Staying Ahead of the Seasons

Every year November 1st sparks the same argument: should you or should you not decorate for Christmas?! People are opinionated. Some people are all about hopping on board as soon as possible, whereas others want to wait until after Thanksgiving. I am more of a would-like-to-decorate-early-but-don’t-have-my-act-together person… I am always so surprised when people are putting up Christmas decorations on November 1st because I hadn’t even THOUGHT about Christmas until then!

So this year, although I certainly didn’t decorate for Christmas on November 1st, I decided to create a system for staying ahead of the seasons and holidays so that I can enjoy them as soon as I want to or have time to (and so that all of the cute stuff doesn’t sell out before I get to it!).

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My Seasonal Shopping List:

I also added in all of our specific family celebrations (gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.). You can totally customize your list to your own events and priorities.

I then added an item to my to-do list on the 1st of every month to do my seasonal shopping, or to make a plan for when I’m going to do my seasonal shopping — for example, I might wait to buy Christmas gifts until Black Friday sales, but I’ll try to start planning what I’m going to buy and when I’m going to buy it at the beginning of November. Again, you can do this whenever works best for you and with your own budget, but just make sure you don’t forget to actually DO IT if you want to get ahead!

I keep this list in the Notes app on my phone (as I do with most of my lists) so that I can access it easily and edit it whenever I think of it. I may even start adding one-time events to it, such as weddings, baby showers, etc.

Let me know if you have any tips & tricks for staying ahead of the seasons! And happy shopping 🙂