Hello, and welcome to Week One of Giving Your Family The Gift Of Stress Free Holidays!
Today we’re going to cover creating your Master Binder. This binder will be your best friend over the next three months, and will see a lot of use, so we highly recommend using a 3 ring binder and sheet protectors. A regular notebook can work, but it’s easy to rip or damage a page. But if you don’t have one on hand or can’t run to your local store, don’t worry! You can get started in a regular notebook and transfer those pages into sheet protectors when you get the chance.
If you want to be fancy with your Master Binder, you can also add page separators or sheets of colored card stock or construction paper to create separate categories in your binder. We recommend the following categories: Holiday Lists, Holiday Menus, and Holiday To Do Lists. You may choose to add or change the categories as you create your binder over the next two to three weeks, but this will be a good start.
First, get your binder or notebook and a bunch of sheet protectors, a stack of paper, and your writing utensil of choice. If you’d like, you can print out the templates that we’ve started for you instead of using blank paper. You can also upgrade your binder by purchasing a pen holder to keep in it, so you’ll always have your writing utensils.
Starting with the “Lists” category (if you’re using categories to break up the pages in your binder), title each page with the following titles:
- Important Traditions
- Holiday Parties
- Holiday Schedules
- Childrens’ Wish Lists
- Holiday Gifts
- Christmas Card Recipients
- Gifts To Buy
- Supplies To Buy
- Stocking Stuffers To Buy
- Things To Sew or Craft
- Charitable Giving
- Holiday Activities
If none of these seem applicable to you, then feel free to skip them for now, you can come back to them later.
And that’s it – you’re done for the day. We’ll be back tomorrow with the first set of lists to work on. You’ll need your family’s input for these ones, so schedule a time tomorrow to meet with everyone in your household and discover what’s important to them when it comes to the holidays.
If you have any questions, feel free to email us, or leave a comment in the Facebook group!
We’ll see you tomorrow!
PJ and Brett