Tis the Season

Tell me it isn't December 2nd already! I am so not prepared for the holidays this year. By this time I usually have my holiday cooking planned out, recipes picked and often I've already started on some things that can go in the freezer.

So far this year I have done absolutely nothing! I haven't even looked over my recipes. And I was just assigned an absolutely HUGE project at work. How am I going to tell my husband and family there won't be all of the special holiday cakes, cookies and other goodies on the table this season. Heck, I think my brother in law only loves me for my lemon cookies!

Guess I'll have to figure out a way to bake while I sleep. If I get a chance to sleep. Is anyone else already feeling overwhelmed by the holiday season? Tell me I'm not the only one :)

OK, enough whining, it's time to dig in and figure out my plan of action. Oh, and if anybody out there wants to do some of my holiday baking, feel free to speak up!

Budgeting for Christmas

Thanks to Lemuel Craft

My husband and I decided that for Christmas this year we are going to set a budget and stick to it. Every year we pick an amount that we promise to “stay around”, but every year we go over and end up regretting it because we spend months getting caught up on our credit card bill. We have decided not to buy each other gifts this year and to only buy our kids gifts. I have always enjoyed buying my husband gifts, but the past few years he has been really hard to shop for because there is never anything that he wants. He has more clothes than he could ever wear and he is not, nor has he ever been into electronics. He did tell me that the greatest gift I could give him for Christmas is to save money. I thought of a creative way to do that and looked up online and found out that we are eligible for fixed-rate energy. He will be so happy when he gets our next electricity bill and sees that I actually did get him what he wanted before the holidays were even here.