They were fantastic last year and decided to keep them the same this one too…

Is it too boring? Or traditional? I just love them so it does not really matter.

Especially as I know I made only a dozen last Christmas…and I have golden papers…

Lots of cutting to come…

Going to add them to my shop this week.

Added the first one today.

I have not started the actual work yet. And will do so today. So it is appropriate time to share my way of handling big holiday issues.

I love presents and preparing them. But choosing and buying or preparing can be hard, so I start early. I keep a list of all the nice people I am going to prepare a gift for. All birthdays, special occasions and all the Christmas gifts recipients go into a long list as early as possible. Then I try to choose the gift in the same manner – as early as possible. That is the key! Although as you can see, sometimes it means November start for Christmas gifts…

But I have almost half of the work already done now. Here is how this happens.

After I make the recipients list, I write the gift next to the recipient’s name. This may look bizarre or strange, but it is useful when you choose a Christmas gift as early as March. This is one of the things that make everything much nore easier if you happen to do the actual shopping/making in November or December.

Another trick I use is buying the gift wraps once or twice a year. I buy kids, adults and Christmas type paper, keeping two or three rolls of each available at any moment. This usually means buying no more that two rolls Christmas paper each year and it makes colourful pile of presents combined with the remaining paper from the previous couple of years or so. I buy some ribbons in the same manner. So I never run out of paper and ribbon for any occasion add keep a really little stock.
The good thing is I can always add some extra variety /and paper and ribbon lengths/ for both my personal gifts and orders wrapping by mixing my personal and “professional” supplies.

Then we come to what I am going to start today – preparing the presents – making or buying in a as organized as possible manner. Prepared presents are being wrapped, named and stored right after completion.

Or…
… I happen to wrap all family present in the Christmas night when everybody else is in bed. It is organizational failure. But a magical one! And I tend to find magic in visiting my parents with a big bag full of unwrapped presents and papers, ribbons, scissors… Santa Clause packing workshop in a bag… when I hide myself /and the bag/ and wrap all in few minutes.

Well, we try to make it as nice, planned and ordered as possible now, but why not called it magic if it happen to be not as ordered as planned, right? It will be Christmas!

Which are your tricks to make Christmas gifts preparation more enjoyable?