HOLIDAY GRAND PLAN WEEK 1: FRONT PORCH / LIST WEEK

AUGUST 28, 2016 TO SEPTEMBER 3, 2016

Holiday Grand Plan 2016

Week One is List Week at the Holiday Grand Plan!

During this week, we kick off holiday prep with lists, lists and more lists.

We'll print helpful calendars and forms for Christmas organizing and begin to create a Christmas notebook.

This week's cleaning focus is the front porch: We'll clean and organize the area around the front door so that our home will be ready to welcome visitors during the holiday season.

Ready to jump into List Week? Let's get organized with the Holiday Grand Plan!

CLEANING/ORGANIZING AREA: FRONT PORCH

Front Porch

HOLIDAY PREP

Print the Holiday Grand Plan calendars for reference.

Make the following lists:

Gifts to be given, amount to spend (include family, friends, school, church, etc)

Christmas card list (computerize it!) Print list and update it, if needed. Decide how many cards are needed.

Visits to make

Parties/Entertaining

Menus for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, other parties

Goodies for Sharing/Gifts. Decide how much needs to be made and divide it between the weeks from now through December 1.

Favorite Meals of Family members for freezing ahead.

Long-term shopping list divided into: canned foods, perishables for each holiday, linens and dishes, decorations, etc.

Create a Christmas planner notebook to organize holiday planning.

This week's printable forms from Organized Christmas include:

Master Gift List

Christmas Card List

Gift Ideas Planner

WELCOME TO THE HOLIDAY GRAND PLAN

Holiday Grand Plan 2015

You've decided: this is the year you'll celebrate the holiday season from a home that is clean, organized, and ready for Christmas. You dream of holiday parties, overnight house guests, Christmas cookies, a decorated home, and a calm and stress-free holiday season.

There's only one problem: right now, you're living in domestic chaos. How to create a clean home for the holidays?

Looking around your home, you don't know where to begin. Cluttered counters, crammed closets, and out-of-place possessions pile up everywhere.

Dust bunnies and ceiling cobwebs announce that deep-cleaning is long overdue, and the guest room? Forget about it! It's home to moving boxes, unfinished crafts, and last winter's stained jackets and unmatched mittens.

What's the answer? You need a plan: the Holiday Grand Plan.

WEEK-BY-WEEK TO AN ORGANIZED CHRISTMAS

To have the holiday of your dreams, you need more than just a gift list and good intentions: you need a tried and tested roadmap to Christmas in a clean and organized home.

That's where the Holiday Grand Plan comes in! By breaking down all the tasks needed to clean and organize the house and prepare for the holidays, and dividing them into weekly assignments, the HGP will help you reach the season calm, centered, and ready to celebrate from a clean and organized home.

Based on the companion Cleaning Grand Plan, the Holiday Grand Plan combines holiday prep, home organizing, and cleaning components. Each week, the Plan focuses on one room or area. Beginning just as the summer ends, you'll work week-by-week to declutter, clean, and organize each room in your home.

Along the way, the HGP tackles holiday preparations, too. Whether it's gifts, decor, or holiday meals, you'll be organized and ready for the holidays before they arrive.

To guide you, you'll make a Christmas planner notebook to simplify your holidays. Free printable checklists and calendars make it easy to plan your progress and organize each week's goals. Your planner will become your road map for an organized holiday season ... in a clean home. Best of all? Next season you'll start ahead of the game, thanks to the notes, records, and reminders you'll tuck into your planner as you work the HGP.

Working with others makes it easier to follow your holiday plan. With many active HGP communities online on the Web, you'll have lots of company as you prepare for Christmas!

Mabon Bingo

Adapted from Thanksgiving Bingo

You will need:
as many bingo calling cards as you have players, and one for the caller
some blu-tack or pins and corkboard or some other such, to keep the cards in square for playing. (read the whole instruction to understand.)
15 markers for each player. These could be nuts, for example.

Cut all into squares.All the players and the caller mix their squares in front of them, picture side down.
The players pick 16 cards and arrange them into a square, which ever way they like.
(If there are some kids who like to copy someone else, let them arrange the square in the order they pick them up. In four rows, four cards in each row.)
It might be good to have some blu-tack to tack the cards in the square, so that they won't get mixed during the game
Caller turns over a card randomly and calls out the picture.
Any player with that image, lays a marker on top.
Play continues until the some gets four in row in any direction including diagonally and shouts out BINGO!

(You can, of course, adjust the cards to your own symbols and traditions. This is mine.)

Autumn Bucket List 2015

My autumn... well... datewise it's from Lammas to Samhain. But August doesn't feel like autumn :-D And I am divided, because I do feel Mother knows best, better than our calculations, traditions and calenders. Basically... one could think the autumn is when most trees have changed colors. But... that seems to be happening later and later every decade, and I am not going to wait for October to celebrate Autumn. I would miss Mabon! So - from Lammas to Samhain it is, and I am going to explain August as "the first days of autumn that feel like summer still", just as the first days of spring feel like winter etc.

Different definitions of autumn:
- astronomical - begins at Autumn Equinox, ends at Winter Solstice
- meteorological - here it's "Summer is when the median temperature of days is over 10 °C five or more subsequent days", so when the median temperature sinks below 10 °C. In USA it's "June, July, August"

- write an autumn bucket list

- write a list of 92 things you love/like about autumn

36 reasons why Fall is the best season!

24 Things About Fall That Will Put A Smile On Your Face

The Best Things About Fall

Why I love this season

If you don't get 92 things on your list, don't worry. Write as many as you can think of.

- commit to take a photo on each day of Autumn according to this list of your personal favorites. This is why the number os 92. If you didn't get 92 things, don't worry about it, just take more photos of some of your favorites. 

- get better with photographing.

31+ Days To Better Photography

31 Day To A Better Photo

30 day photography challenge project

- Search "[name of the month] photo/photography challenge". There's dozens of suggestions on-line. Pick your favorites, print the list and cut it into strips, and put the strips in a bowl. Every day of Autumn, pick a strip and take a photo. 

Yes, it's a lot of photos. But it doesn't take more than a couple of minutes top most to snap a photo of a thing. It doesn't need to be the greatest photo in the history of photography. It doesn't even need to be a good photo. Or a photo you are proud of. Or a photo you like. It just needs to be a photo of something. 

- Start an Autumn journal

• a bit like "December Daily", though this is "August/September/October Daily"
• illustrate it with your photos-a-day. 
• make the pages like an art journal, "Project Life" page or a scrapbook page. 
• make a page every day
• there are different journal prompts around, and "project life" prompts etc. Use them.
• write down the best part of each day. This doesn't need to be perfect, amazing, inspiring or even good. "best" means "the least bad". 
• start a gratitude journal - write this, too, in your autumn journal
• start writing morning pages. Write these to separate pages and add to your journal.
• keep a nature journal or notebook. Write down the weather and nature phenomenon you observed. For this you need to take a nature walk every day with your camera... so we'll get both practice with camera and exercise in the list just like that :-D 
• Pick a beautiful tree and take a photo of it once a week from the same spot, to see how the seasons change. Pick a tree with beautiful autumn colors, like a maple or aspen. Rowens are nice too, with their berries.
• "Sharpen your Observational Skills through Drawing" - again, it doesn't need to be good. The point is to sharpen your observational skills, not to make art... and that you will get better with drawing is just a bonus. ;-)
• "Think about the “seasons” of life, and write a letter to yourself about what you will savor about this season"

- clean your home for winter. There are several "fall cleaning" checklists and suggestions on-line.

- decorate your home

- prepare your wardrobe for the transition.
Create a fall capsule wardrobe fit for your lifestyle, activities and purposes.
On my list is "tweed promenade suit, 40's felt hat, plenty of patterned tights, brogue oxfords with heel, leather gloves"
Check the sweaters and cardigans, let them air in the crisp autumn air and start wearing them.
Get a pair of good, comfortable, classic fall boots you will be wearing the rest of your life, and a pair of boot socks.

- Knit something. Learn to knit. On my list is a white, soft aran sweater and a fair-isle set of vest and cardigan. And a tam.

- Take the "week of dressing dangerously" challenge.
Look at all the clothing styles people have, all the costumes, all the tv-series and everything where people wear clothes. Pick five favorites. Pick five of the costumes or outfits you wish you had or could wear or would wear "if..." If you were skinny or curvy. If you were tall or short. If you were a man. If you were in your favorite fantasy world. If you were your favorite superhero. If you were a rock star.
Get yourself these outfits/costumes.
Wear them a whole day, as if it was your normal attire.

On my list

1. tree
2. steampunk
3. goth
4. gypsy

Change your life in 30 areas to reduce your carbon footprint

I do have the Japanese "oil from plastic" machine on my shopping list... and then I will be making oil. But until I get one - or build one - there are other things to do.

• have a “earth day” every day – 1 hour of no electricity
• use water as if it was a rarity
• use electricity as if it was a rarity
• get a bike
• start walking at least one hour every day
• get a monthly bus pass and get to know your town.
• get good curtains to every window – black curtains and thick side curtains
• turn off lights
• unplug items not in use
• get more houseplants
• plant more trees
• keep the electric appliances clean
• learn to use no fire cookers
• minimize your belongings – take the 100 things challenge. Only keep things you love and that make you feel good
• eat more veggies and fruits. Have at least one vegetarian day every week.
• eat more locally produced and organic food
• write a food plan and keep it
• stop throwing food away
• cook from scratch
• eat less
• shorter showers
• take the stairs. Elevators and escalators use electricity.
• get a compost and start composting everything that can be composted
• recycle all your garbage
• start cleaning your environment. “roska päivässä” movement
• change electric appliances to manpowered, crank or treadle powered
• use less dishes and wash them by hand, air dry
• use less clothes and use them wisely. Get work clothes and use clothes-protecting items like aprons and sleeve covers. Air your clothes often, wash them less.
• buy minimally packaged goods, and make things of the packaging
• eliminate disposable products - make reusable pads, reusable produce bags, reusable handkerchiefs, reusable shopping bags, sandwich bags, reusable bowl covers for the fridge etc.
• check how to use cloth instead of toilet paper (this is VERY EXTREME)

- One of the most important "things" in my life, one "thing" I'm grateful every day, is my husband, and I want to do things for our relationship.
There was a list of some 25 things you could do this fall with your husband, but I can't find it :-( There were really nice ideas.
There are also "fall dating ideas" lists. Go through some and pick things that sound reasonable to do with your spouse.

Go to a date every week in Autumn

• spend a whole morning in bed
• write a fall bucket list together
• go reading together in a park with sammies and wine
• go tossing a frisbee
• make a kite together and go flying it
• build a fort in living room and have a movie night
• have a ghostbusters movie night
• have a scary movie marathon
• have a Harry Potter movie marathon
• read ghost stories to each other in candlelight
• make a quilt together for snuggling
• have a game night
• go to a market, buy things and come home to cook something with those things
• cook a romantic dinner togehter
• bake together
• go to a flea market, second hand etc. buy a piece of furniture and fix it together
• go on a bookstore date
• go on a sunrise or sunset date
• go shopping some fall decor and things
• go picking some nature elements that can be used to make fall decorations with, and make fall decorations together
• make autumnal gingerbread house
• go to a picnic in a romantic place and play in leaves
• get bicycles for both of us and go on a biking tour with picnic basket
• go bowling
• go play pool
• go hiking and camping, spend a night in the wilderness and watch stars together, by a fire, in a blanket, and make s'mores
• get a new hobby together (I chose cabinetmaking :-D)
• learn a foreign language together (I chose French)
• learn to dance with my spouse and go dancing
• learn to give massage and give each other massage
• paint each other's portrait
• go tour your home town; either take a guided tour or find out information to share with each other
• learn to play an instrument together (I chose guitar)
• learn to play a new card game
• practice yoga daily together
• go on a "day trip" (I chose a zoo nearby, which is going to take the whole day.)
• take a CPR/first aid course together
• learn to make candles
• make candy together

For this I added three things to my own autumn bucket list:

* build a home theater (within our resources, naturally. It might not be much more than rearranging the living room so that the television and comfy chairs are "strategically" placed with the coffee table - but that alone would improve the movie and tv watching time together.)

* build a fake fireplace (to be able to cuddle in front of the fireplace and to decorate the mantel)

* make a "cuddle kit"

Write - I have a couple of books I need to write on my list

Compile a collection of spooky stories
 
Have a teddy bears' picnic, October 27th (The International Teddy Bear Day)
 
Host or attend a fall festival with fun games, crafts, and prizes!
 
Invites friends over for chili night
 
Have a sock knitting bee
 
Learn orienteering
 
Learn the Thriller dance
 
Make 30 autumn cards and send to people
 
Make a pinecone weather station
 
Have a board-game night
 
Play hide and seek outside
 
Play pumpkin bowling
 
Prepare the balcony for winter
 
Find five scents that feels like autumn

Learn to solve puzzle cubes
 
Surprise someone you love with a fall-colored mum
 
Take a walk in the rain, without an umbrella. Don’t resist the urge to jump in puddles
 
Visit a craft show with friends
 
Visit a haunted house
 
Visit Skogskyrkogård
 
Stay up late and watch the harvest moon 28/9
 
Celebrate Rosh Hashanah September 14.

Celebrate Yom Kippur September 22.

Celebrate Sukkot September 28-October 5

Celebrate the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival September 27

Celebrate Mabon 23/9

Celebrate National Potato Day, 19/8

Celebrate Oktoberfest

Have a Halloween bonfire with hot apple cider

Have a Halloween masquerade party with apple bobbing

Build a Dia de los Muertos altar

Collect autumn leaves
 
Plant Lily-of-the-valleys for Independence Day
 
Create an autumn nature table
 
Enjoy autumn
 
Go apple picking in an apple orchard

Go indoor apple picking
 
Go for an early morning walk and watch the sun rise on a cool, crisp day
 
Go to a leaf hunt
 
jump in leaf piles
 
Make a fall leaf maze
 
Make a nature shadow box

Make land art with leaves
 
Play conkers
 
Play with a fall sensory bucket
 
Look for signs of fall
 
Play fall "I Spy"

decorate an autumn cake
 
Get 8 Sabbath boxes and start filling them. (I want 8 big boxes with all the Sabbath associated stuff in, and nothing more.)

celebrate Mabon

Do some Autumn crafts
 The following is from my personal bucket list, so not autumn related

Paint china

Improve my French

Improve my German

Learn the basics of all Celtic languages

Learn Latin
Learn hulahooping

learn whip cracking
 
learn baton twirling
 
learn herping
 
learn juggling
 
learn to brew cider, mead, ale, wine
 
illustrate
 
translate
 
reconnect with highschool friends
 
build a baker's cabinet
 
make 3 baskets in different ways
 
make 3 beaded works
 
learn leather work
 
learn flowerwork
 
learn bonecarving
 
create a cactus tray
 
create a terrarium
 
create a bonsai tree
 
make 30 books in 30 days
 
make 10 different kinds of candy