cards were out of the house already (although I have hundreds more to scan and list!), but these were in a box of old school papers I had labeled with the year and planned to go through later.  "Later" finally arrived, and I can't believe how many treasures were in that box.  Many from previous years to the date I had labeled it with.  Mostly Christmas cards, but some gorgeous old Valentines as well. 

At the top of the post is one example of the Christmas cards -- a "Gingham Girl" card by Norcross.  Isn't she adorable?  I have at least two of these cards in different designs, and will plan to write a post about them soon.  After that, they'll be going in the shop (link in sidebar).

I'm also planning to begin writing and scheduling posts for Christmas in July.  We'll see how far I get!  Meantime, it feels good to be here in the Christmas kitchen for a few minutes.  Hope you've enjoyed your visit!

January's Rudolph Day

I have a busy day ahead (preparing for a number of lunch guests at our home tomorrow) so am not sure just how much I will be able to do regarding Rudolph Day.  I thought at the very least I could write a blog post regarding the to-do list I made during Tuesday evening's Christmas Club meeting.  Recall, Susan had given each of us a sheet of notebook paper she's been hoarding for some time, and gave us an assignment to quickly, right then, make a to-do list of what we have to do toward Christmas 2020.  So here's what I wrote:

TO DO

Order Christmas stamps to use in 2020

Make tentative gift idea list for Christmas 2020

Go through cookbooks/December magazines and identify new recipes to try for Christmas 2020's kitchen gifts

Finish putting away the after-Christmas bargains

Make gift tags from 2018's Christmas cards

Update my Christmas card address list

That looks simple enough.

However, that "update Christmas card address list"?  I've got to admit that other than the address list for my card swap friends on the craft forum,  I've never really had a Christmas card address list.  Shocking, I know.  I have my work cut out for me on that one.  Even more shocking, after all these years without such a list, I finally think it's a good idea!

January's Christmas Club meeting

So Tuesday night was our first Christmas Club meeting for 2020 at the local library.  (My lighted library above looks a lot like it, in my mind.)  Our Christmas club is informal and sporadic, but we have fun and it is truly helpful to those who attend. 

Susan, our intrepid leader, gave each of us a sheet of very special notebook paper to use for our to-do lists.  She then instructed us to write down the things that we knew we needed to do soon.  Would you believe I had to borrow a pen?  Thankfully, the library has plenty of them!

The thought is that for February and March, we will each do Christmasy things on our own, but in April we will plan to get together for a meeting.   In the meantime, we are to accomplish the things we wrote down on our to-do lists.

We took turns telling about how our Christmases had gone.  We were all so happy to hear that Christmas 2019 was much more joy-filled and happy for Rachel than 2018 had been, and a good bit of that had to do with planning more carefully and not expecting a Hallmark Christmas.  😉

On Monday, I had taken time to go through my annual Christmas debriefing based on this form:

and so I could easily tell how things had gone at our house.  And when Susan asked what didn't work so well, I could share that also.  I plan to post about the debriefing soon, so I won't go into detail now.

We spent the rest of the time preparing and displaying donated Christmas decor items for a Christmas decoration swap at the library.  A good and productive meeting!

January's Christmas Club meeting

First, I must apologize to our long-distance club members.  This meeting was scheduled, and then rescheduled for a week later due to my hesitancy about driving in what could potentially have been freezing rain.   The weather was iffy again the second week, and our vehicle was in the shop so I wasn't sure I would even make the meeting.  With all of that, I forgot to notify Vicki or any of the other ladies who had expressed interest in the Christmas Club, and I do apologize.

I think that we are not meeting again until April, and when I learn the actual date I will try and inform you ladies.

So ... as to how this club meeting went.  There were four of us present: Susan, Carrie, Rachel, and myself.  Interestingly, every one of us is in a somewhat different stage of life.  Susan and I are both empty-nesters, but her children and grandchild are not close by, while I have six local grands (plus their parents, of course).  Rachel's daughter is approaching her senior year of high school and thus the empty nest is looming scarily for her.  She wants to make Christmas 2019 just as wonderful as it can be.  And Carrie has four children at home between the ages of 4 and 14.  So Christmas looks different for all of us, and we have varying expectations for the season.

Basically, we talked a lot about how Christmas 2018 had gone for each of us and how we might plan changes or improvements for the 2019 holiday.  I was thankful that I had found time a day or two previously to do my Christmas debriefing (see previous post) and so I was able to share exactly how things had gone, along with my thoughts on what could work better next year.

We also brainstormed with Rachel a bit as to how she might make Christmas 2019 all that she hopes to.  There are great forms available at Organized Christmas that will help with every aspect of planning.  One thing Rachel mentioned was that she did very little baking this holiday, and it is something she loves to do.  The Baking Planner will be a huge help with that, as it has a place to list recipes, where they are found,  what ingredients might be needed, and so on.  I suggested also my own idea of making a list of needed holiday ingredients.  I also had Rachel make a copy of the Post-Christmas Debriefing questions I use so that she could sit down with them and sort out just why she was a bit disappointed this year and how to make some positive changes for 2019.

I also alluded to a form I'd forgotten the name of, but just now as I was browsing around on Organized Christmas I found it -- a Values Worksheet which looks at the previous Christmas to help get plans in place for the next.  I'm thinking I may go through that soon, while last Christmas is fresh in my mind.

Susan showed us her Christmas notebook and, in particular, some of the photo collages she makes from the photo cards she and her hubby receive each year.  This is really a lovely idea.  Susan says if she is feeling a bit down, all she has to do is turn to her Christmas notebook and enjoy all of those smiling faces of friends and loved ones in the photo collages.

And then I also shared with the group a Shutterfly photo book which I have just put together featuring some of our best-loved Christmas cookies.  I will write a separate post about that, as others might like to learn how I did this.  It's a project I've had in mind for awhile and I am so thankful to have finally been able to put it together.  Now I can just tweak it a bit and make copies for family and friends.  It will be nice to have most of our favorite Christmas cookie recipes all in one place.

We all felt as if our Christmas Club meeting had been time well-spent.  Maybe some of our thoughts will encourage you, as well!

Tomorrow's Christmas Club meeting postponed!

Regular readers will remember that I'm part of a Christmas club and that we've been trying to meet monthly at a local library.  (The ornament above is one that I made at Christmas Club a year ago or more.)

Occasionally we do crafts, and sometimes we share a snack, but most often we plan, brainstorm, and share ideas from our Christmas notebooks.  It's been really helpful in keeping Christmas preparations from slipping off our radar screens.

A glaring Kindle shot of my Christmas notebook

Several of you -- especially Vicki, Pamela, Lucie, and Lana -- have expressed interest in our little club, and I know that Vicki had even put our Christmas Club meeting for July 19 on her calendar.

So for Vicki and others who were planning on meeting tomorrow afternoon, I need to let you know that the club meeting for July 19 has been postponed due to a conflict with an ice cream social.  (And who could possibly argue with that?)

The next meeting will be in August but I don't know a date yet.  I'll keep you posted!

June's Christmas Club meeting

(The pretty vintage card above is available in my Etsy shop.  I love the pastel candles tucked in among the berries and greenery!)

So yesterday, our little Christmas Club had its June meeting at a local library.  Only three of us attended, but it was an encouraging and productive meeting!

Actually, as I informed the other ladies, we had a fourth, long-distance member who was with us in spirit: Vicki, from Christmas 24/7/365.  Vicki lives in Arizona, so obviously she could not get to the meeting, but I have told her she can be an honorary member of the club. We are delighted to have you, Vicki!

Another blogger who was unaware of our meeting but was in a way present at it was Pamela, from The Lady of the House Speaking.  I had printed out copies of her post presenting 5 ways to make Rudolph Day fun and productive, which is truly worth the read.  Pamela suggests fine-tuning a craft on Rudolph Day, as well as a festive recipe.  She adds several other ways to make your Rudolph Day special, so head on over and read the post!

We agreed that it probably wasn't likely, with our busy lives, that we would do all five things on any given Rudolph Day, but Pamela provides a wonderful plan if one has an entire day.  I know some people celebrate Rudolph Day on an adjacent weekend, if the 25th of the month is too busy.

We discussed our summer and fall plans a little bit.  All three of us will be traveling during the fall at various times, so we agreed it's even more important to meet during the summer and get ahead of the game as much as possible.

One of Carrie's goals was to get her Christmas gift list started.  She did get money for Christmas gifts  put in the  budget.  And she actually began the list yesterday, so that's a good start on her goal.  I have my gift list started (I admit I usually begin it in January, after I've seen how the previous year's gifts went over).  Susan still has her list from last year, as she didn't use it.  So one of our assignments for the July meeting is to get our gift lists completed and fine-tuned.

I shared that I had purchased my Christmas stamps for the coming year.  (I actually ordered these in January. ) You can find all sorts of stamps at usps.com and I highly recommend doing so right away.  The only downside might be that if new holiday stamps come out between now and then, you might wish you had waited.  I ordered global stamps as well for my out-of-country Christmas cards.  It's going to be so nice to have these all ready to go when the Christmas cards are.  No last-minute trips to the post office for Christmas stamps.

Susan brought up the topic of neighbor gifts.  She has done gifts of cookies, and also small loaves of banana bread.  I usually do cookie trays, but have also done other things like hot cocoa mix, tea breads, scones, even granola.  One of our neighbors always makes a sourdough rye bread which we look forward to every year.  Another family makes jars of salsa using ingredients from their garden. There are loads of ideas on my Kitchen Gifts Pinterest board, so if you are looking to change up your neighbor gifts, or start a new tradition, you will want to check that out.

We set a tentative date of July 19 for the next meeting.  In addition, I'm hoping to post every day that month for Christmas in July, and planning a Christmas in July sale for my Etsy shop, so it should be a festive month indeed!

Christmas Club meeting for May

Last Wednesday, our little Christmas Club met at a local library.   I just realized I'd better post about this while I can still remember what we talked about! 

It had been awhile since the three of us who attended had seen one another, so we had lots of catching up to do first. 

Susan had just returned from an RV trip to Texas.  She got her Christmas cards before the trip and brought them along, with her address book, so she could address them in all of her "free" time.  Of course, the addressing task didn't get done.  But her intentions were admirable!

One thing I brought the others up to speed on was my little Etsy shop, A New Hampshire Attic.  The sweet little card at the top of the post is one that I had listed in my shop.  It has already sold, and I'm not surprised.  It's adorable!  I'm planning to add lots more items to my "Vintage Christmas" section in the coming month, and am planning a Christmas in July sale!

Carrie brought along some lovely little paper trees she had made from sheet music.  The pattern called for using book pages, but the sheet music added a special festive touch.  We will be learning how to make these at a future meeting.  They would be so pretty strung together as a garland.

One Rudolph Day idea I had seen for May was to think about recipes to try and even maybe make a cookbook of one's favorite Christmas recipes.  I did that a few years back -- made a memory book and filled it with memories and our family favorite Christmas recipes.  You can read about how to do that here: How to Make a Christmas Memory Book.  Now would actually be a good time to start a project like that!

I'm seriously thinking, though, of making a Shutterfly photo book with favorite Christmas recipes.  Layouts are available for recipe books at the Shutterfly site.  These might make fun small gifts for grandchildren.

I also brought up the idea (mentioned here many times before!) of planning ahead to free up time at Christmas by making a large batch of mac'n'cheese and a large meat loaf, or making and freezing several lasagnas or containers of meatballs or cooked chicken -- all with the idea of simplifying meal prep in the busy month of December.

Another thought I had was that now, in spring and summer, we are often bringing cookies to events like showers, graduation parties, picnics, and so on.  It occurred to me that now might be a good time to try out some festive new cookie recipes (modified slightly if need be for the season) that could be used as Christmas cookies in December.

To that end, another thing I shared with the ladies was a few pages from the Printable Christmas Planner at Organized Christmas.    I brought along forms for favorite holiday recipes, recipes to try, and a menu planning form.  If you're like me, you have favorite Christmas recipes in a number of different cookbooks.  A form noting just where to find each one could be very helpful!

That was our meeting in a nutshell.  We're hoping to meet more regularly from here on out!

A belated report on January's Christmas Club meeting

I'm behind the times!  Our local Christmas Club, headed up by my friend Susan, a local librarian,  is meeting tonight.  I'm not going to get there; Mr. T's work hours dictate a very early bedtime and I'm already exhausted, so will have to miss this meeting.  But at the very least I can report on last month's club meeting.

We began our meeting by talking about the Christmas just past and what some of our most memorable moments were.  We talked about traditions old and new that we might have.  We also  talked about what worked out well and what didn't.  For me, the decision to have all handcrafted gifts finished by December 1 was a game-changer.  It really helped me to enjoy December.

We next talked about setting up a gift closet.  Of course it need not be a closet; it can even be an under bed storage tote.  I personally have gifts stashed in several different areas and would really like to streamline that storage.

Organized Christmas even has a great inventory form for your Christmas notebook to keep track of what you have on hand in the gift closet.

Susan had a great idea to make Rudy Day totes ... special tote bags or containers to keep our special Rudy Day items in ... Christmas CDs, tea and coffee, and so on. 

She thought it would be nice if we made them matching, so each club member would have the same.  We could also use them to bring items to Christmas Club meetings.  As far as I know, nothing has been decided about this yet, but it's a fun idea for sure.  Lots of possibilities out there!

Lastly, we talked about recycling our Christmas cards.  Susan showed us a photo collage she had made for her Christmas notebook.  The collage was made with photos and wording from the various Christmas photo cards she and her husband had received.  It was great!

We finished up our meeting by sipping tea and making gift tags out of our old Christmas cards.  We all brought cards, and I had brought tag templates, hole punches, silver cord, and bakers twine. 

A most enjoyable evening was had by all!

A little bit of crafting

Tags from 2010

I've shared before how I enjoy making gift tags from our old Christmas cards.  That little project is just completed for this year, and I had so much fun doing it.  The ones I just finished would be from the cards we received in December 2015.  I like to keep the cards in a wooden holder for a year, so I can reread messages, pray for those who sent the cards, and so on. After a year,  I take them out, make tags from most of them, and place the current year's cards in the wooden pine cone holder.

As I'm sure I've said too many times to count, one of the times that I am happiest and feel most peaceful and content is when I can take time to work at my little glass-topped crafting desk.

An older picture.  It has been a long, long time since my crafting desk had this much clear space on it.

If I can have a mug of tea at hand, and if it happens to be snowing out, my contentment level is through the roof.  This almost never happens, but today it did.

On Tuesday evening,  I was able to attend our local Christmas Club at a friend's home.  One of the things we did at the meeting was to make tags out of our Christmas cards.  I brought along my templates and a couple of paper punches,  plus some silver cord and bakers twine.  Crochet cotton in red or green works well too.  I was able to make tags from about 2/3 of the cards I'd brought, at the meeting.

Also from 2010.  Many of these have been used by now.

I ran out of time so planned on finishing the rest of the tags at home.  Yesterday I was able to carve out a little space of time to do that.  My desk -- I mentioned in the caption above that it has little clear space.  The sad fact of the matter is, it has none.  Stacked high with file folders (most having to do with my dad's concerns and care) that I have no other place to put, it depresses me every time I look at it.  In order to craft, I can remove a stack of folders to give myself some space.

What I really need to do, of course, is clear out space in our own filing cabinet to make those folders fit in there.  And I should begin the project this very day!  We will see.

But back to yesterday.  I removed some folders and found space to measure and cut the tags, then punch holes at the top and string through a length of cord.  There was even room on the desk for a mug of tea, and as I worked, big snowflakes were drifting lazily down.  Ah!  Thirty minutes or so of wonderful mental health therapy.  I need to make time to do something like this more often!  Here is some of the result:

Do you make tags from your used Christmas cards, or utilize them in crafting some other way?

A simple little project

I'm finally getting around to show pictures of a simple ornament I put together in December.

Back in November I took part in a cookie swap at a local library.  One of the librarians had all of the makings available for a simple craft -- an ornament made with a canning jar lid.  She had the lids, plus ribbon and trims, and Christmas cards, fabric, etc.  My granddaughter Julia and I each made an ornament.  When I left the library that evening, I had the basic ornament to take home with me.  I used the inner part of the lid to trace a circle on part of a Christmas card -- I chose one with a lighted house on it.  Then I ran a loop of red ribbon between the two parts of the lid to use as a hanger, and hot-glued the circle in place.  The pretty gold and white trim made an attractive edge as I hot-glued that around the inner part of the rim.

I didn't hang the ornament right away because I kept thinking it needed a little something more.  I think it was after Christmas when I finally found time to finish it.  I took some yellow glitter glue and brushed it over the lighted windows in the scene with a toothpick, and let that dry.  Later, I gently brushed Mod Podge over the entire scene, and sprinkled it with fine glitter.  Once that was dry, I hot-glued a small sprig of red berries and green leaves to the top inner edge.

I was pleased with how it came out, although the back of the ornament is not so pretty -- festooned with strings of hot glue.  People were waiting in line for the glue gun at the library and so I had to hurry.  If I make more of these, I will make every effort to be more careful with the hot glue. 

Christmas Club meeting!

My Christmas notebook

This past Friday, we had a meeting of our Christmas Club at a local library.  One thing we did was to bring along our Christmas notebooks and share some of our planning with one another.  I shared how I plan out my crafting according to category and make timelines for when each item needs to be finished.  You can read more about my planning here: planning for handmade gifts.

An example of patterns and lists tucked into a folder pocket

I made up some planning pages to share if anyone was interested.  I usually just make my timelines on notebook paper, but this is a little more neat and organized.  If you like, just copy the red and green text below and paste into a word processing document to use this list in your own Christmas notebook.

GIFTS TO MAKE

CATEGORY:

Name of project:

How many:

Materials needed


Finish by:


Name of project:

How many:

Materials needed

Finish by:


Name of project:

How many:

Materials needed

 Finish by:  

We also talked about how we make a Christmas list and how soon we start, etc.  I tend to start fairly soon after Christmas -- just make a list of everyone I need a gift for, including any potential gift exchanges, Yankee swaps, and so on.  Then as I think of ideas, I fill in the blanks on the list.  This is just done on a sheet of looseleaf lined paper so I feel free to scribble, cross out, erase, etc.

Then after Christmas, I copy the list (listing the gifts I actually gave, which may differ from the ideas I started out with) onto a nicer piece of holiday paper and tuck it in the back of the notebook.  This way I can't possibly forgot what I gave to whom.

 

One of my copied over lists -- sorry about the quality of this Kindle photo

We also brainstormed about making photo cards and photo calendars, when to start, how to find the best deals and so on.  And we nibbled on a few of the chocolate-dipped orange slices I'd brought to share.

One neat thing we did was to gather some Christmas items to give away.  We arranged these items (most were brand new, and some were vintage but new) attractively in a little nook in the library with a sign encouraging folks to help themselves.  The sign also noted the time and date of our August meeting.  We hope this will stir up a little interest in our Christmas club and bring out a few more folks for the next meeting. 

All in all, we felt July's Christmas club meeting was productive and encouraging!