Day 2: Four more people crossed off the list!

It was a fruitful day here at Christmas in August headquarters! Still sneaking in some shopping ahead of schedule since my planned start date is tomorrow, I hit Belk, Kohls, and CVS. Today's MAJOR SCORE was a big ticket item (in my world, anything over $100 is a big ticket item) from Belk for my mom. Since she may be reading this (Hi, Mom!), let's just say that the deal was made very sweet by a triple whammy SALE + ADDITIONAL 10% STORE DISCOUNT + 1-DAY 20% OFF COUPON (courtesy of an awesome neighbor and friend...you know who you are...thank you!)! I was smiling from ear to ear when I closed this deal. If you want to know what I bought, you'll have to send me an email request and promise (under penalty of permanent shunning by me) not to tell my mom. :) My next stop was Kohls, where I had a $10 "Kohls Cash" coupon. I bought outfits for each of my three nieces (who are not old enough to be interested in reading blogs yet, I hope) and remembered to snag up a few free gift boxes while I was there. Last stop: CVS. My oldest niece is allowed to wear neutral shades of makeup, so I bought her an eye shadow, blush, and lipgloss to fool around with. While at the drugstore, I bought each of my sons two gift cards for their stockings. FINAL TALLY: 4 people crossed off the list, and a dent was made in the stocking stuffer department. Yes! Here is a picture of the MAJOR SCORE I bought for my mom, Haha!

Here are the clothes I found for niece number 1:

And for niece number 2:

And for niece number 3 (I'm a sucker for zebra print and hot pink.):

Aside: Two of my nieces have birthdays coming up soon, so as a bonus, I'll show you what I found for their special days. As I mentioned before, my oldest niece is allowed to wear neutral shades of makeup, so I put the drugstore Covergirl purchases inside this darling purse which happened to be on clearance at Kohls.

And the other birthday girl fell in love with my zebra reading glasses that have little lights you can switch on at night. She has recently started needing low-power (Is that how you put it? Maybe it's low-wattage.) reading glasses, and Stein Mart had ONE pair remaining in the store. I was lucky to find these since I bought mine several weeks ago. To make things more fun, I threw in a glasses cleaning cloth and glasses case. I turned the little lights on for the picture. Can you see?

Two days down (and I'm not supposed to start this until tomorrow), the master list looks like this:

Day 1: Getting warmed up...

Okay, I admit I was so excited about my Christmas shopping challenge that I started working on it today (July 30). I bought gifts for my sister as well as one of my sisters-in-law. It was so thrilling to buy these first gifts that I also made a stop at Hallmark for some pretty wrapping paper. PROBLEM: Hallmark doesn't carry Christmas wrap on July 30. SOLUTION! Wedding wrap with beautiful red ribbon. I don't know about you, but I have become very fond of real ribbon. Fabric ribbon (not the cheesy drugstore type) looks so rich and beautiful. PROBLEM: Hallmark did have a lovely selection of pastel fabric ribbon, but there was no red ribbon. SOLUTION! My local Wal-Mart has a huge selection of fabric ribbon in the crafting section. And there are 15 yards of it on the spool I bought (not the typical 4 yards you find in the gift wrap section). Look at the beautiful results of using a wedding pattern with red fabric ribbon!

Now, you may have already started asking yourself if I've got some kind of system in place for keeping track of which gifts I have bought and which ones I still need to buy. At this point, I have a monthly calendar, and I plan to have a master list of recipients as well. Because I hope to buy or make at least one gift each day, I will be writing down what I bought or made each day directly on the calendar. Obviously, the calendar will need to be kept hidden from prying eyes, but aside from that issue, it's a simple system. Here's my calendar so far:

I have to keep the writing hidden from my gift recipients, so I blurred out the contents the July 30 square. On the left panel of the calendar is a great place for my master list of recipients. At this point, I've only listed the two lucky ladies for whom I have already shopped. So far, so good...

Start Here: Why Christmas in August?

In recent years, I have found myself dreading Christmas. I can't believe I said that. But I get a serious case of anxiety every single December. I want to create perfect Christmas cards, I want to have beautifully-wrapped packages containing meaningful gifts, and I really (REALLY) don't want to worry about paying for it all. Last year, I subscribed to "Organized Christmas" and "100 Days to Christmas", and learned several tricks about getting ahead of the game, but I still felt the last-minute crunch the week before Christmas, and I ended up resenting all kinds of things (myself, commercialism, credit cards, etc.). I had such grandiose plans for my homemade Christmas cards that I only finished FIVE of them! It would have been far better if I had just bought a box of normal cards and actually mailed them! What I really wanted was to RELAX, ENJOY, and SAVOR my time with family and friends. I wanted to stop and think about the true meaning of Christmas. Although the blogs above are worth checking out, this year I'm going to make a plan that fits my life specifically. THE CHALLENGE: I am a full-time piano teacher, and my schedule gets extremely tight once September rolls around. "100 Days to Christmas" doesn't kick off until September 16 this year, so that actually makes no sense for me. Why can't I begin my Christmas shopping on August 1 and have a drop-dead deadline to be completely finished shopping by August 31? I love this idea and cannot fathom why it has never occurred to me before. I'm blogging about this for myself as well as anyone else who gets a freaky case of nerves just thinking about Christmas. I plan to post tips I discover and mistakes I make along the way. Maybe this will work! Maybe I'll get to enjoy Christmas this year! Join me if you wish, and please share any tips you have in the comments. Merry Christmas! Sort of!