December Schedule

Tis the season to be busy!

Every year, December seems to be a very busy time of year for us.  There have been some major adjustments in our life this year that have eliminated some of the busyness.  Even so, I really need to have a plan for this month beyond our normal routine because we will be busy with out-of-town guests and the general hustle and bustle of the season.

In the past I have been lazy about December.  Actually, I might refine that a bit to say I have been lazy because I just haven’t been looking forward to the season. As I mentioned in my post about changing holiday traditions, some of that stress has been relieved.  I am also in general feeling a renewal of spirit the last couple of weeks and so I am looking forward to Christmas more than in past years.

This year brought us a new job which means my husband works from home except for his travel weeks.  The kids and I are spending more time at home as well except for co-op day.  We used to spend quite a bit of time outside of our home, but because we get classes and social opportunities through co-op, I just don’t feel as obligated to get us out as much.  We also have changed churches.  Our new church has a much less demanding schedule.  Not only have we just not committed to as much (nothing at this point because we aren’t members yet), they don’t offer nearly as much for the kids.  Because we are all spending so much more time in our home I really want to make an extra effort to make our home festive.
As I mentioned above, we are expecting visitors in the middle of the month.  I will need to set some time aside to prepare freezer meals for use while they are with us.  I hate spending a lot of time in the kitchen when we have guest, especially when we see them so little and there is just too much to catch up on and fun to be had.

Recently our family has decided to have hospitality night on Thursdays.  Not only does this mean we have to make some time to get the house cleaned and food prepped, it also means that this night is set aside and not available for anything else.  We invite 1 family each Thursday to join us except on my husband’s travel weeks.  On those weeks I will let the kids invite friends over to just hang out and play.  If parents want to drop them off that is fine, or if the mom’s want to stay and chat while the kids play, that is fine too.  We just play that by ear.  We don’t always end up having guests on that night.  Sometimes our invitations are declined or another night works better.  We still go ahead and set the night aside, just in case something comes up last minute. 

Normally I would take a large block of time off from homeschool, but this year we fell behind in math and language arts due to our day at co-op.  I want to devote at least the first couple of weeks before our guest arrives to catching up in that area.  I am going to switch to an afternoon school day and save the mornings for homemaking. 

I also want to make a special effort to spend more time with my mom this season.  She is facing some very serious health concerns and I know it would make her feel better to have us around more.  To make that happen, as soon as the co-op semester ends on the 3^rd, we will devote that day to visiting with her either at her home or inviting her over to our house.  Again, we’ll play that by ear.

One last thing that needs to be added to the plan is time to make gifts and decorations.  I have a little extra money this year to work with for Christmas so I would love to devote one of our homemaking mornings to creating new decorations and making homemade gifts.  This might be a little ambitious, but I hope we can pull that off. 

Here is what the weekly routine will look like. 

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Morning	Church	Errands and Planning	Home-making	Home-making	Home- making	Home- making	Family Chores
Afternoon	Nap	Visit Grandma	School	School	School	School
Evening	Spaghetti Supper				Hospitality Night		Family Night

This is a relaxed routine meaning that we won’t necessarily follow it to a T.  I have left most evenings open.  We usually just have dinner and then relax together.  I don’t like to have busy evening away from home every night of the week but this way, as things come up we can be flexible with our day because we have an open slot to shuffle items around.

A note about Sunday: I finally gave up on scheduling anything for us to do after church on Sunday. Our family just simply must nap on Sunday afternoon.  My husband is very tired after a long week and he takes that day of rest very seriously, at least as it relates to his nap.  We used to attend a Nazarene church and that became known as the Nazarene Nap. I don’t always feel like a nap, but I have to say, I enjoy snuggling up with him on Sunday afternoon.  I like to keep the evening meal simply and quick to make, but at the same time I really love to have a big family meal. Spaghetti fits the bill and since we OFTEN has spaghetti on Sunday anyway, I just made it official. This might be another opportunity for us to invite guests over, especially our church family. We don’t have Sunday night church.

A note about Saturday: I spoke with my husband a couple of weeks ago about how we really needed to devote a day to big chores and deep cleaning.  We have fallen behind in so much over this year.  With him being gone for a whole week really bites into what he can do to help.  Plus, when he gets home it takes him a whole weekend to recover and get back into the swing of family life.  He agreed that we could set aside Saturday for that as long as we could sleep in and not get started at the crack of dawn.  I am fine with that. Those who work hard should play hard, or something like that, so we will shoot for a family night after we wrap up our work for the day.

Overall, I am very excited to get November behind us and December going although November has been a great month.  Having a plan for the upcoming month gives us something to look forward to while keeping us on task.