Pre-Holiday Plans for Personal Time with Friends & Family

Pre-Holiday Plans for Personal Time with Friends & Family

Pre-Holiday Plans for Personal Time with Friends & Family

My schedule has been hectic but as of today I am taking a few hours every day off for "Me Time". I have Closed 5 deals in September-November, have 3 in Escrow plus 2 Active listings so business has been a big part of my days plus we just downsized and moved 3 weeks ago. I have spent many days packing, repacking and purging at the local thrift shop.

On Thanksgiving day we hung pictures, replaced 3 light fixtures and I worked on the computer for 3 hours in the morning before we went out to eat. So I said to myself last night......Christmas is my favorite holiday and I need some "me" time to go meet with my friends, go shopping, and get ready for Christmas.

So here is my "To Do" List for the rest of the year.

1. Start shopping for the holidays; Gifts and a few new decorations.

2. Decorate my house for Christmas in Snowman theme. I am getting my snowmen boxes out this year too as my new house has lower kitchen cabinets and a great spot to sit out about 25 snowmen. They will look so cute looking down at us while we enjoy the festivities and cook.

3. Go get a manicure and pedicure. I have been so busy and my nails look awful but my nail lady will clean them up nicely this week.

4. Decorate in a snowman theme this year for the holidays. I have the cutest 4 foot tree I usually put on my island so I am moving it to the entryway on a small table to welcome guests.

5. My kids are arriving in 3 weeks so I want the house to be ready. We will go Christmas Shopping when they arrive also and nothing is more fun than shopping during the holidays with all the lights and trees lit up in the stores and malls. We love to go to 'South Coast Plaza' mall which is fantastic and decorated for the holidays. Plus we always select a new 'Angel' ornament for the tree while we are looking through the stores. This is such a fun tradition as well.

6. Taking a day trip to the San Deigo Zoo after the kids arrive. We always go somewhere during the holidays so we will stay the night in San Diego and eat at our favorite restaurant in Old Town called "Old Town Mexican Cafe" where they make the corn and flour tortillas in the front window of the restaurant. The next day we will spend the entire day at the zoo. Nature is my favorite thing to blog about so I will have so much fun taking new pictures of the animals and beautiful flowers growing there.

7. I have realized life is just too short to let it slip away so I am going to arrange many lunch appointments with my dear friends during December. Several of them just had family members pass away and it got me thinking that I need to slow down and enjoy what I have.

8. Every morning I am going to get up and go for a long walk before I do anything else...even before getting my email and blogging on AR. I will take one of my dogs walking and they are always fun and make life interesting.

9. Going on a ActiveRain Meet-Up next Saturday, December 7th, and that will be fun. looking forward to seeing Sarah and Les Oswald and meeting new members too.

10. Make my annual Christmas Newsletter and mail it out (snail mail) early this year instead of starting it on the 20th.

11. Deliver Christmas gifts....this is one of my favorite things to do.

12. We have another Christmas tradition; Baking and Gingerbread Houses. We make sugar cookies, chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies and decorate them. Plus we put together a gingerbread house and decorate it. As it turns out the cookies are great but the ugly gingerbread houses are so fun to laugh at. We have an abundance of pine cones so we make ornaments to give as gifts.

13. And finally Christmas Eve where we all sit around the tree and the kids get to open one gift. It is usually pajamas so they can wear them to bed. Then on Christmas morning we open gifts, take pictures, dress up the dogs in their Christmas outfits and take pictures of them too, and start cooking. As a Christmas tradition we always have the store bought Orange Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast and then my husband and kids go looking at cars on the lots while I start the turkey. It will be a long day full of cooking, watching the parades on TV, friends in and out, delivering the last minute gifts and finally sitting down with my family for a delicious meal and a few hours later we have pie.

14. My husband and I are having a New Year's Party. My kids will be here still and we will have time to get ready to invite friends and family to our new home.

15. Continue to blog daily and get my comments in on ActiveRain. This is fun time for me instead of work.

I am a work-a-holic but I am going to slow down just a little and enjoy friends, family, and the entire Christmas scene this year. Thank goodness for computers so I can still do most of my work in the early mornings or late at night. My family and friends come first but my clients are a very close second so real estate will still occupy a good chunk of my days.

Happy Holidays and be sure to stop and enjoy the festivities this holiday season.

This post created for the ActiveRain contest "PRE HOLIDAY, VACATION OR FAMILY PLANS? TO DO LIST? ME TIME?" by Celeste "Sally" Cheeseman.