Chapter 14: Avoiding Christmas chaos

Christmas can be an incredibly hectic time in the southern hemisphere because it coincides with the end of the school year. Add two kids’ birthdays in the lead-up to Christmas and, if I don’t start getting my head around Christmas before November, I find myself very stressed and exhausted by the end of the year. To help smooth out the Christmas workload I break my Christmas into two parts. The first is Christmas preparation in July, and the second is having a 10-week Christmas preparation plan for the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Christmas preparation in July

Over the past couple of years I’ve started doing some initial planning for Christmas in July, and this has helped me stay sane and get some ...

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