Ideas for next year? (before you forget)

[Nixxie]

Or anything you wish you'd done differently?

I thought a good idea would have been to put a drink as well as fruit into the stocking so the boys wouldn't ask for drinks, and breakfast and then we can chill upstairs or doing presents a bit longer without venturing into the kitchen. I'm thinking a caprisun each in their stockings?

[fourweewonders]

Just seen on my friends facebook that she used different wrapping papers for each of her 3 children to colour code their prezzies

[camper]

NM - we wrapped all of MJ's tree presents in the same wrapping paper so he could see what was his and pick them out easily.

[fourweewonders]

The gift tags i used didnt stick very well on the foil paper and a few fell off and i had to remeber by the shape and size of the packages who's they were

[Louisianablue2000]

NM, I'd blame the foil wrapping paper rather than the gift tags. I'm not blooming wrapping every FC gift, it took forever to open them. I'm also going to prebook more time off before so I can get more organised, Christmas Eve was too stressful. Our advent activities went well this year so three years of practice has obviously paid off, and my top tip there is to not have the dates on the cards so you can swap them about if need be plus have some extra snow related ones so they can be used if the weather is obliging.

[Disco]

I wont be wrapping stocking gifts next year (my mum always did it)

I got this from LJ and my Swap item, and did it for this year it was brilliant, will definitely do it again - Cut tags from thick brown cardboard, and decorate with stamps/paint/glitter etc. They looked great.

[wacky12]

We used a laundry basket to keep all M's pressies in once he opened them, they get chucked back in as needed.

[SparklePetal]

The Christmas breakfast went well. I had pre-packed food (pains au chocolat and apricot croissants) and satsumas on a tray with paper plates ready the evening before and just had to pour OJ and milk into paper cups in the morning then we could all have breakfast in bed. That helped no end with speeding things up so we could get dressed and get to church for 9.30. I find if we all have to traipse downstairs to eat and then get upstairs again for cleaning teeth and stuff it can take a loooong time.

I'm thinking I should make a list now and put it with my folder of Christmas recipes of how long different preparations took and when I should start things in order to get them done - like writing cards so they actually get sent!

[blossom]

I would make sure Big M didn't announce that she herself had 2 or 3 of the item we were regifting to her friends!
Buy tesco finest ham on the bone, it was delicious.
And yes I'd include something breakfasty in their stockings or at least have something in our rooms to help ourselves to.
Today I packed away a few little stocking items that can be reused next year! Eg: a couple of cute little festive pencils that Big M wasn't that interested in.
We made cinnamon biscuits for tree decorations and we added LOADS of cinnamon and ginger and the scent has been heavenly for the past couple of weeks.
Not buying snacks early worked well as usually we buy them and eat them ourselves in the lead-up!
I wish I'd written my Christmas cards earlier.

[Louisianablue2000]

Today I packed away a few little stocking items that can be reused next year! Eg: a couple of cute little festive pencils that Big M wasn't that interested in.

I did that last year with the bubbles they got but didn't play with on the day and was hoping to do the same this year (we have so many bottles of bubbles it's ridiculous) but DH went and blooming well opened one of them on Christmas morning. Anyone would think those toys were for playing with.

[oriel]

That reminds me: next year we want to make our own Christmas pudding. Am putting a reminder in my calendar for October.

[Louisianablue2000]

That reminds me: next year we want to make our own Christmas pudding. Am putting a reminder in my calendar for October.

Remember it needs to steep overnight as well (the bit I don't factor in) and needs boiling for hours. Well worth it though. Do you make your own cake, a friend gave me some of her (bought) cake and I was shocked (not having ever tasted shop bought cake before) how horrible it was, homemade is definitely much better!

[weasley]

The gift tags i used didnt stick very well on the foil paper and a few fell off and i had to remeber by the shape and size of the packages who's they were

Sticker labels! I bought some in Buyology or family bargins and they were fab. Don't come off, can't get pulled off and still looked nice.

I used different paper for Scoot and Toot too.

[ceeLIN]

I forgot i don't like shortcrust pastry so i wasn't that keen on the mince pies i made (read assembled as i used bought pastry and mincemeat ) although they are usually one of my fav things.

[BigFlower]

I'm going to wrap gifts as I go next time. Doing all the wrapping at the end was a major chore!