As we begin this Christmas season, I’d like to share a few tips from my new book, “12 Steps to Having a More Organized Christmas and Holiday Season”.

I have to be honest.  Christmas is really a hard time of the year for me.  Now, I love what the season represents!  God gave us the ultimate gift by sending His precious Son to us.  He did this:

1.  To reveal Who He is and

2. To show us the pathway to our salvation

Because this gift of Jesus is so unbelievable, Christians have been celebrating His birth ever since.

But in our modern way of life, Christmas has become the ultimate cash time for anyone selling anything and we get pulled right into thinking we have to have everything for this celebration.

Fortunately, we really don’t have to.  Which is one tip I want to share.  Even if your sister has twelve Christmas trees set up to perfection each year, you really don’t have to copy her!  If you want one tiny, desk top one, then you certainly can!

Because if we do everything but we don’t have the special joy that the birth of Christ is supposed to give us, than we have nothing (see verse below).

Another tip that has helped me is to plan everything and plan early.  If I can start placing things I need to do and want to do on the calendar early, I am less frustrated.  I also try to place a deadline for setting up Christmas which is December 1 or the first week of December.  That way, I can settle back and enjoy all the festivities without racing around trying to get presents wrapped or the house decorated.

While you are planning, look at your work schedule, plan your finances, the buying, the meals and the decorating. 

Also, talk with your husband and family members about what traditions and memories are their favorites.  It is a waste of your good time to do these if no one else wants them.

Plan time to be with your friends.  This is the time of year where you can show how much they mean to you. 

Plan time to do for others.  Yes, we are extra busy between Thanksgiving and New Years but it’s also the time when many people are lonely or doing without.

And I have to add that you and I must plan time for ourselves!  This time of year is when most women feel there isn’t a second to spare to take a walk, a nap, lunch with a friend or stopping long enough to read.  But you must take time to renew yourself or you won’t have the joy inside for this time of year.

My precious granddaughter, 21 months, is staying with us for a few weeks this month and I am so grateful she is!  And even though I’m busy trying to get ready for Christmas, I am finding that I can have all the time I need to be with her, love on her and put her first because I am choosing her over the rest.  No, I probably won’t have a magazine perfect Christmas or a perfect Food Channel dinner but I will have special memories with her that are priceless. Being with her is the best thing I can do for myself.

And last, plan time this season for the Guest of Honor.  Jesus is the whole reason we are celebrating!  Is there a way you can take some extra time to talk to Him?  Or read His Word and pray?  He wants nothing more than to spend time with you.

My prayer is that this Christmas season will be full of what it was meant to be so that you and your family feel a sense of peace, joy and the fullness of Christ.

    Manna from Heaven    

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have a faith that can move mountains but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I again nothing.”  I Corinthians 13: 1-3