I’ve never been good at staying organized for Christmas. Gifts get tossed into closets or drawers or cabinets or corners and I always think I know where everything is — but I never do.
I always have to go searching for some elusive something that arrived at an odd time so I tucked it away… somewhere.
Or I’m sure I put THAT in the PLACE where I keep ALL of the gifts but on Christmas Eve, that thing is MISSING and I’m tearing up the house in search of that thing I know we bought and gah! So stressful.
I’m usually pretty good at finding all of the things that need to be mailed to family members and this year I was pretty sure that was going to be the easiest part of Christmas. Because I decided not to send a lot of gifts that I had to wrap and ship. I ordered fun food gifts for my mom and dad and brother and sister. I sent a package to my mom that included her missing birthday gift (See, it was already going downhill in October!) and a gift I never managed to mail months ago that turned into a good Christmas gift anyway. And of course, JMP’s stuff. Easy because I was putting it all in Prince J’s room because Prince J is in college and nobody is using his room (except the stray kids who stayed for one night.)
But no. Apparently I didn’t put all of JMPs things in there.
I found the Christmas stocking in the laundry room, the day after I mailed two huge boxes that cost a zillion dollars to ship to Hawaii.
Yesterday, I found a Christmas ornament for JMP and his parents hiding in the bottom of the K-mart bag of stuff we bought on Thanksgiving.
I’m a little afraid to dig around in THAT place where I keep the gifts to see what else I’ve forgotten to ship.
I’m also really afraid of Christmas Eve. This is going to be the year that I can’t find a bunch of really important things — I can feel it.
Next year, I’m going to have a better strategy for keeping gifts organized. It’s gonna take me six months to figure out what that strategy is — it might involve spreadsheets — but I’m going to do it.
Damn it.
I use excel spreadsheets and workbook to track Christmas presents. That way I can see what I gave last year to avoid duplicates, especially with ornaments. Each page is a year with everyone’s name. I also list Christmas Eve party gifts there along with stocking stuffers. Works for me.
If you come up with a good spreadsheet strategy please let me know…I am digging stuff up everywhere. But my husband is snoopy. Really snoopy. So I have to be extra cautious in hiding all of his gifts.
My Mom has sent us three very large boxes and called yesterday to announce that she had to bring the extra big suitcase because she found more Christmas presents. I am thinking that it must be a Nana thing. LOL.
Luckily for me I didn’t do any early shopping. So now everything I’ve purchased this past week is stuffed under my bed. Unorganized. And where my parents will be sleeping tomorrow through however long they decide to stay. I guess I better get my sorting on!
you know what, if you just give money you don’t have to worry about losing things. lol