Yes, I know — you’re not supposed to be “working” on Christmas Break. However, if you are anything like me, you LOVE to take advantage of any spare time you have and fit in a project or two!
So while I completely intend on relaxing and enjoying my Christmas Break, I’m also planning to tackle a few simple projects as well — especially since Dave has almost two weeks off from school and can help with Nora.
Here are some of the projects I’m doing over break:
1. Defrost the Freezer: we actually already did this and it only took a couple hours. It’s an easy winter project for us because we just put everything outside for the afternoon and didn’t’ have to worry about anything melting or spoiling.
2. Laundry: I’m all caught up on our “regular” laundry, but it was time to wash the sheets, blankets, rugs, etc. again so I took a day to get all this finished before real life starts up again!
3. Freezer Cooking: defrosting the freezer was a great opportunity to take an inventory of everything we had in our freezer. I took several items out to eat during break or to bring to holiday parties, and then I made a list of a few things I wanted to make to stock it back up again. No, I’m not going crazy, just making a pot of soup, maybe a casserole or two, and some baked goods.
4. Rapid Purge: even though I’m always pretty diligent about purging anything we don’t need, want, use or love; the holiday season always seems to add excess stuff to our home! So, I usually take a couple hours and simply walk through our home — opening every drawer, every cabinet, every closet and quickly pulling out anything I know we don’t need, want, use or love.
I don’t spend any time organizing, just purging — and it really does make a difference!
5. Photos: I get easily overwhelmed by photos… I don’t know why, because I don’t even have that many of them! However, now that we have Nora — I’m bound and determined to keep up with taking AND printing photos; as well as keep up with our digital photo albums.
6. New Year’s Card/Baby Announcements: Yes, we ordered, stuffed, and addressed all our New Year’s Cards/Baby Announcements during break {just one of the many advantages of sending a holiday card AFTER Christmas!}
I know this might seem like a lot to some of you, but remember, I’m still kind of on maternity leave so I don’t have nearly as much on my plate right now. Plus, Dave is home from school and is basically on “baby duty” most of the time! Also, we have TONS of family members who are on break and just dying for a chance to watch Nora or help out in any way they can.
Oh, and we’re definitely still finding plenty of time to relax. In fact, I think I’ve watched more movies and spent more time on our couch this past week than ever before in my life!
emily says
My hubby has this week off so we’re tackling some closet and basement organization. We also just found out we’re having a boy (yay) so we moved our 2 girls in a room together and now I’ll start the task of creating a room for a boy!! First on the list is to paint the pink walls. 😉
Andrea says
Hey Emily, congrats on the new boy — how exciting!!
Have fun decorating your new nursery! You are very smart to start early — I can’t believe how much LESS energy I have now that Nora is here 🙂
Thrifty Mom in Boise says
I’m doing the same types of things myself. Writing thank you cards and a few letters, purging and re-organizing the gift wrap tote, vacuuming and dusting plus catching up all the laundry before I head back to work. It feels good to have the extra time to work on these things and not be rushed.
We are also watching movies and playing games too. It has been a lot of fun family time.
Andrea says
yay for productivity!! and yay for sitting, watching movies, and “doing nothing”! We’ve had a good mixture of getting stuff done and lounging on the couch in our PJ’s. Sounds like we’ve both had a fun couple of weeks!